14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft issued the third major release of its Adobe Flash alternative in mid-2009, and developers have already had sufficient time to familiarize themselves with the technology. However, there are always devs that need a helping hand, whether they are just starting off or for any other justified reason. The Redmond company has made a lab available for download, meant to help designers create a Silverlight 3 website. Building a Zune Website with Expression Blend 3 StarterKit provides full guidance, along with the resources necessary to put together a Silverlight 3-based website. They will also need Visual Studio, Silverlight 3, Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio and Expression Blend (look for the download links at the bottom of this article).
“Silverlight 3 adds several exciting new features to build Rich Internet Applications to the strong foundation of Silverlight 2. Silverlight 3 continues to take advantage of the .NET programming model, but adds some often requested enhancements , adds 60 new controls to reduce the effort of building Silverlight applications and allows to run Silverlight applications not only from the browser, from desktop even without network access,” Microsoft reveals in the Hands-On Lab.
Essentially, after completing the Hands-On Lab, developers will be able to perform various actions related to Silverlight 3, including: style controls; save files to the local disk; apply 3D projections to elements; Element-to-Element Binding; enabling Out-of-Browser applications; detect Network status to adjust application behavior. What the company is offering, in addition to the actual resources necessary to build the website, is a 45-page document set up to present a step-by-step guide through the entire process. Building a Zune Website with Expression Blend 3 StarterKit is a wonderful initiative from Microsoft, and we are sure that additional similar resources are expected.
“This lab took you on a quick introduction to Silverlight and explored some of the new features in Silverlight 3. You saw how Visual Studio and Expression Blend work together to provide a first class design and development experience. Many tasks can be completed in either tool, but together they make a great combination that leaves little to be desired,” reads an excerpt of the Hands-On Lab’s summary.
Silverlight 3 RTW is available for download here.
Microsoft Expression Studio 3 Trial is available for download here.
Microsoft Expression Web 3 Trial is available for download here.
Microsoft Expression Blend 3 + SketchFlow Trial is available for download here.
Microsoft Expression Design 3 Trial is available for download here.
Microsoft Expression Encoder 3 is available for download here.
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional Beta 2 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 are available for download via this link.
Silverlight Toolkit October 2009 update is available for download here.