14 DAY TRIAL // Developers looking to start building code with the next generation of Silverlight and Visual Studio can leverage a free download offered by Microsoft, bridging the two products. Essentially, the Redmond company is offering an add-on for the second beta development milestone of Visual Studio 2010 that, along with the prerequisite files, will allow devs to build Silverlight 4 and RIA Services applications. Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is up for grabs via the Microsoft Download Center.
“This package is an add-on for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 to provide tooling for Microsoft Silverlight 4 and RIA Services. It can be installed on top of either Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 or Visual Web Developer 2010 Express Beta 2. It extends existing Silveright 3 features and multitargeting capabilities in Visual Studio 2010 to also create applications for Silverlight 4 using C# or Visual Basic,” Microsoft informed.
The software giant has made it clear that the latest iteration of the Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 only works with the Beta 2 release of the development platform, and not with the Beta 1 milestone. At the same time, developers should expect Microsoft to deliver an updated version of the Silverlight 4 Tools once it will offer early adopters Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate (RC) in February 2010.
“Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 includes several features: Support for targeting Silverlight 4 in the Silverlight designer and project system; RIA Services application templates and libraries; Support for Silverlight 4 elevated trust applications and other new Silverlight 4 features,” the company added.
Silverlight 4 Beta went live November 2009, a developer release note accompanied by a go-live license. In this context, all content built with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and Silverlight 4 Beta needs to be limited to testing scenarios only, despite the fact that VS2010 Beta 2 does come with a go-live license.
“This download will install all components necessary for Silverlight 4 and RIA Services development: Silverlight 4 developer runtime Beta; Silverlight 4 SDK (software development kit) Beta; Update for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and Visual Web Developer Express 2010 Beta 2 (KB976272); Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2; WCF RIA Services for Silverlight 4 Preview,” Microsoft said.
Microsoft Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is available for download here.
Silverlight 4 Beta 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. .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 is available for download here.