14 DAY TRIAL // Released at MIX11, Silverlight 5 Beta comes with a collection of guides designed to streamline the adoption of the technology by developers. Not only has Microsoft published the documentation of Silverlight 5 Beta on MSDN, but it’s also allowing devs to download the resources for use in offline scenarios.
The Microsoft Download Center has been offering the Silverlight 5 Beta Offline Documentation since last week, when the successor of Silverlight 4 hit Beta.
Offered as a .CHM file, the documentation can be blocked from viewing immediately after download.
If this is the case, the software giant advises devs to right click the Silverlight 5 Beta Offline Documentation file, select Properties and then hit Unblock.
Of course, since Silverlight 5 continues to be in Beta development stage at this point in time, the guides accompanying the technology are also far from being wrapped up.
As Silverlight 5 will be finalized, developers will be able to notice changes in documentation, so it’s a good idea to monitor the resource in order to stay up to date with the evolution of the technology.
While they have the option to download the Silverlight 5 documentation, devs can also visit MSDN in order to access the same guidance.
According to the Redmond company, plans are in motion to finalize and offer Silverlight 5 to end users worldwide by the end of 2011.
A specific availability deadline wasn’t provided by Microsoft at this point in time, but undoubtedly this will change in the future.
“Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform implementation of the .NET Framework for building media experiences and rich interactive applications for the web, the desktop, and the Windows Phone,” the company said.
The documentation in this section applies to Silverlight 5 Beta, Silverlight 4, and Silverlight 3. For version differences, check the Version Information section when using a class library topic, or look for version-specific notes in other topic types.”
Silverlight 5 Beta Developer Runtime for Windows is available for download here.
Silverlight 5 Beta Developer Runtime for Mac is available for download here.