Setting up the Tools
A step-by-step guide to installing the tools for Silverlight development
There are two main applications used to create Silverlight applications: Visual Studio as the integrated development environment (code editor, build automation, debugger) and Expression blend as the UI design and development tool.
In this tutorial we'll walk through downloading and installing each required application.
| Tools | Time | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
|
 60 minutes |
 Beginner |
01 Open the Window
The first step in creating Silverlight applications is to make sure you have an installation of Windows available. This can be either a full installation or a virtualized installation (e.g. running Parallels on a Mac).
If you do not have a Windows installation available, then I suggest you check out
Gestalt for Mac or
Moonlight for Linux.
02 Choose Your Path
The next step is to decide whether you want to install a trial of the full Visual Studio 2008 or a Visual Web Developer Express 2008. The full Visual Studio has an array of useful tools and features (more details). Web Developer is a free light-weight version (more details).
03 Visual Studio 2008
If you’ve decided to give the full-featured Visual Studio 2008 a try, download and install a 90-day trial here. If you’re going to use Visual Web Developer Express 2008, skip to step 5.
04 Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio
Now that you have Visual Studio installed, download and install Service Pack 1. Skip to step 6.
05 Visual Web Developer Express
If you’ve decided not to install Visual Studio, download and install Web Developer with Service Pack 1.
06 Silverlight 3 Tools
Now with either Visual Studio updated to Service Pack 1 or Web Developer installed, download and install the Silverlight 3 Tools. This will install the Silverlight 3 developer runtime, project templates, intellisense and more.
07 Expression Studio 3
Onto the design tools! Download and install a 60-day trial of Expression Studio 3. Expression Studio comes with four tools that you can select to install. Ensure that you install at least Blend 3 and Encoder 3.
08 Silverlight Toolkit
This final step is optional but highly recommended. Download and install the Silverlight 3 Toolkit for many additional controls like Charts, Treeview, Accordian and more.
» Next Step
Now that you have the tools setup, check out Silverlight Through the Eyes of Expression Blend
To see more tools that can help you build Silverlight applications, check out the Tools section on the Resources page.