Silverlight Reference

The following documents and links provide a deeper understanding of the Silverlight technology and the ways to use it for creating rich Web solutions.

Documentation and White Papers

• Silverlight SDK Documentation
  

  Designers and developers will need this to develop Silverlight solutions.

• Getting Started with Silverlight
  

  Developers will find this a great way to start using Expression Design, Blend, and Visual Studio for building Silverlight solutions.

  • Developers
  • Designers
• Silverlight Architecture Overview
  

  Understand how Silverlight works with this paper.

• Silverlight for Web Media Scenarios
  

  Learn how you can use Silverlight to display video and audio on the Web.

• Media and Entertainment Content Distribution on the Web
  

  Learn what infrastructure is needed to build an end-to-end streaming media business on the Web.

• Silverlight for Designers White Paper
  

  Hear what Silverlight is from a designer.

• QuickStarts online
  

  Learn Silverlight with these examples.

Live Samples

• The Silverlight gallery and showcase on the community site
  

  See videos of samples, interviews with the Silverlight product team, and screencasts of how to develop Silverlight solutions.

Tools

• Expression Web
  

  Expression Web is the ultimate Web design tool for standard-based Web sites.

• Expression Design
  

  Use Expression Design to create static XAML designs that can be used on the Web and in Windows applications.

• Expression Blend 2 Preview
  

  Use this special preview of Expression Blend to create dynamic UI for Windows (WPF) applications and XAML animations for Silverlight.

• Expression Media
  

  Use Expression Media to manage your image, XAML, and video assets, as well as to prepare video for publishing using Expression Media Encoder.

• Visual Studio
  

  Developers love it, and designers love developers who love it.

Related Technologies

• ASP.NET AJAX
  

  The best platform for integrating AJAX into your Web application. It's free, cross-browser, and supported by Microsoft (just like Silverlight).

• ASP.NET
  

  The Microsoft platform for server-based Web applications.

• Windows Presentation Foundation
  

  Learn how to use XAML for writing applications for Windows.

• XAML Documentation
  

  Understand XAML (this documentation provides the full XAML spec as supported by WPF). Silverlight supports a subset of this definition as specified in the Silverlight SDK.