Question

What do I need to install to begin learning Silverlight 2? I know how to build web applications and use c#, I just have very little experience with Silverlight. I used it a little when it first came out and decided to wait until more .net integration took place. In the past I have used Visual Studio 2005 Pro. for my applications, but now get away with 2008 Express, so I don’t have the full version.

I saw this question:

Getting started with Silverlight development

But it is from September. I want to know if anything has changed.

I guess the question should be: What free applications do I install to learn and use in production Silverlight 2?

Thank you.

Answer 1

See Silverlight 2 Released: New controls, tools, announcements!:

The requirement to install the Silverlight Tools is that you have to have Visual Studio 2008 SP1 installed. If you are a Visual Web Developer Express user, these tools work for you as well! You still have to have SP1 of VWD Express, but you can install these tools to developer Silverlight applications. So you can have a free development tools environment for Silverlight with Visual Web Developer Express 2008 SP1 and Silverlight tools!

Here are the Microsoft® Silverlight™ Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1.

I don’t think Blend is free, but you can just author all your XAML by hand.