Chris Bowen's Blog : Silverlight

Special geekSpeak on Developing Silverlight Games on May 27th

cbowen — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:18:00 GMT

The Northeast’s very own Andy Beaulieu (Silverlight guru, MVP, CNY .NET UG Lead, etc.) is connecting with Jim O’Neil and Glen Gordon to share details about developing games with Silverlight!

This episode in the MSDN geekSpeak series is May, 27th (tomorrow) from 3:00-4:00 PM EST, and features an open “radio show” style, where you can ask whatever’s questions are on your mind.

Register for the webcast here

I’ve discussed Silverlight and game development with Andy before and had the pleasure of catching some of his presentations on the subject and can say he truly knows his stuff. This promises to be a worthwhile and interesting webcast!

-Chris

P.S. If you’re looking for a little stress relief, definitely check out Andy’s latest Silverlight game, called “Boss Launch”, that he recently unveiled!

Just one of the many Silverlight games that Andy has written and made available for you to try.

XAMLFest Boston 5/27 – 5/28… and Online

cbowen — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:42:38 GMT

XAMLFest events are a great (and free) way to learn about Silverlight and WPF through a combination of presentations and instructor-led hands-on lab work.

XAMLFest Boston is coming to the NERD facility (One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA) on May 27th & 28th, and will be the last XAMLFest in the northeast this fiscal year.

John Pelak has the full details via the ISV Developer Community Blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/usisvde/archive/2009/05/05/you-re-invited-to-xamlfest-boston-may-27-may-28.aspx

This event, like past ones, is already filling up and will reach capacity, so act quickly if you know you can attend!

XAMLFest Online

Because this event series has been so popular, filling up each time, the team is taking XAMLFests to the web to help reach more designers and developers.

XAMLFest Online will be held June 1-5, featuring a syllabus with two live sessions each day supplemented with recorded content.

Bruce Kyle has the details at:

http://blogs.msdn.com/usisvde/archive/2009/05/10/join-for-xamlfest-recorded-sessions-online-live-june-1-5.aspx

Enjoy becoming XAMLized!

-Chris

DeepZoomPix Technology Demo

cbowen — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:22:34 GMT

Released today, DeepZoomPix is an application that showcases a number of different technologies, including Windows Azure, Silverlight, Deep Zoom, and Expression.

It demonstrates using Deep Zoom to process images, Windows Azure to store and distribute the images via cloud services, and Silverlight to explore content. From the FAQ:

What is DeepZoomPix?

DeepZoomPix (DZP) is a web site that enables users to explore and share photos in a new and interactive way. DZP has three design goals for end-users:

Make possible a “tactile” way of exploring and interacting with photographic images on the web.

Enable a seamless experience for navigating large numbers of images regardless of Internet connection quality.

Empower users to dynamically zoom in on photos without having to navigate to higher resolution versions.

Make sure you read the details. Of particular interest – it’s just a demo, it’s going away on December 31st (along with your creations), and stuff you add is public so be safe.

It’s easy to use - I created a couple of albums very quickly - letting you upload pictures to albums (from local files, Facebook, Flickr, or an RSS/ATOM feed) and tag the content, then use the browser to scan through and DeepZoom in and out around your collection.

Here’s a simple album I whipped up using low-res pictures from my mobile phone camera of our recent March Northeast MSDN Roadshow:

I’m sure you can create a better album using better pictures, head here to try it out.

Interested in creating your own version of DeepZoomPix? Turns out there’s a developer story here as well, so check out the DeepZoomPix Developer Resources page for a video and technology details.

-Chris

XamlFests Return in February

cbowen — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:42:30 GMT

In December, I blogged about XamlFest, a free event in Waltham, MA that gave attendees a chance to learn WPF and Silverlight via instructor led hands-on labs.

That quickly filled up, and so have others, so the ISV Developer team is offering additional XamlFests across the country, with three in the northeast & NYC areas.

From the ISV team post:

[…] These are two-day interactive events where you’ll learn about the platforms, tools and processes used to deliver differentiated user experiences. It’s a chance for you to mingle with user experience minded Microsoft folks and industry leading design firms and design integrators. You'll learn about WPF and Silverlight.

Each Xamlfest day will start with interactive sessions by Microsoft and our design partners, followed by a free lunch and a chance to network, have some fun and win prizes. Each afternoon will be geared toward assisted development with instructor-led walkthroughs, or better yet, come with your own project in mind.

Location	Registration	Dates
New York, NY	xamlfest-nyc@live.com	Feb 9 – 10
Farmington, CT	xamlfest-ct@live.com	Feb 12 – 13
Redmond, WA	xamlfest-redmond@live.com	Feb 16 – 17
Portland, OR	xamlfest-portland@live.com	Feb 19 – 20
Atlanta, GA	xamlfest-atlanta@live.com	Feb 23 – 24
Waltham, MA	xamlfest-boston@live.com	Feb 26 – 27

Seating is extremely limited, so sign up quickly if you can attend.

-Chris

XamlFest Boston: Come As You Are, Leave Xamlized

cbowen — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:11:34 GMT

Are you excited about the WPF but concerned about the learning curve? Have you seen Silverlight but don’t know where to get started? Or are you curious about how tools like Visual Studio and Expression Blend help designers and developers work together to deliver great user experiences? If so, join us at XamlFest!

XamlFest is a two day interactive event where you’ll learn about the platforms the tools and processes used to deliver differentiated user experiences. It’s a chance for you to mingle with UX minded Microsoft folks as well as industry leading design integrators. It’s also an opportunity to pick up a free copy of Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Studio 2 for you attendance.

Each XamlFest day will start with interactive sessions by Microsoft and our design partners, followed by a free lunch and a chance to network, have some fun and win prizes. Each afternoon will be geared toward assisted development with instructor-led walkthroughs, or, better yet, come with your own project in mind and we’ll help kick start your very own proof of concept!

PLEASE NOTE: Each attendee will need a laptop to take part in the assisted development sessions.

Dates

Thursday & Friday December 11th and 12th.

Venue

Microsoft Technology Center

890 Winter Street Suite 100

Waltham, MA 02451

[Directions]

Agenda

Date	Time	Topic
Thursday, 12/11	9:00 AM	Introduction to WPF, Xaml, Expression Blend
	10:30 AM	Break
	10:45 AM	Building Visually Rich Applications: The role of the Integrator in building designable applications
	12:00 PM	Lunch, Mingle, Prizes
	1:00 PM	Instructor-led WPF walkthrough and assisted development
	3:00 PM	Assisted Development
	5:00 PM	End of Day 1
Friday, 12/12	9:00 AM	Introduction to Silverlight, Data Binding, LINQ
	10:30 AM	Break
	10:45 AM	Platform Centric Design Best Practices: Creating WPF and Silverlight XAML for Web and Local Client Solutions
	12:00	Lunch, Mingle, Prizes
	1:00	Instructor-led Silverlight walkthrough and assisted development
	3:00	Assisted development
	5:00	XamlFest Ends

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What if I don’t have Visual Studio?

A. No problem, every attendee leaves with Visual Studio 2008 Pro!

Q. What if I don’t have Expression Blend?

A. Again, no problem! Everyone leaves with Expression Studio 2.

Q. What if I don’t have an idea for a starter project?

A. We’d like you to leave with something personal, but if nothing comes to mind that’s OK too. It’s the main reason we’re planning a few guided sessions where you can fallow along with us. These sessions should take no more than two hours, so if something sparks your interest you’ll still have time left for assisted development.

Q. What if I don’t have a laptop?

A. You can still participate in the training in the mornings and lunch, but assisted development in the afternoon is a harder problem to solve. We have no problem with people pairing up, so you might want to check with friends or co-workers to see if they’re interested.

Q. Can I just come for the training and skip assisted development?

A. XamlFest is about empowering designers and developers to deliver great user experiences and we believe a key component is hands-on assisted development. If you are unable to participate in the afternoon sessions please wait until the day before the event to register. This will give others the opportunity to sign up first, and if there’s still space available you’re welcome to join us.

XamlFest -- Come as you are, leave Xamlized.

Registration

Space is extremely limited, so we ask that you please register only if you fully expect to be able to attend. Register by contacting xamlfest-boston@live.com.

John Papa Speaking with Tech Valley and New Hampshire User Groups This Week

cbowen — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:33:57 GMT

John Papa (MSDN columnist, MVP, and INETA speaker) will be visiting the Northeast area and speaking on Silverlight with the Tech Valley .NET and New Hampshire .NET user groups:

Tech Valley NY .NET
July 22nd, 6:30 - 9:00 PM
Albany, NY
New Hampshire .NET
July 24th, 6:00 - 8:30 PM
Nashua, NH

Session Description:

Silverlight enables developers to use their .NET and XAML skills to develop Rich Internet Applications and to build data driven Silverlight applications that communicate with multi-tier architectures.

This session will show how to build Silverlight 2 applications that communicate with and consume REST services and use LINQ to XML to manage XML content, show the various data binding techniques, and show how to use WCF to talk to various middle tier services including custom entity models and the Entity Framework.

Two good opportunities to catch a great speaker!

-Chris

Make Silverlight Games with Popfly Game Creator

cbowen — Mon, 05 May 2008 06:09:24 GMT

Many people have been using Silverlight to create games for the web, but until now, you've had to be a programmer to do it.

Just released on the Popfly site is alpha of the new Popfly Game Creator feature, which provides a great way to create and share some interesting games without having to deal with some of the complexities normally associated with game creation, all using Silverlight.

Head over to Popfly, choose the "Create a Game" option, and choose a base game (or start from scratch):

You can go ahead an click Play to try the game, but the interesting part is when you start modifying the game by working with the Actors, Scenes, and Game settings.

With Actors, you can modify the individual elements that comprise your game. The car that drives, the spaceship that flies, etc. Choose from the hundreds of built-in items, or make your own.

In Scenes, create the different screens that your game will have (title, instructions, game, "you win", "you lose", etc.) You can select from a number of backgrounds and sounds (or again add your own.) Then, use the editor to place the actors on the various scenes.

So, how does the game know what to do? This is where Behaviors come in, for both scenes and actors. Making a lot of options available to you in a surprisingly easy-to-use editor, you can add effects like motion, shooting, disappearing and more using visual tools.

Wiring up events (like steering your car) to buttons on the keyboard is very straightforward:

Want to add a special effect when the car hits a boulder? No problem.

Finally, use the Game screen to change overall game properties (score, lives, etc.) and to import files to your project.

Once your game is ready, just hit Play! You can also use the built-in debugging features to see what's happening behind the scenes as you test your game. You can view performance details, watch output from your game to a console window (for example, you can track game events such as keypresses), and turn on visibility of the bounding boxes used to detect collisions.

Best of all, since it is Popfly, you can easily save your games and share them with your friends and rest the world.

Ready to Learn More?

You can just jump right in and try things out, but I'd recommend you watch this video tutorial first (go ahead, it's only 8 minutes long):

Video: Popfly Game Creator

There's plenty more over on the Popfly Wiki, including more videos, samples and tutorials.

Very cool stuff. I hope you'll take a moment to check it out. Send me a link to any games you make!

-Chris

Silverlight 2.0 and RIA Development Article Series

cbowen — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:05:19 GMT

Our very own Bob Familiar has been cruising the seas of Silverlight and has recently posted a very nice four-article series on using Silverlight 2.0 to develop RIAs (Rich Internet Applications):

This series of articles takes a look at the current state of RIA development leveraging Silverlight 2.0. The series will focus on the architecture of RIA's, the use of XAML for resolution independent user interface layout and design, Windows Communication Foundation for Web Services, Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend for the design/development environment and Windows Server 2008/IIS7 as the deployment environment.

Bob's not only a great technology guy, but an excellent musician as well. The series is based on his experiences developing his Sounds Familiar music site, showcasing his work.

I've come to know Bob's musical work from our many hours in the car together for our Roadshows, taking turns listening to our Zunes. He has a lot of songs, you know. I'm thinking I'll record my daughters practicing their piano so I have some custom compositions as well. It's only fair.

-Chris

Summary of MIX '08 Highlights

cbowen — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:37:33 GMT

It's been a busy week (getting ready for the 2008 Launch event in Boston next week), but I have a moment to share details from my trip to MIX '08 last week.

It was my first MIX, and incredibly, my first visit to Las Vegas! Not a lot of free time to absorb the city, but it was great.

Didn't get to go (or went but somehow couldn't be everywhere at once)? All content was recorded and is freely available at:

http://sessions.visitmix.com/

First, the featured products and tools:

Silverlight 2 Beta 1 is now available, with a non-commercial Go-Live license
Deep Zoom Composer CTP (used to create applications like Hard Rock's Memorabilia site)
Expression Studio 2 Beta - Requires and supports .NET 3.5
Expression Blend 2.5 March 2008 Preview - supports Silverlight 1.0, 2, and WPF
Expression Professional Subscription
- For pro designers, it complements the existing MSDN developer subscription
Silverlight 1.0 for Mobile
Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008 with support for Silverlight 2 Beta 1
IIS 7 Media Pack - enhancements for optimizing media and data streaming
Internet Explorer 8 Beta is now available
- Cool new features include WebSlices and Activities
- IE 8 Virtual Machines are available to help with SxS testing
MVC Preview 2 is now available
Updated ASP.NET Extensions Preview

And the Demos:

This video of the keynote captures all of the demos
This post captures the play-by-play essence of the keynote
Companies:

Aston Martin
Cirque du Soleil
Hard Rock Memorabilia - An amazing demo of the Memorabilia site that uses Silverlight 2's native Deep Zoom feature
NBC Olympics
Weatherbug Mobile Weather using Silverlight (example for Boston)
DoubleClick
Nokia
AOL Silverlight-based Mail Client

And finally, to describe the pictures on the right:

The top one is a picture of a Surface machine to which a picture of our group was sent from a wireless camera and enlarged right on the table. (Left to right - Me, Brian Hitney, Glen Gordon, Joe Stagner, Zain Naboulsi, Rob Bagby.) Very cool.
My colleague in the southeast, Doug Turnure, gazes longingly at the Surface machine being demoed. Surface, you had us at hello.
Really, I have no idea who these guys playing Rock Band are, but they were having a great time. There was a pretty impressive setup - wonder if I can replicate it in my basement?
Finally, though I did eat here and had a nice meal, I'm only including this picture of the David Burke restaurant at the Venetian in honor of the incomparable Vermont-based Dave Burke. Who knew you had a restaurant, Dave?

Hoping I get to go next year!

-Chris

Silverlight 1.0 Fire Starter Now Online

cbowen — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:40:45 GMT

Silverlight Fire Starter was a one-day event held in Redmond late last year to cover a wide range of Silverlight topics. Now you can access the same content for the hard-to-argue-with price of free:

www.visitmix.com/University/silverlight/firestarter/

There are eight sessions available:

An Introduction to Silverlight - Mithun Dhar
Getting Started Programming Silverlight - Jesse Liberty
Workflow of Silverlight with Expression and Visual Studio - Arturo Toledo
Silverlight XAML - Laurence Moroney
A Development Story - Adam Kinney
Media, Markers and More - Ernie Booth
Popfly and Silverlight - Adam Nathan
Silverlight in the Future - Ernie Booth

You can watch the sessions via the site or download them for offline viewing/listening (as WMV, WMA, or MP3).

-Chris

Got Tech Posters?

cbowen — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 01:58:05 GMT

Have a blank wall (and access to your company's color printer)?

There are plenty of technology posters and charts for developers available on MSDN. I didn't realize just how many until I searched for "poster" on MSDN downloads.

Here's a list of the more recent ones:

.NET 3.5 Namespaces Poster
The .NET Framework 3.5 Common Namespaces and Types Poster
Exchange Component Architecture Poster
This poster highlights the architecture and feature set of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.
Visual Basic 2008 Keybinding Poster
Printable wall poster containing list of useful keyboard shortcuts for Visual Basic 2008 developers
Visual C++ 2008 Keybinding Poster
List of keybindings for Visual C++ language within Visual Studio and Visual C++ Express 2008
Visual C# 2008 Poster
Wall chart showing useful keyboard shortcuts for Visual C# programming language
BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Scale-Out Configurations
This poster illustrates typical scale-out configurations and options.
BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Runtime Architecture Poster
This poster provides a detailed illustration of the modules and components that make up the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 runtime architecture. It shows typical message flow and data flow that occurs between these components at run time.
2007 Office System: Developer Posters
Download these posters to learn more about the new features and enhancement to the 2007 Microsoft Office System.
BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Poster
This poster lists the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 capabilities.
Windows Server 2008 Component Posters
Windows Server 2008 Component Posters, originally printed in the July 2007 issue of TechNet Magazine.
Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 (Ed: Make that 2.0) Developer Reference Poster
Microsoft Silverlight Developer Reference Poster
BizTalk Server 2006 Legacy Modernization with Host Integration Server 2006
Overview of BizTalk Server Legacy Modernization Scenarios.
BizTalk Server 2006 Capabilities
Lists BizTalk Server 2006 capabilities
BizTalk Server 2006 Runtime Architecture
Illustration of the modules and components of BizTalk Server 2006
TechNet Magazine Active Directory Component Jigsaw Poster
Active Directory Component Jigsaw poster, originally printed in the March-April 2006 issue of TechNet Magazine.
PnP Overview Poster
Patterns & Practices Overview Poster
Smart Client Poster
Patterns & Practices Smart Client Poster
Visual C# 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster
This poster contains the default keybindings for Visual C# 2005, and is available as a PDF download in either color or grayscale for you to print.
Visual Basic 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster
This poster contains the default key bindings for Visual Basic 2005, and is available as a PDF download in either color or grayscale for you to print.
Visual C++ 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster
This poster contains the default keybindings for Visual C++ 2005, and is available as a PDF download in either color or grayscale for you to print.

Enjoy!

-Chris

Technorati tags: Visual Basic, C#, C++, BizTalk, .NET, Exchange, Office, Windows Server, Silverlight

Silverlight Announcements - 1.0 Live, Linux support

cbowen — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 23:47:01 GMT

Some fantastic news out this week. Silverlight 1.0 is now live!

If that weren't enough, we've announced a formal partnership with Novell to bring Silverlight to Linux distributions via the project known as Moonlight.

There's no point in adding more detail here, just don't miss reading these two posts to get the perspectives from Microsoft and Novell:

Scott Guthrie - Silverlight 1.0 Released and Silverlight for Linux Announced
Miguel de Icaza - Microsoft/Novell Collaboration on Silverlight

Certainly, this will make ReMix07 Boston all the more interesting to attend!

-Chris

Technorati tags: Silverlight

IronPython and Silverlight Resources

cbowen — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:27:39 GMT

This is a long-overdue follow-up to my visit with the Cambridge Python Meetup Group. I had a great time speaking with the group about Silverlight, IronPython and dynamic languages.

Here are the resources I showed or that we discussed during the session:

Thanks to the group for being an excellent audience and to Peter Marquez for being a great host!

-Chris

P.S. For those of you interested in IronPython and dynamic languages, attend our next Roadshow (from 9/10-9/20) where I'll be spending one of the sessions covering those very topcs!

Technorati tags: Silverlight, DLR, IronPython, Python, Cambridge

Bob & Chris' MSDN Roadshow - September Edition!

cbowen — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:00:00 GMT

We're at it again! My colleague Bob and I are heading out for round three of our Roadshow. It (and we) will run from September 10th through the 20th, sweeping through the following cities, leaving a wake of toppled water glasses and technical enlightenment in its path:

Burlington, VT
Rochester, NY
Hartford, CT
Portland, ME
Waltham, MA

(Note that we've changed the Nashua, NH stop to Waltham, MA.)

Our Roadshow is a series of free full-day events featuring thoroughly technical content about both current and cutting edge technology in a location near* you (*assuming you live/work near one of the cities we're visiting.) We consider each of the four sessions to be "300-level" depth and strive to give you the "why and why not" in addition to the "how". Plus, we get to throw things at you. No, really.

Registration is required and for some cities has been known to fill up. See below for the full session descriptions and registration links.

See you on the road!

-Chris

UPDATE (8/23) - I can't promise anything at this point, but we're in the process of ordering a large quantity of the MS Press title "Introducing Microsoft LINQ" and expect to be able to give every attendee of our roadshow a copy.

[The usual yada yada applies - we might run out, we might not get them in time, our backs might give out and we can't carry them, etc.]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bob Familiar and Chris Bowen are two guys who love to write code and can’t stop talking about it. Now they’re back on the road, taking their long-winded rants and questionable demos to a city near you. Join them for a day of deep technology, code aplenty, and the best humor they can manage.


Agenda: A Tasteful Blend of Satisfying Technology

8:30 – 9:00	Arrive, check in, grab some coffee and a seat
9:00 - 9:05	Announcements and Introduction
9:05 – 10:25	Coding in a Dynamic World
9:05 – 10:25	Clinging to static ways? Relax your grip a little and take a look into the world of dynamic languages. There’s been a lot of talk, but what are they, and most importantly, what do they mean for you and your development efforts today? In this session, we’ll introduce the concepts behind dynamic languages and the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR). You’ll see how features such as dynamic types, method dispatch, and code generation in current dynamic languages like IronPython and future ones such as IronRuby and VBx offer effective new options for your designs and implementations.
10:25 – 10:35	Take a break and show your dynamic personality to fellow attendees
10:35 – 12:00	Practical Silverlight
10:35 – 12:00	Silverlight is cool but why would I use it and how does it fit into my existing web applications? How do you setup a Silverlight development environment? Can designers and developers really collaborate using Blend and Visual Studio? What impact will Silverlight have on my production environment? How can I build applications using Silverlight that invoke web services? These questions will be answered in another session. This one is about COM+. Just kidding.
12:00 – 12:45	You’ve seen the (silver) light, now see about some lunch
12:45 – 2:10	Developer Productivity Tips and Tricks for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008
12:45 – 2:10	You might be spending hours each day working with Visual Studio, tragically only a few keystrokes or menu options away from better ways of doing the same work. This session will help you become a more productive developer and architect with Visual Studio. We'll focus on tips, tricks, and hidden gems that are available in both the 2005 and 2008 versions of Visual Studio, but of course you just know we'll throw in a few 2008-only teasers as well…
2:10 – 2:25	Enjoy an efficient break
2:25 – 3:45	Software as a Service, Software + Services, Service with a Smile, Can I Get Some Service, Where is the Waiter?
2:25 – 3:45	This session will introduce the concepts behind Software + Services, and what that means in a practical sense as you architect and develop new systems. We’ll talk about leveraging web services, either your own or third-party ones such as Live.com, to create compelling service-enabled systems and mashups leveraging assets such as maps, photos, rich media, contacts, search and other services.
3:45 – 4:00	Wrap Up, Evals, and Free Books


Location	Date	Time	Registration
Sheraton Burlington Hotel	Sept. 10th, 2007	8:30-4:00	Register!
870 Williston Road
Burlington, Vermont			Event ID:
			1032350476
RIT INN & Conference Center	Sept. 12th, 2007	8:30-4:00	Register!
5257 West Henrietta Road
W. Henrietta, New York			Event ID:
			1032350477
Sheraton Hartford Hotel	Sept. 17th, 2007	8:30-4:00	Register!
100 East River Drive
Hartford, Connecticut			Event ID:
			1032350481
MESDA	Sept. 18th, 2007	8:30-4:00	Register!
506 Main Street
Westbrook, Maine			Event ID:
			1032350480
Microsoft Corporation	Sept. 20th, 2007	8:30-4:00	Register!
201 Jones Road, 6th Floor
Waltham, Massachusetts			Event ID:
			1032350668

Technorati tags: Roadshow, Events, New England, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, New York, DLR, Silverlight, Visual Studio, Web Services, Dynamic Languages

Controls and Control Libraries for Silverlight

cbowen — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:14:17 GMT

Though the jury is still out on what controls we'll see in or alongside Silverlight 1.1 when it's released, there are a number of reusable controls and libraries emerging to help make development more efficient and familiar to developers used to WinForms and WebForms style programming.

The Silverlight 1.1 SDK has a set of controls with source code.
- Button, ScrollBar, ScrollViewer, Slider, ListBox
- Ashish Shetty discusses these controls (or at least an earlier version.)
Netika Tech has GOA WinForms for Silverlight
- Free standard edition, available Professional edition
- Control demos
Telerik has RadControls for Silverlight
- Newly-released Beta. Shipping in September.
- Control demos (with C#/VB and XAML source), including the very cool cube demo.
Dave Relyea has created a layout framework and controls for 1.1.
The Silverlight site has some sample 1.0 controls.
Joe Stegman posted Richard Zadorozny's "Jelly Samples" along with the 1.0 source.
Infragistics is working on Silverlight technology as well.
- A preview demo

Of course, if others made the above controls, you can create your own as well:

"How to: Create Custom Silverlight Controls" on Silverlight.net
Rob Conery has two good posts on control creation:
- "Creating a Data-Driven Control"
- "Creating a Web Service-Enabled Login Control"
Video: "How to Build a Silverlight Control" (in 1.0)
"The Basics of a Silverlight Control" by Scott Barnes
Great background reading in Ian Griffith's "Silverlight Controls and Objects"

-Chris

Technorati tags: Silverlight, Development

Chris Bowen's Blog : Silverlight

Special geekSpeak on Developing Silverlight Games on May 27th

XAMLFest Boston 5/27 – 5/28… and Online

XAMLFest Online

DeepZoomPix Technology Demo

XamlFests Return in February

XamlFest Boston: Come As You Are, Leave Xamlized

Dates

Venue

Agenda

Frequently Asked Questions

Registration

John Papa Speaking with Tech Valley and New Hampshire User Groups This Week

Make Silverlight Games with Popfly Game Creator

Silverlight 2.0 and RIA Development Article Series

Summary of MIX '08 Highlights

Silverlight 1.0 Fire Starter Now Online

Got Tech Posters?

Silverlight Announcements - 1.0 Live, Linux support

IronPython and Silverlight Resources

Silverlight

IronPython and the DLR

Other

Bob & Chris' MSDN Roadshow - September Edition!

Controls and Control Libraries for Silverlight