Beginning with version 2.5 (currently in Preview Edition) building Silverlight 2 applications, and especially assembling the User Interface components such as items from the toolbox, and layout controls, is easier than ever. A Note on This Tutorial. The history of the material for this tutorial is that Scott Guthrie wrote a terrific introduction to this material at the end of February, which he gave me permission to turn into a series of videos, currently (or soon to be) available on Silverlight.NET. This tutorial completes the circle by building on the videos and integrating the material into the Silverlight Tutorial series. The project we’re setting out to build is very similar to the Silverlight chat service built by ScottGu, and is shown in Figure 5-1

The Solution Files
Take a look in the upper right hand corner. The solution, project and other files created by Blend are identical to the files created by Visual Studio 2008. In fact; there is no exporting/importing between the two; you can open both development environments on the same files simultaneously and they will both work perfectly.

Chat Application – First Steps
Begin by switching to design view, and then hold the control key and use the mouse wheel to zoom out so that you can see the entire grid. If your mouse doesn’t have a wheel, you can zoom by picking a value (or filling in an arbitrary value) at the bottom of the design window or by using the menu choices View?Zoom In and View?Zoom Out
You can move the surface by clicking on the hand and then using the mouse to click and drag or by using the scroll bars.

Download pdf Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Tutorial - Introducing Expression Blend For Silverlight Developers