Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Releasing Soon!

Well, the news is out. Silverlight 2 Beta 2 will release sometime later this week. There are many new features and changes from Beta 1. Since I document many of the controls and oversee the control overview material, I'll tell you about some of the product changes related to controls:

-TabControl added to the SDK

-Many controls moved from the SDK to the runtime. Also many of the controls were brought in line with their WPF counterparts.  For example, controls have changed assemblies and namespaces and some of the control APIs have been tweaked. This makes things easier for developers that are targeting both Silverlight and WPF for their applications.

-Templating for controls was simplified with the introduction of Visual State Manager

On the doc side of things we are taking a minimalist approach for the control overview material. I've eliminated many of the mostly empty portal/navigation topics, and instead listed the controls in a topic named Control Gallery. In addition to a written description for the controls, for many I've included an images and a link to a running sample. I've also written a topic that lists controls by function and created a topic named Getting Started with Controls that shows you how to complete tasks common to all controls.

Unfortunately the content isn't live yet, but I'll link to the top-level topic that will take you to some of the topics I've mentioned. I would love some feedback on what you think about the control material; what you like, don't like and why. The following link is good now, but points to the old material. The content will be updated with Beta2 releases, which I mentioned before should be by the end of the week. Check it out here: Silverlight Control Conceptual Material

Also, I am sure many of my peers on the Silverlight User Education team will be posting soon about changes in their feature areas.

Stay Tuned!

--Cheryl