Silverlight 2 Knowledge Base

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Built-in Controls

The following are out-of-box controls in Silverlight 2:

  • Input controls : Button, CheckBox, RadioButton, RepeatButton, HyperLinkButton , ScrollBar (Vert/Horiz), Slider, Togglebutton, Tooltip, Calendar, Password, GridSplitter, Date Picker
  • Layout : Border, StackPanel, Grid, ScrollViewer
  • Text : Textblock, Textbox, Tooltip,
  • Data : Listbox; DataGrid, ItemsControl, Dropdown list,
  • Navigation : Scrollviewer, Tab Control
  • Presentation : Image, MediaElement, Ink canvas, MultiScaleImage,
  • Dialog : File, FontPicker

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Silverlight Toolkit

Silverlight toolkit is the project that Microsoft will release additional controls available online via CodePlex. Microsoft plans to have over 100 controls available for Silverlight over the next few months. The following are controls in the 10/28/2008 release:

Stable band:

  • DockPanel
  • HeaderedContentControl
  • HeaderedItemsControl
  • Label
  • TreeView
  • WrapPanel

Preview band:

  • AutoCompleteBox
  • ButtonSpinner
  • Charting
  • Expander
  • ImplicitStyleManager
  • NumericUpDown
  • Spinner
  • UpDownBase
  • Viewbox

The following are definitions of quality bands:

  • Experimental - components that are added to garner scenario or usefulness feedback. These may not have a future in the Silverlight Toolkit.

  • Preview - these are components that we have made a commitment too and we think will work for ~80% of the major scenarios. Many components are relatively simple and if you just need the basic functionality, these may work for you. We always do our best to minimize "breaking changes" in APIs or behavior, but components at this band may see some level of this as we perfect the API. Think of this as Alpha quality, give-or-take.

  • Stable - these components have moved out of Preview and should handle 90+% of scenarios. We'll hold any breaking changes to a higher bar but if something is really wrong, we'll change it. Something like Beta quality.

  • Mature - these components are at full "RTM" quality and fit-and-finish. These components will not have breaking changes (except in rare critical situations like security issues) and are usable in a broad range of scenarios. The API stability is key here - by using these components, our goal is that upgrading from one Silverlight Toolkit release to another should be a no-brainer.

Silverlight Toolkit articles:


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Free Controls


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Third-Party Control Vendors

(c) Li Chen 2008. ScrewTurn Wiki version 2.0.37. Some of the icons created by FamFamFam.