The Silverlight Toolkit is a collection of Silverlight controls, components and utilities made available outside the normal Silverlight release cycle. It adds new functionality quickly for designers and developers, and provides the community an efficient way to help shape product development by contributing ideas and bug reports. This first release includes full source code, unit tests, samples and documentation for 12 new controls covering charting, styling, layout, and user input.

How the Silverlight Toolkit is Built

We use an iterative, evolutionary development model to release new controls and updates often and get feedback from the community to our development team quickly. With access to source code, unit tests and the infrastructure magic we use internally, the community can let us know what it likes and what it wants to change. Anyone can download the source code and start exploring. This transparency will allow the community to help us prioritize features based on real-world usage and actual customer scenarios. We also want to make it easy to reuse skills and source code which is why all our components are designed with Windows Presentation Foundation in mind and the Silverlight Toolkit is released under the Microsoft Public License.

Get Started

• Download the latest release
• Visit our online samples: Controls samples, Charting samples
• Take the guided tour of the Silverlight Toolkit: Part 1 – Controls, Part 2 – Charting and Part 3 – Theming
• Vist our forum on Silverlight.net

Silverlight Toolkit November 2008 Overview

The Silverlight Toolkit defines four Quality Bands that describe the stability and finish-level of each component. Below is a summary of where the components currently in the Silverlight Toolkit fall within the quality bands.

• Components in the Preview Quality Band
  • AutoCompleteBox
  • NumericUpDown
  • Viewbox
  • Expander
  • ImplicitStyleManager
  • Charting

• Components in the Stable Quality Band
  • TreeView
  • DockPanel
  • WrapPanel
  • Label
  • HeaderedContentControl
  • HeaderedItemsControl

[Microsoft via Codeplex]

Next week you will hear some major announcements centered around things like the Microsoft Could OS, Silverlight, Microsoft .NET 4.0, Live Mesh, Visual Studio Team System, ASP.NET 4.0, Team Foundation Server, Windows 7, Microsoft Dynamics, Windows Communication Foundation, Microsoft XNA Game Studio, SQL Server 2008, Dublin, Oslo, Exchange Web Services, SharePoint , F#, Expression Studio, and a ton more. 

It’s an exciting time to be a software developer! Even if you don’t use any of the Microsoft technologies, the things Microsoft is working on will only make your lives better!  Microsoft is really starting to push the envelope in so many areas, and competitors have no choice but to try and keep up. 

As a side note, I noticed that on the Google Android you can’t change your search provider to anything other than Google.  Also in Google Chrome you cant change the search provider either.  With the Monopoly they have on search, I’m surprised the government hasn’t stepped in yet.  Microsoft whispers into the wind and they get sued or slammed.  Google clearly makes it impossible to switch search providers, tracks all users browsing history and sends it back to the Googleplex, and nobody says boo.  Boo!

Find more videos like this on twitter devs

The Lyrics

Verse 1:
I’ve seen you in my dreams, I love you so much
I know I’m gonna love the way that you respond to my touch
So fine, I need to make you mine
When we’re together there ain’t no mountain we can’t climb

Verse 1A:
P-D-C, two thousand eight
Windows 7 is coming and I can’t wait
I’m gonna get the first one, right out of the crate, Wrap your windows around me

Chorus:
I share my best ideas with you
Make them come true, ’cause that’s what you’re meant to do You take me closer to heaven
Tell your dreams and hopes to me
Get close to me, ’cause that’s where you’re ‘sposed to be I’m talkin’ about Windows 7. ooaahooo

Verse 2:
You turn me on, with your graphics and text I get so excited when I think about where you’ll take me next
I’m gonna leave with my developer guide
And tons of Windows content on a hundred sixty gigabyte drive!

Verse 2A:
P-D-C, two thousand eight
Windows 7 is coming and I can’t wait.
The desktop and taskbar will integrate,
Wrap your windows around me.

Chorus….
Mid section
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul When I look in your eyes, I almost lose control
We’ve got a strong foundation, efficient applications
And new APIs
When I’m with you I feel energized!

Rap:
7 is my lucky number
At night I get 7 hours of slumber
And Windows 7 at the PDC, twenty o eight, is gonna go and steal the other guy’s thunder Developers and users, be good to your computers
Ya can’t win with another system made for losers. for Windows 7, my love is true Now let me use direct 3d to unlock your GPU!
Verse 1A…..
Chorus…..

By the way, this is a joke obviously.

If you register early, you actually can save $200.  Be for warned, this is not a fluffy conference.  This conference is reserved for leading-edge software developers and software architects.  Sessions at PDC are deep sessions, not for the faint of heart.

Also, PDC2008 is going to be completely connected, so make sure you join the social groups below to participate! For more details make sure that you check out Mike Swanson’s blog, he is the guy behind the magic of PDC putting it all together!

• Become a fan of Microsoft PDC on Facebook
• Stay connected to PDC via Twitter
• Post and explore PDC2008 images on Flickr