Ensure that you have the latest Visual Studio 2010
or Visual
Web Developer Express 2010 installed as it is a prerequisite for
developing Silverlight 4 applications using Visual Studio. Below are the
additional tools you’ll want to get started:
- Silverlight
4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010
This will install the developer runtime of Silverlight 4, the
Visual Studio project support and the Silverlight 4 SDK.
If you are developing Silverlight 4 applications, this will be the minimum
you want to install! - Windows
Runtime or Mac
Runtime
If you installed the tools above, you will get the developer
runtime and there is no need to install again. These downloads are being
made available for test machines for the Windows and Mac platforms for
your applications. - Expression
Blend 4 Beta
This is a beta version of Expression Blend that will enable
authoring of Silverlight 4 applications. - Silverlight Toolkit
The toolkit has been updated to provide support for Visual
Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4 development. The Toolkit provides numerous
controls for your application and source code is also included for
these controls using an Open Source license. - WCF RIA
Services
Microsoft WCF RIA Services simplifies the traditional n-tier
application pattern by bringing together the ASP.NET and Silverlight
platforms. The RIA Services provides a pattern to write application
logic that runs on the mid-tier and controls access to data for queries,
changes and custom operations. It also provides end-to-end support for
common tasks such as data validation, authentication and roles by
integrating with Silverlight components on the client and ASP.NET on the
mid-tier. - Online
Silverlight 4 Documentation
- Offline
CHM help Silverlight 4Documentation file download
Once you have the tools you need to get started, view more
information below to walk you through some of the new features in detail
and download some sample code.