Silverlight 3 Beta

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Hello Everyone,

Microsoft, as widely expected, has made the first beta of Silverlight 3 available for download simultaneously with Day 1 of its Mix ‘09 conference.

In addition to the beta itself, Microsoft also has posted the software development kit for Silverlight 3, the Silverlight 3 tools for Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1), and a preview test build of version 3 of its Expression Blend design tool.

The new version adds a capability, called SketchFlow, that allows for prototyping of the flow and composition of applications, as well as support for importing Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator files.

Microsoft also has made available a new preview release of .NET RIA Services, technology for bringing together the ASP.Net and Silverlight platforms, as Ars Technica is reporting. The new services provide developers with patterns for writing logic running on the mid-tier and provides support for common tasks, like data validation, authentication and roles.

One of the main features of Microsoft’s next version of Silverlight is its support for running applications outside the browser.

Officials said the out-of-browser support will allow Silverlight apps to run on Windows or Mac clients and provide users with online, offline or intermittently connected access to their Silverlight apps and content.

Here are the links :

Runtime

Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1

SDK

Documentation

Blend 3 Preview

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Blog Posts by Mary Jo Foley : an american journalist who attended the Mix
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2307
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2316