SilverLight — October 4, 2009 12:02 pm

RIA Services Overview

Posted by Michal Pisarek

So for the last couple of weeks I have been doing some work with Silverlight RIA Services which has been very cool. So Im going to start to do a series of posts on RIA services in order to document what I have done!

RIA Services Downloads

RIA Services 2009 Preview: This is actual RIA services framework which you need. Make sure that you also download the RIA Services Overview pdf which is a wealth of information.
Microsoft SilverLight 3 Toolkit: You need this as well for RIA services to run
SilverLight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1: And you need this as well.

Optional Stuff for RIA Services and SilverLight 3

Microsoft Expression Blend 3 + SketchFlow Trial: You definatly want Expression Blend to do graphical manipulation of SilverLight controls, currently this isnt supported in Visual Studio so this is your only option.
SilverLight Spy: Allows you to decompile SilverLight xap files back to their component bits, much like the awesome reflector for .NET binaries.

Note Worthy Blogs

Brad Abrams: One of the best out there, he has a 25 part series on RIA Services that proved invaluable.
http://www.nikhilk.net/: Another great blog that covers SilverLight 3 as well as RIA
Scott Hanselman: More goodness
Jesse Liberty: Some more really good RIA focused stuff
Tim Heuer: Another great blog with tutorials
SilverLight News: Not a blog but a compilation of SL released articles.

All of the above blogs contain some great information and since I cant thank them in person here it is “Thanks guys for all your amazing work and help!”

Help I’m Stuck (Great Forums)

SilverLight.NET RIA Forum: The place to go, some extremly knowledgable people here that can help you out.
StackOverflow: Some good stuff in here as well both on RIA and SilverLight in general