Before I finish my walkthrough of Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Image Viewer I thought I would take a moment to do a quick rehash on how to get started with silverlight 2 now that the new beta 2 is finally been released. There are a few things you need and some I suggest. All of which can be found under the getting started tab at http://www.silverlight.net.

1. Visual Studio 2008 Silverlight 2 Toolkit. (Click Here)

This is a chainer install which means it includes the plug-in runtimes and the SDK, however, as a side note, the SDK no longer contains the majority of the silverlight controls. The controls were moved to the runtime itself, which means smaller .xap files!!!!

If you need a Silverlight toolkit for VS 2008 then that obviously means you need Visual Studio 2008 to work with Silverlight. Doesn’t matter which version you have so Standard, Professional, Team Edition any of them will do. If you don’t have Visual Studio 2008 standard or above then get the 90 day trial at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/products/cc268305.aspx.

2. Expression Blend 2.5 BETA June Preview and Deep Zoom Composer (Click Here)

June beta preview is powerpacked with some awesome support. If your a desiger, you will definately want this tool to help create awesome silverlight applications. The deep zoom composer isnt required, but its a tool required to create deep zoom featured images. If you havent seen deep zoom in action, check out the hard rock cafe demo or some other demos posted on silverlight.net.