what software on a silverlight developer's laptop

Question

i just got a new laptop and probably will be my main keep for the next 3 years. I am looking for suggestions for software needed for a productive silverlight developer. In addition to the basics Visual Studio, Blend and the SDK.

Answer 1

+1 for Kaxaml - I use it quite frequently to get color values, test the widths of things, and other XAML miscellany. It's a lot more light weight than Blend and I am more frequently than not editing XAML in the code editor of Visual Studio.

I don't know if this is the right forum to prove this hypothesis but I think most Silverlight developers edit their XAML in Visual Studio, not Blend which is why having a light weight alternative is handy some of the time.

You will need Blend, however, it has no equal for editing control templates / styles.

Answer 2

I would start with everything from the Get Started site.

Kaxaml is always fun to play with, although a bit outdated, and free. This comes with some nice templates that can be a great learning tool.

Recently I've really been enjoying Silverlight Spy (not free, but there is a trial)

Fiddler (or another proxy) is a must have for monitoring traffic from your Silverlight application. Check out this post for monitoring localhost traffic.

Additionally, you might want to take a look at the Composite Application Guidance (aka Prism) library. This is not something you install, but is great guidance for building Silverlight (and WPF) applications.

Answer 3

In addition to the set of tools you've started with I would add:-

• The Silverlight Toolkit and make sure you keep it up to date.
• Redgate Reflector
• Fiddler Debugging HTTP Proxy

Answer 4

Solitaire, definitely.

Answer 5

If you want to do data-driven apps, you may be interested in RIA Services.

Answer 6

With the exception of SketchFlow, I would say the following:

If you're truly trying to be a productive developer, don't install anything else. That way, you won't be tempted to leave 'the zone'.