Beta 1 is dead

[ Beta 2 is dead too. This post is invalid after Silverlight 2 released ]

As we see with the linux development community there are some who like beta versions (me one of them). In Fedora download site I got it saying "Did someone say... beta?"

The main thing is there are some unknown or unintentional features (Bugs?!) that we use in betas to get our programs work. These hacks work great until the feature has been changed or removed :(. In the Code complete Steve Mcconnell warns us not to use them.

Anyway the code we have been building in Silverlight 2 beta 1 refused to work in beta 2. After some search and try error it did run but some parts needed complete rewrite.

Still I say its better to modify your application for beta 2 in case you did not do it yet. Here is why......

1. The user who is about to see it is more likely having latest plugin that is beta 2 and your beta 1 will refuse to work.

2. With time goes there will not be much help available for beta 1. Forum people will say UPGRADE.

3. There has been lots of modification from beta 1 to beta 2 but it is expected not to change much from beta 2 to final version.

So how to upgrade........

1. Uninstall your previous Silverlight stuffs. VS 2008 tool, Blend, everything.

2. Install new versions of those tools Silverlight tools beta 2. Expression Blend 2.5 June Preview.

3. Open your Visual Studio solution file. It will ask you to upgrade with beta 2.

4. Build your program. I will come to this point later.

5. After successfully build check the test aspx and html page of the website. There change type="application/x-silverlight-2-b2" in html and in aspx replace version attribute with MinimumVersion="2.0.30523". Also in the install silverlight link will be changed from http://go2.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=108182 to http://go2.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=115261.

What if my build failed...........

There are huge modifications from beta 1 to beta 2. So your old application might need to modify.

1. See the change list from here.

2. In my case the problem was with WebClient class. Because WebClient has been moved to System.Net.dll.

3. Another problem you might face is with event bubbling. Jesse Liberty has a great post explaning it. Basically you wont be able to catch mouse or keyboard events for controls because they themselves handle it. It has been done to maintain similarity between WPF and Silverlight. There are some workarounds if you really want to handle those events yourself. First Modify the template of your control or build a custom control deriving from the control you want to modify.

What if all of them don't work for me.........

Forums :)