Introduction

When Microsoft announced the Windows Phone 7, they made a bold move to drop the legacy of Windows CE. By doing this, they decided to leverage Silverlight as the foundation of their mobile user interface. Many people relate Silverlight with applications that have been used for events such as the Olympics to deliver high definition videos. What most people don't realize is that the real power of Silverlight is to develop rich applications that go beyond the traditional Windows Forms type development. With Silverlight, they have built-in rich support for both designers and developers to build applications together in environments that they are both familiar with.

Microsoft also took another bold move in the tooling by providing both Expression Blend 4 and Visual Studio 2010 for Windows Phone for free. This choice was to give developers and designers the easiest way to begin developing for Windows Phone 7. Both of these tools provide a rich atmosphere to spark creativity among designers while giving developers the tools to get the job done.

In this chapter, we will familiarize ourselves with the basic tools of developing a Windows Phone 7 Silverlight Application. These skills will help you throughout the rest of the book by giving you the fundamentals for building any Silverlight Application on Windows Phone 7.