The only real tool for developing cross-platform Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) for that last 11 years has been Flash; until now! Silverlight 3 allows you to develop cross-platform Rich Internet Applications in a fraction of the time because of the extensive and very powerful .NET 3.5 libraries, the powerful, design friendly Blend 3 Integrated Development Environment, and an enhanced workflow that allows designers and developers to work on the same set of files at the same time. * Develop stunning RIAs in a short time. * Learn some basic Object Oriented Programming Principles. * Get familiar with the Blend 3 development environment. What you'll learn * Learn the Blend 3 and Visual Studio 2008 Integrated Development Environments (IDE). * Learn how to create stunning animations using Silverlight 3 Storyboards. * Learn how to incorporate video and sound into your RIAs with the Silverlight MediElement. * Learn about and how to develop quickly using Silverlight 3's reusable resources such as UserControls, ControlTemplates and DataTemplates. * Learn about the new Visual State Manager and the State panel in Blend 3 to quickly and easily add MouseEnter and MouseLeave states to your UserControls. * Put everything you have learned together to create a sample Silverlight 3 website. Who this book is for Web designers and developers wanting to learn Expression Blend 3 from the ground up. Those who have a background in the development of RIAs and want to learn this technology. Table of Contents * Setting Up the Silverlight Development Environment * The Blend 3 Integrated Development Environment * C#, XAML, and Object-Oriented Programming * Controls * Storyboards * Using the VSM and Blend 3's States Panel to Create a Silverlight Media Player * The Silverlight MediElement * The WPF Toolkit * Events and EventHandlers * Classes and Interfaces * ControlTemplates, Styles, and Custom UserControls * Writing a Custom Content Panel * Building a Sketchflow Prototype * Putting Everything Together to Build a Sample Silverlight Website