Silverlight and Visual Studio

Although it’s technically possible to create the files you need for a Silverlight application by hand, professional developers always use a development tool. If you’re a graphic designer, that tool is likely to be Microsoft Expression Blend 2.5, a graphically rich design package. If you’re a developer, you’ll probably start with Visual Studio 2008 instead. Because both tools are equally at home with the Silverlight 2.0 application model, you can easily create a workflow that incorporates both of them. For example, a developer could create a basic user interface with Visual Studio and then hand it off to a crack design team, which would then polish it up with custom graphics in Expression Blend. When the facelift is finished, they’d deliver the project back to the developer, who could then continue writing and refining code in Visual Studio.

There are two types of Silverlight web sites that you can create in Visual Studio:

Ordinary HTML web site: In this case, the entry point to your Silverlight application is a basic HTML file that includes a Silverlight content region.

ASP.NET web site: In this case, Visual Studio creates two projects—one to contain the Silverlight application files, and one to hold the server-side ASP.NET web site that will be deployed alongside your Silverlight files. The entry point to your Silverlight application can be an ordinary HTML file or an ASP.NET web form that also includes server-generated content.

No matter which option you choose, your Silverlight application will run the same way—the client browser will receive an HTML web page, that HTML page will include a Silverlight content region, and the Silverlight code will run on the local computer, not the web server. However, the ASP.NET web approach makes it easier to mix ASP.NET and Silverlight content. This is usually a better approach in the following cases:

i) You want to create a web application that combines ASP.NET web pages

with Silverlight-enhanced pages.

ii) You want to generate Silverlight content indirectly, using ASP.NET web controls.

iii) You want to create a Silverlight application that calls a web service, and you want to design the web service at the same time (and deploy it to the same web server).

If you decide to create an ASP.NET web site, your application’s requirements will change. Silverlight content can be served by any web server, because it’s sent directly to the web browser and processed on the client side. ASP.NET content runs on the web server, which must have the ASP.NET engine installed.

Source of Information : Apress Silverlight 2 Visual Essentials