Getting Started with Silverlight for Eclipse

Fans of the open source and highly configurable Eclipse IDE got a present recently: a new beta of the Silverlight plug-in for Eclipse. It offers many of the same features as Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio® 2008, including code-hinting and XAML preview. The plug-in is being developed by Soyatec with funding, architectural guidance, and project management from Microsoft's Interoperability Team. The best way to tour the features of Silverlight for Eclipse is to actually try it. So in this article we'll create a simple Silverlight app using Eclipse—a syndication feed reader. The app lists feed items in the top of the window, and displays the selected feed item beneath the list. It's amazing how little code it takes to put this together. Here's what the finished app looks like:

Figure 1. Syndication Feed Reader

Install the Silverlight Development Toolkit
The Silverlight module requires the following software, installed in the order shown:

• Microsoft Windows® XP SP2 or higher, or Windows Vista SP1
• Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.5.0-11 or higher
• Eclipse Ganymede 3.4.1, 32-bit version
• Microsoft .NET® Framework 3.5
• Silverlight 2 Runtime 2.0.31005.0 or higher
• Silverlight 2 SDK

A few things to note with this beta:

• There's no debugger yet, but one is planned by summer.
• The Silverlight plug-in for Eclipse doesn't yet work on 64-bit Windows Vista® systems, even if you're running the 32-bit version of Eclipse. A fix for this is also in the works.
• Finally, the basic version of Ganymede is fine to use because when you install the Silverlight module, it will pull in all the dependencies.

After you install Silverlight, you should update to the December 2008 release of the DataGrid, which fixes nearly 30 bugs. We'll be using the DataGrid in our tutorial.

Once you've installed all the prerequisites, you are ready to install the Silverlight plug-in. Launch Eclipse, then select Help->Software Updates to open the Software Updates and Add-ons dialog. Select the Available Software tab and click the Add Site… button.

Figure 2. Select the Available Software tab and click the Add Site… button.

In the resulting dialog box, type http://www.eclipse4sl.org/update/ and click OK. Don't leave off the "www". If you do, you'll get an annoying duplicate entry that doesn't hurt anything but looks ugly.

Figure 3. Type http://www.eclipse4sl.org/update/ and click OK.

Now there will be a new entry on the Available Software tab for Silverlight. Select the Silverlight entry, then click the Install… button. Eclipse will install the Silverlight plug-in and all its dependencies.

Figure 4. Select the Silverlight entry, then click the Install… button.

To see exactly what it installed, select Help | About. The plug-in button with the cube icon is for Silverlight.

Figure 5. The plug-in button with the cube icon is for Silverlight.

Click the cube icon to bring up the Silverlight module information dialog:

Figure 6. Click the cube icon to bring up the Silverlight module information dialog.

Then click the Plug-in Details button to see all the components:

Figure 7. Click the Plug-in Details button to see all the components.