So I am loving Silverlight 2.0 beta 1. Fantastic release. 1.1 got me to the stadium and 2.0 really knocked the ball out of the park. Coming from WPF, however, Silverlight can leave you…let’s say…unsatisfied. It’s the little things really, like being able to create BasedOn Styles or use Element Binding, that tend to make that little guy in my head keep saying…“Oh, crap, why can’t I do that?”

One of the biggest things I’ve noticed is how ridiculously large my App.xaml files are getting these days. I almost always re-skin the controls…several times. And just doing a single variation of the OOB controls can really cramp your style (no pun intended).

The lack of BasedOn Styles doesn’t help, but I can work around that, what I really need is the ability to use Resource Dictionaries. This would at least alleviate the amount of duct tape that I have to wrap around me head before doing Silverlight work.

Seriously, there isn’t even a quick way to navigate the App.xaml or any Xaml file for that matter. Heck, at least back in VB6 we could select the class and or function we wanted from a little drop down menu.

So the way I see it, Microsoft needs to do one of two things:

  1. Bring Resource Dictionaries to Silverlight
  2. Modify the XAML editor in VS or Blend to have a quick resource drop down so I can shortcut to the style I am looking for. ALT-F does not cut it

Just my $0.02. Back to finding that style I was looking for…