Silverlight 2 was released on October 13, 2008. Just about two weeks after that date, more Silverlight goodness was released into the wild. This goodness came in the form of the exciting Silverlight Toolkit.
The Silverlight Toolkit is a set of controls and features that enable even richer interactive applications. These applications can be enhanced with the help of some new styling and theming features available in the Silverlight Toolkit. In addition, this toolkit provides a flurry of new controls including the AutoCompleteBox, DockPanel, Expander, Label, NumericUpAndDown, TreeView, ViewBox, and WrapPanel. Each of these controls empowers you to go in new directions with your applications. However, the control that I find most exciting is the Chart control.
The Chart control is a FREE charting solution provided by Microsoft and does not require any additional installation by your users. As of the time of writing, this solution empowers you to present data through five different types of charts. These types include bar, column, line, pie, and scatter charts. Take a look at the default look and feel of these charts over some fictional data.
| Bar Chart (download) |
| Column Chart (download) |
| Line Chart (download) |
| Pie Chart (download) |
| Scatter Chart (download) |
As you can see, the Chart control can vividly display data in five traditional ways. If there is another way you want to show your data, don’t worry. The Chart control provides an extensible control model that can be leveraged by the community (including you and me). Because of this, it won’t be long before the most highly requested charting features are added. For instance, you may want a pyramid chart, which is not currently available. You, me, or someone else can contribute to the Chart control through CodePlex. Because of this, I would recommend subscribing to the Silverlight Toolkit’s project updates.
Hopefully this post primes your interest in adding the Chart control to your Silverlight applications. You can learn the details of building applications with Silverlight 2 in Silverlight 2 in Action (free content, review 1, review 2, review 3, review 4 [and yes, I’m using this series as a way to promote this book 
]). If you like this series, I hope that you will share it with others by either blogging or twittering about it.
