Silverlight Toolkit, Where do you put the binaries

Question

So you download the toolkit off Codeplex. Now what? Where do you prefer to place the binaries?

I'm particularly interested in what you do with the design binaries, where in your systems folders do you place these? Do you add them to the GAC?

Answer 1

This question definitely targets the original release(s) of the Silverlight Toolkit. The March 2009, July 2009, and all future releases have this improved experience, so you won't need to copy the binaries into your project directories.

Starting earlier this year, we've updated the Silverlight Toolkit to have an MSI-based installer for Windows that does a number of tasks, including

• Create a set of folders under the Silverlight SDK, to contain the toolkit
• Create a Start Menu group with links to documentation, online forums, a getting started guide, and the source code
• Register the Silverlight Toolkit's controls with Visual Studio's toolbox and Expression Blend's control library

• Register the binaries as extensions, so that you can include a simple reference inside your projects

  <Reference Include="System.Windows.Controls.Input.Toolkit" />
  

Answer 2

I'd just put them somewhere convenient, then add references to them in my projects, using Browse in the Add Reference dialog. I'd certainly not put them in the GAC.

Answer 3

Download and install the toolkit.

With every different solution you have, create folders "Foreign/[Name]" ("Foreign/Silverlight Toolkit" in this case) in your root solution directory. Copy the required dll-s there and then reference them from the project in question.

If you want to modify the toolkit, then you can add part of the source code as a project to your solution, and reference that in the other projects that use it.

Adding the modified toolkit to a separate solution might be a good idea for easier reuse.

Answer 4

Adding Silverlight to the GAC

The solution turned out to be quite straight-forward. Hope this helps.