This post is part of a string of posts found here: Learn Blend in a Month.

Silverlight ships with lots of built in controls ready for use with default skins applied. All of these controls are skinable following similar steps found here with the ‘Button’ control.

To access the full list of controls available to you in Blend access the last icon in the main tool bar called ‘Assets‘. This will open up a list of available assets of which one group is labled ‘Controls‘, open up this drop down to see the full list of available controls.

With Blend 3 and the Silverlight SDK installed I have a list of over 100 controls to look through. Here is a list of ten useful controls I have picked out, ideal for beginner users:

CheckBox - Works like standard check boxes

ComboBox - A drop down selection box

DatePicker - A drop down date picker box

HyperlinkButton - A button linking to a web url

ListBox - A scrollable list

RadioButton - Works like standard radio buttons

Rating - 5 Star rating

ScrollViewer - Area to display content within a scrollable area

Slider - A dragable thumb on a linear scale

ToggleButton - An on / off button

To access even more controls go visit the Expression Gallery and CodePlex to see whats available.