Open an existing Silverlight 2 project

You can open a Silverlight 2 project in Microsoft Expression Blend 2 with Service Pack 1 installed, whether the project was created in Expression Blend or in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 with the Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 installed.

To open a Silverlight 2 project

1. On the File menu, point to Open, and then click Project/Solution (CTRL+SHIFT+O).

   Note

   The Site option on the Open menu is for Silverlight 1 projects only.

2. In the Open Project dialog box, browse to the folder where your project is saved, and then double-click the solution file (.sln).

   The Silverlight 2 project opens for editing and displays the startup page on the artboard.

   Tip

   You can also open a project by double-clicking the project file (.csproj or .vbproj).

To open a Silverlight 2 project that was created by Visual Studio 2008

1. On the File menu, point to Open, and then click Project/Solution (CTRL+SHIFT+O).

2. In the Open Project dialog box, browse to the folder where your Visual Studio 2008 project is saved, and then double-click the solution file (.sln).

   The Silverlight 2 project opens for editing.

   • If the Visual Studio 2008 project was created by using the Dynamically generate an HTML test page to host Silverlight within this project option, the startup page appears on the artboard.

     The file structure of the Visual Studio 2008 project is the same as the file structure of an Expression Blend project, except that when you build the project, the test page in the Bin/Debug folder is named TestPage.html instead of Default.html.

   • If the Visual Studio 2008 project was created by using the Add a new Web to the solution for hosting the control option, the solution includes a website project and the Silverlight 2 control project.

     If the Silverlight 2 control project is the startup project for the solution, the startup page appears on the artboard.

     If the website project is the startup project, no page appears on the artboard. You can open your content page for editing by double-clicking the name of the file (typically Page.xaml) under Files in the Project panel.

     Important

     If you build and test your project (F5), you will not see the content of your application unless the ProjectNameTestPage.aspx or ProjectNameTestPage.html file is set as the starting web file. In Expression Blend, right-click one of these files in the website project, and then click Startup. Testing your project (F5) will then display your content. This is a temporary change that you will have to do every time you open your project in Expression Blend unless the Silverlight 2 control project is made the startup project for the solution. To change the startup project, open the solution in Visual Studio 2008, right-click the name of the Silverlight 2 control project in Solution Explorer, and then click Set as StartUp Project.

To open a Silverlight 2 project in Visual Studio 2008

1. If you have not installed the Silverlight tools for developers, you will not be able to create or modify Silverlight 2 projects in Visual Studio 2008. Install the tools from Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008.

2. Open Visual Studio 2008.

3. On the File menu, point to Open, and then click Project/Solution (CTRL+SHIFT+O).

4. In the Open Project dialog box, browse to the folder where your project is saved, and then double-click the solution file (.sln).

To close an open project in Expression Blend

• On the File menu, click Close Solution (CTRL+SHIFT+C).

See also

Concepts

Open a Silverlight 1.0 project

Install the Silverlight 2 tools and runtime