Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 goes live, just in time

Just making an "end of week" deadline, Microsoft has kept its promise and has released Beta 2 of its graphical Web application development engine.

Our FileForum has the most recent link to Beta 2, which went live at about 1:45 pm EDT this afternoon. But as of 3:15 pm, Microsoft's Silverlight Web sites and silverlight.net had still not yet been updated. The company's download page continues to point to version 2.0 Beta 1.

In fact, as it stands at this moment, Microsoft is advising users to download Beta 1 as though it were a full upgrade. Though they're difficult to find, the Silverlight Showcase has added a few samples of services built with 2.0 Beta 1, including a site called Shidonni that invites kids to draw pictures that can be used as cels in a free-form animation.

And though Microsoft's hyperlinks to third-party developers was malfunctioning this morning (we're not sure whether this is due to the Silverlight beta or just a site problem), we located the new demo page for Telerik's RadControls, which are graphic objects originally created for ASP.NET AJAX and given some extra polish for Silverlight 2.

Telerik's demo shows some awesome 3D framing functionality, including how the demo windows flip-flop into view. However, we did note we had an easier time tinkering with the demo in Internet Explorer 7 than in Firefox 3.0 RC2, which did crash once four times. The toolset provider's controls -- such as combo boxes, list boxes, and spreadsheet tables -- are designed to be integrated into Web application software, using Microsoft's XAML interface description language or using C#. They're purchased in a complete package for a subscription fee of $999 per developer, but then can be deployed anywhere royalty-free.