Microsoft delivers Windows Phone Mango toolkit for Silverlight developers

With just a few days left before Windows Phone developers can submit their "Mango" applications for inclusion in the Windows Phone Marketplace, Microsoft is making a new toolkit for Silverlight coders available.

Microsoft made available for download the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit add-on for the Windows Phone 7.1 SDK (software development kit) on August 17. The Mango 7.1 SDK is currently in beta, with a Release Candidate due in "late August," according to the Softies.

In a new post on the Windows Phone developer blog, Microsoft officials said the toolkit will include user interface controls with components like toggle switches, page transitions, picker controls and more. Microsoft also has localized the toolkit into all the languages which will be supported by Mango.

Microsoft officials said recently that the Windows Phone Marketplace will be open for Mango application submissions on August 22. Earlier this week, Microsoft officials provided more guidance about how developers should think about transitioning their Windows Phone apps for Mango.

Microsoft and its OEM partners are expected to begin rolling out new Windows Phone 7.5 handsets preloaded with Mango (Windows Phone OS 7.1) this fall.

Mango adds a number of new features to the Windows Phone operating system, including third-party multitasking, Twitter integration, new Bing audio and visual search capabilities and more.

I've been running the near-final 7712 build for a few weeks now and have found it to be a solid and useful release. The final RTM build of Mango is 7720. The RTM bits leaked this past weekend, but anyone who can't roll back to the current NoDo operating system release should avoid the leaked bits.