Expression Blend lies at the heart of Microsoft’s mission to make application development richer and more efficient. It’s where you design the user interface, and Microsoft’s presentational markup language, XAML, is central to this. Show
Blend is the one Studio application where XAML code can be edited directly, complete with full coding support, and support for this has been enhanced in this version: Blend 2’s new Split view makes editing much easier than before, allowing you to see the effect of your changes as you work. Despite the direct coding capabilities, most designers will still work mainly in Blend’s visual Design window. This is where you can add graphical elements to give your interface an individual look and feel. Blend’s drawing toolset is unchanged but new features such as Ctrl-drag copying, improved handling of multiple objects and updatable brush resources all make life easier, as does the ability to directly drag and drop external media files into your project. The integration with Studio 2’s Expression Design is even tighter thanks to improved handling of XAML containing embedded bitmaps. Once added, you can quickly bring your elements to life. Blend 2 adds new support for vertex-level animation and, as this also applies to the points that define clipping paths, you can now animate the shape of masks. A new graphical spline editor allows you to manage easing behaviour for keyframes – a capability that is essential for creating smooth results. Top-level handling of animations is also improved through a new storyboard picker with shortcuts for deleting, renaming, reversing and managing repeats. The look and feel of your interface is important but secondary to its functionality and interactivity. This is managed in Expression Blend through controls – layout containers, text boxes, forms elements and so on – that are dragged and dropped onto a design. There’s no change in what’s on offer here, but you can now group elements, allowing you to create your own custom controls for re-use in current and future projects. There’s also a significant change to the handling of text-based controls with the ability to embed fonts with various subsetting options to improve efficiency. Once you’ve created your interface, you need to tie your XAML controls to code-behind files to ensure that your application doesn’t just look good but actually does something. During set-up, projects in Expression Blend 2 can be targeted at either C# or Visual Basic and now at either the .NET Framework 3.0 or 3.5 to provide Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) functionality (this is built in to Vista and available as a download for XP). New projects in Expression Blend are now treated as “solutions” and you can now add multiple projects to the same solution and save copies as you work. Each solution is compatible with Visual Studio and it’s here that the code-behind logic needs to be added and the solution compiled to final EXE for deployment. This deep integration with Visual Studio is Blend’s biggest strength but the fact that Blend 2 still hasn’t added its own coding and deployment capabilities means that it’s not a complete solution for desktop development. You have to buy Expression Studio suite for that which includes a copy of Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition to fill the gap. However, Expression Blend 2 can now act as a standalone solution for producing an entirely new type of application. When you first set up your project you can now choose to create either a WPF-based desktop application or a Silverlight-based web application. Silverlight offers a subset of WPF functionality via a cross-platform browser add-on, in much the same way as the ubiquitous Flash player. This enables Blend 2 to move beyond Windows-only desktop EXEs to universal browser-hosted Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). DetailsSoftware subcategory Developer tools Operating system supportOperating system Windows Vista supported? yesOperating system Windows XP supported? yesOperating system Linux supported? noOperating system Mac OS X supported? no Disclaimer: Some pages on this site may include an affiliate link. This does not effect our editorial in any way. I was recently asked by Packt Publishing to review another of their books. This time it was Blend for Visual Studio 2012 by Example, a book by Abhishek Shukla (@abbeyshukla), apparently, the first book on Blend for Visual Studio, even if it still covers Visual Studio 2012, most of it will apply to 2013 as well. My interest in Blend came from the fact that I recently had to work with Silverlight, and Blend is, of course, one of the must-have tools. This book is for beginners on Blend, and it covers a number of technologies around XAML:
Each chapter starts by explaining some concept and then goes on to a sample application that demonstrates it. Chapter 1 - Getting Started with BlendSo, the first chapter is just an introduction on what Blend is used for, how to get it and install it, the Blend IDE, etc. We are guided through a sample (and simple) application built in Silverlight. I'd say it's a decent start. Chapter 2 - Layout PanelsThe second chapter talks about one of the fundamental building blocks in any graphical application: the layout components. We are presented the five basic layout panels existing in WPF (Grid, Canvas, Stack Panel, Wrap Panel and Dock Panel) and given one example of its usage (except Wrap Panel and Dock Panel). Others, like Border, Popup, Scroll Viewer, Uniform Grid and View Box are also just succinctly described. Chapter 3 - Working with XAMLThis one is about the Extensible Markup Language (XAML), the glue that brings together WPF, Silverlight, Windows Phone and Windows Store apps. We are taught about namespaces and custom registrations, the XAML syntax, and how XAML relates to C#. We also learn about styles, a very important concept. Chapter 4 - Styles and TemplatesIn this chapter, we have more styles and also templates and resources, three concepts closely intermingled. We learn about the several levels on which resources can be declared and the difference between static and dynamic resource references. Then, style definitions, targeting and inheritance and how to use resource dictionaries to skin our applications. Templates come next, in its two major flavors (control and data). We see how we can edit the templates of existing controls Chapter 5 - Behaviors and States in BlendThis time its all about adding interactivity to applications, through behaviors and visual states. We learn about Blend's own behavior library, that can be used for both WPF and Silverlight, and get to create a sample animation. Next come visual states, the default XAML mechanism that is supported natively by both Silverlight and XAML, and we also learn how to do a similar animation effect. Chapter 6 - Understanding Animation and StoryboardsIn chapter 6 we go more deeply into animations using the IDE's powerful storyboard tools. We learn how to record, edit and play an animation built exclusively using these tools and how it gets translated to XAML. Chapter 7 - Understanding DatabindingAnother of the major concepts in XAML is databinding, the subject for this next chapter. We are taught about dependency and attached properties, databinding modes and directions, how to load data from either XML files or our own classes and to bind it to controls. One thing that I think should be here is value converters. Chapter 8 - Vector GraphicsThis chapter talks about the graphic shapes of XAML. We learn how to import existing vector files into XAML and how to create custom shapes. Chapter 9 - User Controls and Custom ControlsAnother hot topic is reusable controls, of the two basic types: user controls and custom controls. We learn about the difference between the two, what they are used for, and create one sample of each. Chapter 10 - Creating Windows Phone AppsThis chapter is totally dedicated to building Windows Phone 8 apps. It explains the different types of projects, device sizes and resolutions and introduces the Windows Phone Emulator. Then it talks about the requirements that need to be met in order to submit an app to the Windows Store, and how can we test its compliance. Note that only the user interface is covered, not more advanced features of Windows Phone, like sensors, etc. Chapter 11 - Creating Windows 8 Store AppsThe final chapter is about building Windows Store Apps. We learn about the different kinds of apps available, how to certify and submit our app to the store. ConclusionLike I said, it is a book for beginners, without any knowledge of XAML, and from this perspective, I think it does a decent job. It wouldn't be possible to cover everything , but some important topics received a fair treatment. What is Blend for Visual Studio Code?Microsoft Blend for Visual Studio (formerly Microsoft Expression Blend) is a user interface design tool developed and sold by Microsoft for creating graphical interfaces for web and desktop applications that blend the features of these two types of applications. Is Blend for Visual Studio the same as Visual Studio?It provides the same basic XAML design experience as Visual Studio and adds visual designers for advanced tasks such as animations and behaviors. For a comparison between Blend and Visual Studio, see Design XAML in Visual Studio and Blend for Visual Studio. Blend for Visual Studio is a component of Visual Studio. How do you code review in Visual Studio?Simply right click somewhere in the opened file and choose the option "Code Review: Add Note". You will be prompted for your note you want to add. A file code-review. csv will be created containing your comments and the file and line references. What is the code review plugin for VS Code?Our code review plugin helps you to create review requests and respond to them without leaving Visual Studio. Review Assistant supports Azure DevOps, TFS, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, and Perforce. Simple setup: up and running in 5 minutes. Review Assistant is free of charge for 1 project with up to 3 participants. |
