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The team blog from the Expression Blend and Design products.
We released important news today around the Expression category of products. Please visit the Expression Community site for details.
If you've watched the BUILD keynotes and sessions, you might have seen some exciting reasons for Expression Blends support for Metro-style applications.
For all future news and updates concerning Expression Blend, please go to our new team blog called BlendInsider. The BlendInsider blog can provide the types of content you found hereand hopefully a lot more!
This blog is going to be kept around for archival purposes, but no new content are going to be added.
As imaginable, soon after a major release like there were, most people shift our focus slightly towards speaking about and sharing using some on the cool the latest features we released. In this firstly a two-part series, I hope to produce up for that long period of inactivity about this blog by sharing two Windows Phone focused videos that Unni, Billy, and I recorded for Channel 9.
The first video for this list is a that walks you through, with a breakneck speed, most from the new features we included in Expression Blend to help with making building Windows Phone 7 apps easier:
Through the guise to build a Bing Search application, I cover features including our Device Panel to Application Bar support to earning Sample Data coming from a Class file. You can learn more about these functions by taking a look at some of my more in-depth Windows Phone 7-focused articles.
The templates they created cover a variety of common UIs that you see, so you may use these directly is likely to projects or just as a method to obtain inspiration. Before you can go of that, needless to say, download the templates from codeplex first.
As always, if you might have any questions, go ahead and comment below. If you recorded some interesting videos, post them from the comments also.
Today, we've released the ultimate version from the Windows Phone Developer Tools. You can download it below:First, download solutions below:
This installer will automatically install free, phone-flavored versions of Expression Blend, Visual Studio 2010, and XNA Game Studio.
If you already possess Expression Blend 4 installed, unlike earlier releases, running this installer will remodel your existing version of Expression Blend 4 and provide you with the chance to create Silverlight, WPF, and Windows Phone applications:
Thanks to everyone who's got provided feedback within the last few number of releases to assist us are able to this stage. As always, if you might have any additional feedback, you can post them within the Windows Phone Developer Forums.
Its been a little while since we released an update for all of us working on Windows Phone 7 projects! Well, wait no longer! Today weve released an latest version of Expression Blend that supports all with the latest changes designed to the Windows Phone 7 runtime together with some cool extra features.
First, download programs below:
As you will see, you don't need to download and install Expression Blend separately. You can just run misused Windows Phone Developer Tools installer and find Windows Phone variants of Expression Blend, XNA Game Studio, and Visual Studio at no cost.
This version of Expression Blend installs and runs side-by-side with Expression Blend 4 and simply supports working together with Windows Phone projects.
As mentioned earlier, beyond supporting the changes designed to the runtime considering that the last release, weve added lots of new functionality which enables designing Windows Phone 7 applications easier. Some on the more notable features are described below.
Because your applications can be seen in different orientations, themes, and accent colors, weve made it easier for someone to visualize within Expression Blend what you would seem like.
The Device Panel now offers you easy access to preview between Landscape and Portrait orientations, Light and Dark themes, and Accent color.
For example, listed here is a preview of what the job looks like from the default Dark theme:
This allows that you design make certain that your applications look how we want no matter which light/dark mode the person has their phone in.
Windows Phone 7 applications emphasize consistent using text as being a key design element. To make it easier for you to definitely preview and apply existing text styles, weve added the cabability to preview inline exactly what a particular text style would appear to be:
In this release, we now have exposed an incredibly early preview of our own support for allowing one to design the Application Bar. You have a chance to create an Application Bar, add Application Bar Buttons, and add Application Bar Menu Items. Because Application Bar Buttons display a 48x48 PNG icon, it is possible to specify your own personal icon or pick from your collection of icons we now have provided to suit your needs:
A future writing will check out in greater detail the way you use what you've got today to design an effective Application Bar!
Because Windows Phone applications are incredibly page centric, we decided for making navigating between pages easy. To navigate from a single page to an alternative, we exposed a Navigate To context menu:
This menu could be accessed after you right visit any element which you wish to start the navigation when clicked.
We have revised the FluidMoveBehavior to become on par with all the improvements we manufactured for Silverlight 4 4. You can learn more as to what this means by reading Kenny Youngs blog post about this topic.
Unlike Silverlight and WPF certainly where an full keyboard for input is nearly always guaranteed, Windows Phone users might possibly not have that luxury when focusing on their phones. While a on-screen keyboard is obtainable, in the size in the screen, getting the full keyboard with all on the keys appear on-screen will not be ideal for many situations either. It may be necessary to users should the keys displayed were optimized with the type of information they might be entering as well particular moment.
To address that requirement, we improved our support for your InputScope property on TextBox that allows someone to specify which kind of data are going to be entered:
For example, if Number was selected for that InputScope using a TextBox, here's what the on-screen keyboard seems like when you give attention to it about the emulator/device:
Notice which you are not seeing the original full keyboard. Instead, you're seeing a keyboard optimized exclusively for numerical input.
As always, if you've any questions or feedback, please twenty-four hours a day comment below or post on our forums.
A couple of weeks ago, several Expression Blend associates presented in the TechEd conference stuck New Orleans in 2010!
You can search all in the sessions to the information.
Creating healthy looking and functioning applications is hard. It requires creating a good eye for design, almost all requires some technical understanding of how for making the design functional.
As it is possible to probably guess, it truly is our goal to aid you use Expression Blend, Visual Studio, and our related tools to produce those great applications. We spend a substantial amount of time adding additional features and making existing features better to aid you do exactly that. Making improvements towards the applications is just one side of how we try that can help you create great applications, however.
The opposite side involves assisting you to better learn how to actually create great applications, therefore we try healthy to provide some valuable training resources. Some notable shoutouts include along with the Expression Community sites. While considering videos or reading tutorials pays to, we planned to go further plus provide you using a library of xamlcode samples that showcase something small, something specific, something cool. We felt that, most of the time, simply being competent to deconstruct how something was done might be equally or maybe more useful in working out do something.
This library of xamlcode snippets, known better by its family and friends as the Pattern Library, lives as a possible extension for the Expression Gallery:
You can learn more around the Pattern Library by reading Lars Powers newsletter article introducing it.
Please twenty-four hours a day download and have fun with the patterns. If there is something you're feeling is missing, please feel to allow us know or perhaps create it yourself and upload it.
Today at Internet Week in NYC, we announced the available appointments of Expression Studio 4. You can download the trial of Expression Studio 4 Ultimate that has Expression Blend 4 and SketchFlow by clicking below:
Keep watching this web site for more news, updates, and in-depth talks about some on the new features that weve introduced. Until then, here are several related links:
Note that if that you are currently doing Windows Phone development, remember to not upgrade to one more version of Expression Blend 4 yet. We will release an new version of all individuals phone components inside future, so please carry on using Expression Blend 4 RC.
Of course, no major release could be possible devoid of the feedback all of you could have provided, so appreciate it!
While the PathListBox control has an easy way to formulate items along a path, developing a carousel control that appears 3 dimensional and contains smooth scrolling requires additional functionality that individuals did not have time and energy to do in Expression Blend 4. Ive come up with PathListBoxUtils sample on CodePlex to supply the tools that make making a carousel such as one shown below quite simple:
Visit the Carousel tutorial to find out how to generate this example, and you may view all PathListBoxUtils-related tutorials here.
Its been a bit since the last article where I promised to write down about all in the behaviors that ship with Expression Blend in greater detail. Ill try for being more prompt within the future. Today, lets look on the ControlStoryboardAction along with the StoryboardCompletedTrigger.
Storyboards are one on the primary ways you create animations in Silverlight, WPF, and Windows Phone using Expression Blend. Creating a storyboard is reasonably easy, truly using a storyboard for example having it play just isn't. To help with this particular, you've got the ControlStoryboardAction.
Simply put, the ControlStoryboardAction is surely an Action that allows one to select a storyboard and specify whatever you would like to complete to it:
Lets have a look at some on the properties it has in greater detail.
When you are looking at this behavior, you will discover only two properties which you need to bother about. They are the ControlStoryboardOption and Storyboard properties.
From here you are able to choose whether you wish to play a storyboard, stop it, toggle between play/pause, pause, resume, or jump to your end.
The only missing piece up to now is knowing which storyboard to affect. Not to worry, simply because you specify the storyboard while using the aptly named Storyboard property:
This property are listed all on the Storyboards your behavior has access to. Once you could have selected a Storyboard, you happen to be done!
This trigger invokes an Action whenever a specified storyboard set through Storyboard property has fully be completion. Of course, because it can be a trigger, you'll be able to use it with any Action.
In Expression Blend 4, one in the new samples we added is named MockupDemonstration. If you havent stood a chance to make use of it yet, it is possible to open MockupDemonstration on the Welcome screen, and that is available if you first start Expression Blend or if you click Help and click Welcome Screen. In the Welcome screen, click Samples, after which click MockupDemonstration:
As it is possible to tell quickly from exploring this sample, this sample posesses a handful of controls designed to aid you create prototypes easily. The catch is these controls only exist within this particular sample. Since some of you might have requested that it could be useful to get these controls available outside from the sample, this writing will explain how for making these mockup controls accessible in other projects.
To enable mockup controls for virtually any SketchFlow project, copy the mockup controls run-time and design-time assemblies in the MockupDemonstration sample for the pre-configured Libraries folder following the steps below:
1. Copy both and Design folder from:
for WPF projects, follow this task but copy files from Libraries Debug
2. Add copied files on the following destination:
Computer OS C: Program Filesx86 Microsoft Expression Blend 4 Libraries Silverlight 4.0
for WPF paste the copied files in the NETFramework folder from the previous critical for Libraries 4.0
3. Restart Blend. You can now begin to use mockup controls by clicking the Mockups category within the Assets panel the right assembly reference is automatically combined with your project.
If you might have any questions or comments, please you can post below or on our forums.
At MIX, we released an earlier preview individuals support for building applications for Windows Phone 7 that only ran over a pre-release version of Framework.
If you could have been suppressing on upgrading for the latest versions of Expression Blend, Visual Studio, 4, wait get rid of! Today, we in addition to the Windows Phone team are releasing an update towards the components we released recently to work on the last version Framework 4.
Besides the RC posted above, you will want the following components installed for developing Windows Phone apps:
Besides support 4, there are some general improvements towards the overall design experience, emulator updates, and breaking API changes. You can get a broader overview about the Windows Phone Developer blog.
As always, we enjoy hear from you. Please twenty-four hours a day comment below or use our forums here.
As the vast majority of you know, yesterday we released the making candidate version of Expression Blend 4. Shortly after the majority of you were built with a chance to use it, several of you reported that Expression Blend crashes during launch.
If that you are one of the people whose Expression Blend crashes after launch, please download this minor revision on the release candidate we released the other day:
If you arent having any problems launching Blend, you don't need to upgrade. There are no latest features or changes besides some changes to produce sure Expression Blend runs properly on launch.
We were competent to detect this matter thanks largely over the error reports those of you with this particular crash submitted. We constantly experience all in the crash reports we receive, and that we try to fix as most of them as you can.
While hopefully you like you never should experience crashes from running Expression Blend, should you experience this brief, remember to submit whole body reports!
Recently, a final versions of both Silverlight 4 4 have already been released! To coincide using this, we're also releasing a release candidate version of Expression Blend 4 that it is possible to use to focus on them:
There are two things that you simply really want to know about this release.
First, if you might be doing Windows Phone development, you shouldn't use the Expression Blend 4 RC. We will come with an update available for you soon with updated components, but from the meantime, please use Expression Blend 4 Beta.
Second, this launch of Expression Blend 4 targets the last versions of Silverlight 4 4, it is possible to share your creations with all the rest in the world. You no longer are restricted to only sharing your creations in source code form and private testing.
If you havent stood a chance to browse the sessions from MIX10 that showcased Expression Blend 4, the hyperlinks below should allow you to out:
Authoring for Windows Phone, Silverlight 4 and WPF 4 with Expression Blend
This post only focuses within the sessions from MIX which might be Expression Blend specific. By now, all from the sessions from MIX needs to be available online, so head over towards the MIX Sessions page to examine more: /Sessions
Click here to see Kennys MIX 2010 session that covers a lot in the topics that you just see in this article.
In Expression Blend, weve been thinking for just a loooong time about how to create it ever easier to produce great animated visual effects quickly on top from the Silverlight and WPF runtimes. Weve been taking a look at large-scale animation needs since Blend 2 SP1 and steadily building features to deal with those needs, therefore we think weve reached critical mass. With Blend 4, we've got a compelling pair of technologies that actually work very well together.
This writing is a companion to your Dynamic Layout and Transitions demo app that weve placed within the Expression Gallery at /en-us/DynamicLayoutTrans. That app showcases the features whose motivations are described here.
Since its inception, Blend has offered keyframed editing of Silverlight and WPF properties via Storyboards. While I wont begin specific precisely that here, it forms the cornerstone for all you will described below. Some of strikes work completely from Storyboards you create while others create Storyboards behind the scenes in your stead and sometimes both.
Lets begin with turning contributions back 24 months. In Expression Blend 2 SP1, we introduced the States Panel, which edits VisualStates and VisualStateGroups for Silverlight 2 and WPF 3.5 together with the WPF Toolkit. This introduced the notion of the state to be a means of communication between visuals and code, making it it dramatically much easier to describe a pair of visual changes. Based on input, the control code could decide when you enter what state, as well as the visuals would decide what changes were found in that state plus the time it latched onto transition between any couple of states you may choose most state changes to adopt 0.25s, but want Pressed state changes for being instantaneous.
This proved to be an incredibly effective tool, but it really had limitations. The core VisualStateManager runtime which well call VSM down the road could only do linear interpolations on the values being set. This is very rewarding for opacity and transform offsets, but doesnt work nicely for discrete properties or data that isnt known until runtime. Also, don't assume all animation scenarios are impelled by state changes. So we put our thinking caps on about how precisely we could read more scenarios to be effective in a way that designers could rapidly tool the results.
In V3, we added four primary enhancements of this type. The first was EasingFunctions, which might be critical to making property animations hold the right feel. Weve got all of the classics quadratics, cubics, bounce, elastic, etc. Plus, it is possible to write your own personal EasingFunction in C or VB and put it to use to any animation you would like. This is all supported in Silverlight 3 and WPF 4. EasingFunctions could be applied for an individual animation or keyframe, and you are able to apply a default EasingFunction on your entire state transition.
The second became a GoToStateBehavior together with Blends Behaviors engine, which made it an easy task to program your entire state change logic directly within the markup without code. Like all of Blends Behaviors, you'll be able to simply drag it from your Asset Panel onto any elements you select.
Those two enhancements just made the prevailing scenarios run better. We also wanted to deal with new classes of scenario. The first one we tackled was the problem of elements planning a StackPanel or WrapPanel. Traditionally, these four elements have snapped into place for an application changes elements or changes size, and that we wanted an easy transition that users could control. So we introduced the FluidMoveBehavior to produce it simple for an element to observe the layout manager whenever it chosen a new spot, and lessen its progress through an animation controlled by some of those EasingFunctions we described earlier. So now its an easy task to have your elements animate into place at the speed you end up picking!
Heres a picture from the feature in working order. Theres forget about room within the first line to the purple rectangle, so its moving to your beginning on the second row and also the other elements are moving to produce space. Technically, at a layout perspective, the sun and rain in motion are at their destinations already but by adding the proper transforms ahead, we increase the risk for change look smooth through the visual perspective that users love.
The fourth enhancement we made was by far the most challenging for many people. We pointed out that many times, customers wanted different states of their control to possess different layouts entirely, yet still respond to active layout changes within the application. For example, one layout will often have a pair of task panes visible away from working area, and another may have one or more of such panes hidden. Customers planned to describe these different layouts with states to have a good separation between their visuals and business logic, nevertheless the properties that was required to change between these states werent properties that is certainly smoothly interpolated. For example, how can you interpolate between and?
What we learned was that in the event like these, users werent satisfied with all the direct property animations that the system after they just wanted it to appear right, and so that it is look right required that any of us animate a morph in the change as opposed to the change itself. So we wrote an electric train engine that would have a layout snapshot ahead of the state change, take another layout snapshot following your state change, and create an easy morph involving the start and end positions, employing the duration and EasingFunction in the users choosing. We dubbed this FluidLayout, and you'll be able to turn it on here:
Just click that little button, and your entire layout modifications in that VisualStateGroup are going to be animated between states even if it seems impossible. Well even simulate a Visibility change by way of an opacity simulation. Note that youll acquire more success should you click this before starting making layout changes otherwise, if you move a thing, itll create translate/scale animations which don't respect layout, because thats the most beneficial that the conventional VSM are able to do.
Its hard to try and do justice to this particular feature in an image, but heres my best attempt. In this situation, the Timeline Pane is within the process of shrinking for the leftmost column, which I configured by changing the Panes property within a state. Similarly, I changed the RowSpan with the pink rectangle, and it is within the process of accelerating taller like a result.
In Blend 4, weve managed for taking these themes further, and possess three more toys for designers to spend playtime with. Lets start with animating things in and out of lists. In V3, you may apply a FluidMoveBehavior for your ListBox, and also the other items would dutifully make room to your new item or up close the space. But there wasnt any easy way to effectively control the product that was itself being added or removed; in the event you were clever, you can rig up some events for making an element animate on entry, and also you had being really really clever and pollute important computer data model in unfortunate ways to produce an element animate on exit. We worked closely with all the Silverlight team to make a solution here that you are able to tool effectively, as well as called LayoutStates. To find them, first edit the ItemContainerStyle:
And then, note these three new VisualStates within the States Panel:
You will use these states to model what an element appears like just before its loaded, what it appears to be after its been loaded, and what it seems like just before its unloaded. Silverlight will animate their state changes for you on the appropriate times, when your items are included in or removed from your list. Remember to include a FluidMoveBehavior towards the ItemsPanel template note its presence inside the Edit Additional Templates submenu, a few pictures above, as well as set AppliesTo Children, for getting the elements to move out with the way. Note if your ItemsPanel is often a VirtualizingStackPanel, your ListBox really should have set to Standard, otherwise you should learn one with the other new tricks below.
Heres among this for action the middle item is merely entering a list.
The next feature we added is another from the vein of simulation. In V3, we added FluidLayout to VSM so that you can get an easy and realistic morph between two states, but it really got us to thinking in regards to the other sorts of morphs we might perform. Enter TransitionEffects. Whereas transition effects in video editing offer a pixel-based transition in one video clip to a different, Blends TransitionEffects give a pixel-based transition from state to a different. In Blend, a TransitionEffect is really a PixelShader that's an animatable Progress property. We are shipping several of such in our SDK, and if you understand HLSL you are able to write your own personal. Heres how you will set one up:
As configured here, all state changes from the LayoutStates group will work a Smooth Swirl Grid pixel-based TransitionEffect, taking one second is actually a cubic ease. You can naturally set some other transition for virtually any individual state change if desired. Some in the TransitionEffects have properties to help customize them; as an example, Smooth Swirl Grid enables you to control the quality of subdivision and also the intensity from the twisting effect, but those properties are within the combo dropdown inside the picture. Heres a screenshot of the TransitionEffect doing his thing:
The final feature we added can be something that weve been wanting to wrap our minds around for five-years. Weve remarked that in plenty of applications, visuals will move from a single part with the application to an alternative even though the visuals will often be generated from data. In a true MVVM design the location where the data model should be aware of nothing regarding the visuals, its extremely difficult to get most of these effects.
What weve done is train the visuals to learn more concerning the data model specifically, to coach FluidMoveBehavior to associate positions with data as opposed to with visuals. This wants a little bit of explanation, but is remarkably all to easy to use you are able to create an animated list-detail example completely from scratch in about two minutes.
What we wish is for your large chair inside details view to seem to grow out in the small chair within the master list. All we now have to do is locate the Image element within the ItemTemplate for that ListBox, and present it a FluidMoveTagSetBehavior that could register it while using FluidMove system. That seems like this:
Note how the Tag property signifies that element is going to be tagged based on its DataContext, which can be the model item behind the visuals. Next, theres a FluidMoveBehavior about the detail Image, which seems like this:
The other half from the connection is made together with the InitialTag field that's set to DataContext. This means that once the detail element appears, it's going to consider the registered position of their DataContext for being the place it can appear to originated from. And thats the slide! Heres a screenshot of the app for doing things; observe that in this case I set the FluidMoveBehavior about the entire Grid, so that this details would animate in conjunction with the image.
Theres so much happening behind the scenes, but weve was able to boil this complex scenario to two simple properties. This system can be used to animate objects in one list to a new list.
If I had included all of our own future investigations in this region, this short article would be two times as long as it truly is already. Were working hard to treat more and more scenarios within the simplest ways possible. Rest assured that you will be hearing about much more improvements someday within the not too distant future!
If you've got any opinions or feedback, please do comment below.
Architect, Expression Blend
As many of you recognize, today was day one of MIX - Microsofts annual conference for designers and developers. Just like previous years, there has been lots of great news coming out with the conference.
The two big things we announced are Expression Blend 4 Beta as well as an add-in to Expression Blend that offers you a chance to build applications for your Windows Phone.
Christian Schormann features a nice breakdown of Expression Blend 4 and the additional features in it, so if you need to learn more, go read his post.
Of course, there are going to be plenty of posts inside upcoming days and weeks that dive into detail of what weve released and announced today, so keep tuned in.
Over your next couple of weeks, it seems like like best if you go over some from the behaviors we shipped as being a part of Expression Blend 3. Many of you might have mentioned that you simply would love to learn more concerning the stock behaviors we ship and the way they are used, which means this blog are going to be a good interim solution with the until we properly incorperate your feedback into our future product documentation.
First on our list is but one of the best behaviors we shipped, the GoToStateAction!
As you realize, you could have the capability to define and modify your own personal visual states with your applications:
Having a visual state is part with the items needs to become done. The other part will be being in a position to switch for the visual state with the appropriate time. For predefined visual states that you simply find inside your controls, the mechanism for switching states is made in. For visual states you create on your own personal, you will have to deliver the logic for switching the visual states yourself.
That is the place where this behavior also comes in. The GoToStateAction allows one to easily switch visual states given the ideal event using just your Properties Inspector. The following screenshot teaches you the standard behaviors UI customized together with the properties exposed by GoToStateAction:
Lets look at many of these properties in greater detail.
Like I mentioned earlier, this behavior primary functionality is based on allowing you to definitely change the visual state. How it does could possibly want some further inspection, so lets look with the various properties in depth.
The visual state is set with the StateName property. By default, you will see the many states defined as part of your root scope ie: UserControl or Window no matter where you drag/drop this behavior onto. You can change this by targeting this behavior at another element.
For example, the default target is my UserControl where I have two states defined:
If I were to another element, such like a Button which has its own states, the StateName list is populated with those states instead:
I spoke a good deal about changing the target that a states are derived from, so lets look in the TargetName property the place that the element you would like to target will be specified.
If you would like to target states living somewhere else including another Control or UserControl, you may use the TargetName property to customize the element you intend to point to. As mentioned earlier, the default value for TargetName may be the root scope like your UserControl or Window.
If you might be trying to pick out something that isnt easily selectable visually, it is possible to hit the tiny button to view a flat listing of most of your elements. That is similar to everything you see inside the Objects and Timeline panel.
You may switch states suddenly, or it is possible to smoothly transition into states. The UseTransitions property is what controls what your behavior can do. By default, the UseTransitions property is checked, but you may uncheck it in the event you want a sudden switchover in your new state.
Hopefully this helped will give you summary on the GoToStateAction and exactly how it could be used. If you might have any questions, please do comment below.
For a finite time, there can be a 30% discount on all Microsoft Expression 3 products Microsoft Expression Studio Expression Web, both full and upgrade versions from the Microsoft Online Store for US-based customers:
No promo code required by any means just go towards the store and add towards the shopping cart!
Ok, pop-quiz time. Below, you'll find two screenshots I took from two different applications:
Can you tell what exactly is different between the two images? If you said the button from the second image seems a number of pixels off on the image about the top or something similar, you happen to be wrong. The UI depicted in both with the screenshots is perhaps same. Yes, it was obviously a trick question.
While both applications look almost the identical when run, let me detail both of those applications when opened in Blend. Here is what the application form depicted in Screenshot 1 appears like:
As you may tell, there is a significant discrepancy relating to the first and second screenshot when viewed in Blend. More specifically, the other version from the application seems to get missing some UI as well as the button just isn't styled in any way.
The source with the discrepancies have to complete with what Blend actually shows within the design surface. By and large, Blend is usually a XAML editor. Anything defined in XAML, we'll do healthy to display it on our design surface. For visuals defined inside your code-behind files, may very well not always be competent to see them in Blend.
This is the spot that the differences relating to the two apps is due to. In the initial app, everything was defined in XAML. In your second app, some from the visuals were defined in XAML, but a many on the visuals just weren't. That is why Blend is merely showing an incomplete subset of what the application actually seems like when you view it for the design surface. This is often a problem.
The word problem could be a harsh word because of this, nevertheless the outcome is below ideal if you is a collaborative effort between someone technical and someone less technical. If you might be a developer, being capable to visualize code to make changes could possibly be straightforward. If you might be more design oriented, thinking about code to define the design and feel of your application is just not natural. You would prefer something that appears to be the application depicted in Screenshot 1 where things are all exposed in Blends design surface and you are able to make changes visually without writing code.
The first and obvious answer that I have is to possess you subdue the longing to add controls, define layout, or perform other visual tasks using code. The reason is the fact that, since you saw within the screenshot in the second application, Blends design surface wont be able to help you you out.
Of course, you can find many cases when such an extreme solution will not likely work. It is common for several applications to belong to a gray area where visuals are partly defined in XAML and partly defined in code. Fortunately, you can find some simple steps it is possible to take to create designers more productive while still giving developers the pliability to develop the approval.
If you've got visual content that needs being added programmatically, make certain that content is thought as UserControls. The reason is that you may define the UserControl and produce changes entirely within Blend. Programmatically, you may add this UserControl which may are actually edited inside Blend to the application without sacrificing the designability with the UserControl itself.
Create Styles in XAML, Apply them Programmatically
Sometimes, UserControls might be a bit excessive. For example, from the second screenshot, I use a button that is certainly unstyled:
Instead of creating a dedicated UserControl to wrap your styled button, you could potentially just define the design in Blend and programmatically apply the form. Lets say you've a style called GreenButtonStyle defined with your Resources panel:
To apply this style on your button, use the subsequent code:
GreenButtonStyle as Style;
This allows that you still define the design and feel of one's Button using Blend, however its application is handled entirely via code.
Hopefully this post helped supply you with some ideas on tips on how to ensure the visuals of you have the opportunity to be modified by Blend. I didnt enumerate all from the various cases, however if there can be something clever that you just do make it possible for developers and designers to operate together, please comment below.
Today at PDC, we made several announcements that can be of interest to you personally! First, Scott Guthrie announced the availability with the Silverlight 4 Beta. This version of Silverlight contains some cool additional features that many of you've asked for, so look at the Whats New document to have an summary of some with the new features.
To coincide with the making of Silverlight 4 Beta today plus the release of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 some time ago, were making a version of Expression Blend available that allows someone to work 4 and Silverlight 4 based projects.
This launch of Expression Blend successful alongside Expression Blend 3, so you are able to continue to figure on your WPF 3.5 and Silverlight 3 based projects for the same time.
When using Expression Blend, perhaps the most common task maybe you engage in is dealing with layout. Tasks I commonly associate with working together with layout involve moving things around, rearranging the transaction of elements, ensuring everything flows when resized, is going to be layout container, etc. For by far the most part, the modifications you make towards the layout of the job are pretty harmlessexcept if this involves DataContexts.
In a nutshell, data contexts allow someone to specify your data that elements can inherit and assist. Seems pretty harmless until now. Data contexts is usually set on just about anything, but because the details is inherited, data contexts will often be placed on parent elements such as being a layout container whose children will inherit your data:
What seemed harmless earlier presently has the potential to cause trouble. Because data contexts will often be placed using a layout container, and also, since data contexts primarily benefit any children listening in, you have to ensure that any layout changes you create do not cause important computer data context to get rid of. The common ways crucial computer data context can break are:
When children is inheriting data, will not reparent your child to a location the location where the data context has stopped being inheritable. This will cause your child to check for a thing that doesnt exist.
Blend makes it easy for one to ungroup children from the layout container. When you ungroup a layout container which includes a data context set about it, the info context your sons or daughters rely on will probably be lost.
Today, Blend doesn't let you know once you perform a layout operation that breaks data context. It is up to you to definitely be vigilant, and you can view which element includes a data context set onto it by taking a look at its DataContext property:
If this property isnt empty, it implies that a data context continues to be set about it. While creating a data context set must not imply that data is in fact being used, it truly is a good gauge on whether a layout operation you perform should have any pessimistic effects about the children involved.
One from the goals of Silverlights Visual State Manager technology is to permit you do a lot of control customization and not having to use Blends Timeline, nor even requiring you to know exactly what a Storyboard is! Feel free to test-drive the Silverlight Button below, and read on for the run-down of how easily it may be built.
I commenced with some vectors Paths depicting the facial skin in its normal resting state. Then I used the Tools Make Into Control command to produce the artwork in to a template applied to a actual Button. After deleting the ContentPresenter on the template, I selected the MouseOver state from the States pane, so that modifications I was about to generate to the current elements to create a face seems alert and ready will be recorded only inside the MouseOver state. I moved the head along with the features upward just a little, along with the rest from the changes involved utilizing the Direct Selection tool to relocate Path points around.
Because I wanted the Pressed state to become a variation around the MouseOver state, I used the Tools Copy State To command to scan all my changes in the Pressed State. Then, together with the Pressed state selected, I adjusted one eye and also the mouth to generate the wink.
For the Disabled state I decided I needed new graphics rather then adjusting properties from the existing graphics. So I made a simplified grayscale version from the face making that version opaque only within the Disabled state.
For transition timing, I created a volume of transitions both to and from various states and place their durations to taste.
Finally, to ensure that each Button instance can customize some aspect on the template, I used template bindings making sure that Brush colors used inside the template to draw in various pieces on the face will likely properties from the Button instance. So one example is I selected shoulders, then selected Fill from the property inspector, and after that clicked Advanced property options Template Binding Background. So now, by setting something for Background, Foreground, BorderBrush and OpacityMask, a Button instance on this style set onto it can determine the colors from the shoulders, face, hair, eyes and nose.
You can download the sample project files here.
What are this stuff are they approaches doing a similar task? When would I use one out of preference to an alternative? Do they all be employed in all project types?
This post will try and answer those questions by describing the animation and control customization tools which can be available for you in Expression Blend 3 SketchFlow, and discussing what jobs each tool is meant to accomplish. Ill be classifying project types along two independent axes: WPF or Silverlight, and Blend or SketchFlow.
In the first discharge of Blend, if you wished to change the value of your property after a while, then a Storyboard was your one option. Using a Storyboard can be known as keyframing. You create a whole new Storyboard or make a BeginStoryboardAction and allow that workflow make a Storyboard available for you, move the playhead to numerous times then use the artboard or the exact property inspector to improve values. Each time you change a price, a keyframe is combined with Blends Timeline which means, at this time, the house has that value. During the interval between keyframes, the house value smoothly assumes on intermediate values inside a process often known as interpolation. By default, the interpolation between two values is linear, meaning the additional value changes steadily after some time to form a straight gradient with a graph. And you'll be able to control interpolation between keyframes by describing an easing curve. Whether that you were changing the Y coordinate of your bouncing ball, or changing the color of an rectangle in the Button
Storyboards are accessible in all project types. Theyre just like useful today as always, plus they are worth learning understanding, because at some time youll probably must use them. They give you one of the most control over animation, but control can come in the cost of some effort.
For the work of customizing the appearance and transitions of the controls visual states, theres an alternative solution and arguably simpler mental model than utilizing a Storyboard to define the transition in to a state. The simpler mental model is that you simply draw the control in each of the company's states then, whether it is important to your account, specify how much time any with the transitions take. I say draw because thats morally what youre doing; in fact you pick a state in Blends States panel, set properties, select another state, and so forth, but youre drafting a static image of how a control looks in each state. You neednt be interested in animation, although its interesting to note which the runtime that supports this mental model that runtime is known because the Visual State Manager, or VSM in abbreviation does generate a handoff animation for every state transition. For practical purposes, drawing states and setting transition durations such as this gets the job done much with the time without needing to find out Blends Timeline with a
Of course it is possible to leverage the Visual State Manager is likely to UserControls too. This is because states can apply in the level from the individual control within the MouseOver state a Brush is really a different color also as with the level of your page or scene within the ShoppingCartOpen state an otherwise hidden panel sometimes appears. So, you may add states to one of your respective UserControls that represents a website or scene, set different properties in a variety of states, then use GoToStateActions drive an automobile state modifications to response to events.
The Visual State Manager is fully built-into Blend Silverlight projects and SketchFlow Silverlight projects. You can also use VSM in WPF projects although, even though the UserControl experience would be the same as for Siverlight, not every WPF custom controls support VSM. Ive written previously around the States panel and WPF controls.
The last tool Ill mention would be the SketchFlow Animation, and also this tool can be obtained in SketchFlow projects only, both WPF and Silverlight. A SketchFlow Animation is logically a storyboard within the true sense with the word: a sequence of frames that tells an account. When youre constructing a prototype, you dont would like to implement an element fully as a way to demonstrate it. Playing back a scripted example in the interaction you could have in mind has the job done for the prototyping stage. So if you intend to show off how we imagine you will reorganize and animate reacting to an individual dragging a program into the shopping cart application, you can create a brand new SketchFlow animation then draw several frames showing how a product gets dragged between containers and how design of those containers responds, as well as specify the easing between frames.
For people who like to learn how things work underneath the hood, a SketchFlow Animation is represented internally being a VSM state group. But you dont need being familiar with VSM to employ a SketchFlow Animation. Nor do you need being aware with the items a Storyboard is, nor be competent to use Blends Timeline. In a sense, each frame or state within a SketchFlow Animation is usually a keyframe, but for a macro level making sure that each keyframe defines the complete scene for a point in time as opposed to the micro keyframes inside a Storyboard comprise a single propertys value for a point in time.
Now that you've an idea products these different pieces do, so when theyre available, youll be capable of pick essentially the most efficient tool per animation job you want to complete.
As it is likely you know, Silverlight and WPF employ a runtime piece known as the Visual State Manager or VSM abbreviated. As Ill describe in this article, VSM and also the Expression Blend tooling support for VSM lend a good clean mental model on the business of visual states and visual state changes for both custom controls and UserControls.
Although chronologically the story plot begins with all the control author, Ill mention that aspect later in this article simply because you can find more people inside the world concerned while using visual stuff than using the logical stuff. The visual aspect begins in Blend, with a number of already-defined visual states organized into groups from the States panel.
You can identify three stages from the design of visual states and transitions. First, the static stage. Here you're making each visual state look how you want it to, therefore you do so ideally with no thought of transitions. You pick a state within the States panel and you also change object properties. And speaking with the States panel, this is probably a good time for you to introduce the concept of state groups.
Visual states are sorted in such a way a the states within circumstances group are mutually exclusive of the other and b the states within any group are independent on the states within any other group. This means that one, as well as any one, state from every group may be applied with the same time without conflict. An example is often a check box the location where the checked states are separate from, and orthogonal to, the mouse states. Changing an objects property in than one state within a similar group is usual practice. For example, you would possibly change a Rectangles Fill to several colors in MouseOver, Pressed and Disabled. This works because merely one state through the CommonStates state group is ever applied at the time. But changing an objects property in than one state group breaks the independent nature in the state groups and brings about conflicts where several state is attempting to set a similar objects property for the same time. Blend will display an alert icon using a tooltip cont
Each state group should contain scenario that represents the default state for the group. CommonStates has Normal, CheckedStates has Unchecked, etc. It is really a good and efficient practice to line objects properties in Base to ensure that no changes have to become made in any default state. So, as an example, you'd hide an inspection boxs check glyph and concentrate rectangle in Base then show them in Checked and Focused respectively.
So now it is possible to click from the states to ensure that each looks correct. You can build and run, and try out your states, therefore you might even take a look at this stage if you're happy that this control switches instantly from state to a different. But if instant state switches are not what we want then it is possible to breathe life for your transitions in stage two, the transitions stage. First, add any transitions you want to view, then set transition durations and easing about them, still from the States panel. And again, in biggest reason so many cases this will probably be enough to your scenario. Whats interesting for the people designers who can visit to this point is the fact there was no requirement to open the Timeline without need to become bothered using the attendant concepts products a Storyboard is, etc. To keep unnecessary concepts and UI out of your respective face, automagically Blend keeps the Timeline closed if you select a visual state or edit a transition duration. You can obviously open it at any time using the Show Timeline button.
Still inside the transitions stage, there might be times after you need a propertys value to improve during the transition from StateA to StateB but, because from the way StateA and StateB are defined, the home either doesnt change or doesnt pass with the desired value. In this case you should customize that transition. Select the transition after which use the Timeline as normal to define the animations that will take place throughout the transition.
The last stage is dynamic states. If, one example is, you will want a blue rectangle to subtly pulse while a control has focus then you might need a steady-state animation. I also give them a call in-state animations as the animation happens while youre within a state. To do that, just select hawaii, open the Timeline, and do not delay- keyframe as usual, possibly also choosing the Storyboard and setting repeat behavior and auto reverse.
Now lets begin the topic of how states refer to control authoring. Before a designer will start deciding what states and transitions resemble, the control author must decide what states exist. As a control author, your job is just not to think about visual states, but logical states. Forget what it seems as if; just what does it mean? You need to consider each of the ways the tip user and even other factors like invalid data can interact together with the control, and from that thinking build out a list of candidate states; plus the states are logical at this aspect because they have zero look. Nows the time for it to think about whether your candidate states need factoring. Look for islands of states: closed graphs which don't link to other states. There are two kinds: orthogonal and nested. Orthogonal islands really should be put within their own state group. An example is the fact of CheckedStates and FocusedStates. There are no transitions from your CheckedStates state along with a FocusedStates state, and also a control is either ch
When a control initializes, it first has for getting itself onto a state graph. This is important. If a control doesnt do that then it truly is still in Base after initialization. Base just isn't a state; it merely represents the control which consists of local or base property values set, without states applied. When the mouse pointer first moves over this control it should go to MouseOver but it should go there from Base, therefore the Normal - MouseOver transition won't run the initial time. This can be a subtle bug that this consumer of your respective control cannot fix by defining Base - MouseOver, because Base isn't a state. So once you author your templated control or UserControl, you need to define a default state in each state group. Have the control head to those default states in the event it initializes, and achieve this with transitions suppressed so which it happens directly. Once its for the state graph, the control is ready for state transitions that occur so now it is possible to implement the event-handlers that trigger the transitions
I hope this post may be useful and possesses helped clarify some in the less obvious facets of designing and authoring controls to figure well while using Visual State Manager. If you want to view a walkthrough of some in the ideas presented here, you could potentially try my Button styling video.
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Microsoft Expression Blend could be the professional design tool used to generate engaging Web-connected experiences for Windows.
Provides relative ease in creating animated media intensive user interfaces for application systems.
Provides design time selections for WPF and Silverlight UI design.
Has some comprehensive time line editor functionality.
Have to put in the service pack for getting Silverlight 2.0 functionality.
In order to effectively install the service pack you've got to install the Silverlight 2.0 SDK or even the service pack will fubar Blend 2.
The tool is undoubtedly some from the most insightful and thought provoking instances for the capacity and expanse with the items Framework has become. Blend, itself, is made using and WPF frameworks at the same time as some Blend stylized interface elements.
Blend was made using Blend.
I bought the Expression Studio suite and I couldn't put Blend down. I was animating every graphical user interface I touched. I was possessed by nerds - - i swear it!
Excellent tool suite and Blend in particular is really a magnificent little bit of functional, utilitarian art.
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