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Features

Please note: Although Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview includes all of the features in Expression Blend 2 it has not reached the quality level of Expression Blend 2 for WPF or Silverlight 1 development. For Silverlight 1 and WPF projects we recommend continuing to work with Expression Blend 2.

What’s new?

Silverlight 2 Support
Expression Blend 2.5 has supported the creation of Silverlight 2 content since its first preview release at MIX 08 earlier this year. Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview builds on that release and, combined with the simultaneous Silverlight 2 Beta 2 release, provides a major step forward in enabling designers to build compelling and interactive rich web applications.

The June Preview introduces two major new features, control skinning and the Visual State Manager, that for the first time allow designers to take complete control of the interaction model of Silverlight 2 based applications.

Template editing to skin controls
Silverlight 2 introduces a powerful control model that allows you to build rich web applications quickly and effectively using a set of reusable components. Skinning is the process that allows you to edit and change the look and feel of the Silverlight controls by editing the individual elements that make up the control. Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview puts skinning and template editing capability firmly in the hands of the designer.

Designers and Developers building desktop applications have enjoyed the ability to separate the underlying architecture of the application from the way the user will interact with the application as well as how it looks. Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview seamlessly brings this power to your Silverlight 2 applications for the first time.

The breadcrumb trail (introduced in Blend 2) allows the designer to quickly and easily access the template editing capabilities of Blend and enabling the designer to either ‘edit a copy’ of the template, or start with a blank template for maximum creative freedom.

The designer now has complete expressive freedom to skin controls to exactly fit the function they play within an application.
Using templates to skin the look of the controls is extremely powerful but in reality is only half the story. For a designer to give feeling and texture to an application having complete freedom and control to edit the look of the control is not enough, they also need to be able to freely experiment with the interaction model of the application – which is where the Visual State Manager comes into play.

Visual State Manager
The Visual State Manger gives designers for the first time an easy and powerful way to design the interaction model of their Silverlight 2 applications.

Each control within a Silverlight 2 project has the ability to contain a ‘state group’, and it’s the state group that contains the different states for that particular control (mouseOver, mouseDown etc) as well as the information on how the different states should transition from one to another.

The ‘Visual State Manager’ harnesses the raw power of state groups to give designers a flexible and visual way to control precisely how each element of a control will behave and look in a given state. Whether an element in a control snaps into position or glides, moves in a linear fashion or with inertia, the designer has the freedom to quickly and accurately experiment with different interaction models before finely tuning and finalizing the user experience of the application.

Designers can utilize the power of the Visual State Manager with both User Controls and Custom Controls allowing the designer to be in complete control of the user experience across the whole of the application.