Introduction to MS BLEND
Stepping into the new horizon of
designing, Microsoft Product, Expression Blend provides extraordinary user
interfaces/tools for both windows as well as web applications. Expression
Blend is itself written using the .NET Framework and Windows Presentation
Foundation (WPF). Expression Blend is effectively an interactive, WYSIWYG
front-end for designing XAML-based interfaces for WPF and Silverlight.Expression
blend not only supports WPF text engine but also vector based 2D and 3D widgets
accelerated by DirectX.
Expression Blend is used for
building Rich Interactivity with Vector Graphics, Animation, 3D, Advanced
Topography, bitmap graphics, data binding, Video and Audio. Having a sophisticated
Interactive designing environment, Expression Blend provides easy to handle tools
like menu, sliders, buttons, viewboxs, listboxes without even writing any code.
Few Terms related to
Expression Blend
- Windows Presentation Foundation :
It provides the features of adding multimedia tools to the
applications like audio, video, user interface etc. It is uses the markup language,
Extensible Application Markup Language and thus provides ease to the developer.
- XAML :
Extensible Markup Application Language is a markup language developed by
Microsoft. XAML plays vital role in developing applications in Expression Blend
i.e. either the application can be created by writing XAML code or by using IDE
as in this case the XAML code is reflected behind according to the design view.
- SIlverlight:
Using some features of WPF silverlight is used to create
rich interactive applications and media experiences for web. It contains some
website files which use features of wpf. Silverlight uses cross browser, cross
platform plug ins for
incorporating video, animation, interactivity, and stunning user interfaces.
Compnents
Required for:
1. Windows Phone
Developement
-
Phone specific
version of Expression Blend
2.
Silverlight and WPF development
3. Development
in Visual Studio
Silverlight
application Printing Hello World Using Expression Blend
1. Open Expression Blend and the
following screen pops up, this is the MS interactive designer.
It contains Project tool, Help Tool, Samples tool
2. Now select Projects--> New Project--> Silverlight
Application and give name to the application.
3. Now the Designing Panel Opens up which acts as a User
Interface for designing applications
4. Now Add a Text tool( T ) from the tool box to the
artboard then properties window of the text is shown right side.In this property window you
can change font type, size color etc. here we go to the Common properties panel and change
the name of the text as "HELLO WORLD"
5. Now to see how this is displayed in the browser just hit
the F5 button and it looks like this on Internet Explorer