Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek

By, For and About Silverlight Developers

Expression Blend for Programmers

I have set out on an integrated set of videos, tutorials and blog posts on the subject of using Expression Blend from the point of view of Silverlight 2 Programmers.  To get things going, I created a 3 part video series based on ScottGu's extended blog tutorial and I have a tutorial on the topic due to publish early next week.

I am now in the process of creating more videos in which I will be exploring how Blend can make certain tasks far easier for the Silverlight programmer; keep an eye out for my video on Blend and Data binding.

I will express a certain resistance to starting this, and I've been trying to figure out why. Part of it is that I'm very comfortable in Visual Studio and much of it is that nearly all the books on Blend are targeted at Designers rather than at Programmers. It is my goal to overcome those concerns for developers who share these concerns, and to integrate Blend into my toolset; using Blend for its strengths, and Visual Studio where it is stronger, and, eventually, to think of them as two faces of a single semi-integrated tool.

I'm not sure what will happen when Visual Studio's design surface is fully read/write. I think by then I'll be so comfortable using Blend's features that I'll continue to do so for some tasks. I'd be interested in your experiences as well.

Posted: May 16 2008, 09:17 AM by jesseliberty | with 12 comment(s)
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Comments

Expression Blend for Programmers | My Geek Solutions said:

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# May 16, 2008 10:23 AM

Eric Willeke said:

I've been spending some time working through these issues as well. I love Blend as a tool, but there's enough pain points that I've tended to default to coding the XAML in Visual Studio as it seems you have.

I'm anxious to follow the videos.

[Twitter me at erwilleke for Silverlight chatter]

# May 16, 2008 1:15 PM

BenHayat said:

>>I'd be interested in your experiences as well.<<

Same thing Eric said. I'm doing a lot of work in Blend now. You begin to like each one for it's purpose. Coding in C# and Xaml, I use VS, all the fancy UI design, including animations, effects, I do in Blend.

I think by SL RTM and with the new .Net 3.5 SP1, both Blend and VS are going to be great products. But you need to know both!

..Ben

# May 16, 2008 4:58 PM

BenHayat said:

Here is a reflection for your video calender :-)

<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="#FF000000" >

<Calendar Height="Auto" Margin="0,0,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="Auto"/>

<Canvas Margin="220,159.197006225586,220,137.802993774414">

<Calendar Height="221" Width="200" RenderTransformOrigin="0.5,0.5" Canvas.Top="-43">

<Calendar.RenderTransform>

<TransformGroup>

<ScaleTransform ScaleY="-0.5"/>

<SkewTransform/>

<RotateTransform/>

<TranslateTransform/>

</TransformGroup>

</Calendar.RenderTransform>

</Calendar>

<Rectangle Height="100" Width="200" Canvas.Top="22">

<Rectangle.Fill>

<LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="0.5,1" StartPoint="0.5,0">

<GradientStop Color="#A5000000" Offset="0"/>

<GradientStop Color="#FF000000" Offset="1"/>

</LinearGradientBrush>

</Rectangle.Fill>

</Rectangle>

</Canvas>

</Grid>

# May 16, 2008 5:43 PM

BenHayat said:

Decided to improve on it a bit:

<Canvas x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="#FF000000">

<Calendar Height="Auto" Width="200" Canvas.Left="217" Canvas.Top="86" d:LayoutOverrides="Height"/>

<Calendar Height="180" Width="200" RenderTransformOrigin="0.5,0.5" Canvas.Top="223" Canvas.Left="217">

<Calendar.RenderTransform>

<TransformGroup>

<ScaleTransform ScaleY="-0.45"/>

<SkewTransform/>

<RotateTransform/>

<TranslateTransform/>

</TransformGroup>

</Calendar.RenderTransform>

<Calendar.OpacityMask>

<LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="0.5,1" StartPoint="0.5,0">

<GradientStop Color="#00000000"/>

<GradientStop Color="#7F000000" Offset="1"/>

</LinearGradientBrush>

</Calendar.OpacityMask>

</Calendar>

</Canvas>

# May 16, 2008 6:37 PM

Maciek said:

Hi Jesse, looking forward to see new videos as usual. I'd like to ask, are you planning to do any tutorials regarding templating ? I'm running into some difficulties trying to set up a button template.

Regards.

# May 17, 2008 8:49 AM

Dew Drop - May 17, 2008 | Alvin Ashcraft's Morning Dew said:

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# May 17, 2008 10:08 PM

jesseliberty said:

Templating?  YES!  But I'll move it up.

Please feel free to send suggested topics (jliberty@microsoft.com).

So far, my plans for videos and tutorials on Blend/Silverlight Programmign  includes (in no specific order):

Databinding

Styles

Templates

Integrating ASP.NET

Data Templates

Graphics

Animation

Custom Controls

Thanks.

-j

# May 18, 2008 10:02 AM

BenHayat said:

Jesse, what do you mean by "Integrating ASP.Net"? Isn't that something that was more common in SL 1.0 than 2.0? Meaning using/overlapping ASP.Net controls (i.e. TextEdit, CheckBox, ComboBox) on the top of SL controls for users to be able to do data entry?

..Ben

# May 18, 2008 11:43 AM

Weekly Link Post 42 « Rhonda Tipton’s WebLog said:

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# May 18, 2008 8:11 PM

Maciek said:

Awesome ! I'll be emailing you soon then.

# May 19, 2008 8:24 AM

Community Blogs said:

Expression Blend for Programmers. This is a thought-provoking title of a post from Jesse Liberty. How

# May 26, 2008 12:10 AM