Expression Blend 4 Unleashed

Brennon Williams is the Chief Technology Officer for the award-winning UK design and development agency, Splendid. Brennon is also a technical advisor to several companies around the world, specializing in the implementation of designer/developer collaboration and workflows. For almost two decades, Brennon has worked in several countries as a consultant software developer and technical advisor. Owner of the ExpressionBlend.com website which is due to be launched in 2011, Brennon's technology insights can also be followed at his personal blog, brennonwilliams.com Brennon was awarded a BS in Computer Science from NYU and has received the Microsoft MVP award for Expression Blend 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.

This book has one primary goal: to get you working in Expression Blend 4 effectively using the features and functionality of the tool.

This book is not about XAML, not about code nor explicit work flows. It is about simply dragging, dropping, drawing, and defining the experience and vision for a user interface and rich interactive experience.

You will learn how to work with the core features of Blend, edit Styles and Templates, and more importantly, understand what they all mean. You will also work in detail with Parts, States, and Behaviors to understand how collectively they can provide your solutions advanced functionality without the need for code or hand-cranked XAML.

Animations and Storyboards will allow you to bring life to your vision, as will working with data efficiently and learning how to create and manage Resources.

In short, this book will give you the answers to many questions asked in forums by new and experienced users alike.

Microsoft Expression Blend 4 Unleashed is a stunning, full-color resource with hundreds of screenshots and informative figure references. It has also been authored sequentially, to enable you to build your knowledge step-by-step and gain confidence through repartition and fearlessness in discovery.

Detailed information on how to

Introduction 1 What Will You Learn in Expression Blend 4 Unleashed? 1 The Topics Covered in Expression Blend 4 Unleashed 2 How This Book Is Structured 2 Sample Applications Covered in This Book 3 1 Expression Blend 4 Overview 5 What Is Expression Blend and Who Is It For? 5 What's New in Expression Blend 4? 7 A Brief History Leading to the Future... 8 Why the Focus Shifted Away from WPF 8 Enter Silverlight 9 What Does This All Mean for the Big Picture? 10 What Does Expression Blend have to do with HTML5, CSS, and Expression Web? 11 Summary 11 2 Discovering the Expression Blend Interface 13 The Expression Blend Interface Theme 13 How the Experience Changes 16 Project Panel 21 Expression Blend Options Dialog 22 The Artboard 27 The XAML Editor 30 The Code Editor 31 Objects and Timeline Panel 37 Tools Panel 39 Assets Panel 49 Properties Panel 49 Resources Panel 57 Data Panel 58 Summary 59 3 Using Expression Blend for the First Time 61 Keeping Things Simple to Start With 61 It All Starts with a Button! 62 Transformations 72 Simple Animation 74 Summary 78 4 Common Properties and Functionality 79 Controls, Controls, Elements... 79 Border 80 The Checkbox 83 The RadioButton 85 TextBlock Versus Label 88 The TextBox 89 The ProgressBar 92 The Slider 93 The ComboBox 97 The ListBox 100 Summary 102 5 The Art of Layout 103 Layout Panels 103 The Grid Control 104 Canvas 117 The Viewbox 119 Scaling Text 120 StackPanel 121 ScrollViewer 122 Summary 124 6 Element Styles and Templates 125 What Is the Difference Between a Style and a Template? 126 What Is a Style? 126 What Is a Template? 132 Creating the Easiest Button Ever 140 Simple Styles 142 Summary 144 7 Working with Parts 145 It's the Parts That Make Up the Whole 146 Element to Element Binding 147 Building Your Own Slider Control 151 Summary 156 8 Working with States 157 What Is a State? 157 Working with the VSM 158 The Base State 160 The Unchecked State 160 Control Level States 163 State Transitions 168 Transition Effects 170 Transition Effect Priority 172 Summary 173 9 Working with SketchFlow 175 The User Centered Design Process (UCD) 176 It's All About the Process 176 Collaboration Isn't Easy 181 Creating a Basic SketchFlow Solution 183 Summary 215 10 Expression Blend Data Support 217 Designing Sample Data 217 Thinking About the Data 218 Defining Sample Data 219 Editing the Data Template 224 Editing the ItemContainerStyle 227 Working with the Details 229 The ValueConverter Solution 234 Switching to Live Data 239 Summary 246 11 Animations and Transitions 247 The Storyboard Editor 247 Animation Keyframes 250 Transformations 251 Plane Projections 258 Easing Functions 260 The Spline Editor 261 Repeating the Animation 263 Duplicate and Reverse the Storyboard 266 HandOff Animation 267 Managing State Animations with Storyboards 268 Summary 272 12 Shapes, Paths, and Effects 273 Taking Shape 273 Is it a Path or a Line? 274 The New Silverlight PathListBox 282 The Magic of Effects 289 Summary 290 13 Skins, Themes, and Resource Dictionaries 293 Does It Come in Blue? 293 Resource Dictionaries 293 What Is the Difference Between a Skin and a Theme? 297 Multiple Style Resources Within a Single Skin 305 Using the ResourceVault in Your Solution 307 Creating a Default Skin 309 Using Themes in Expression Blend 310 Summary 312 14 Advanced Controls 313 Introduction 313 The WPF and Silverlight Toolkits 313 The DataGrid Control 314 The DataForm 316 Silverlight Charts 317 InkPresenter 319 AutoComplete Textbox 320 WPF Extended Toolkit 322 Summary 323 15 Windows Phone 7 325 And on the 8th Day... 325 Style and Substance with Metro 327 Tools and Add-Ins 329 Building a Simple WP7 Application 335 Adding Rotation Animation Support 346 Summary 349 A Resources for Going Further 351 Finding Out More... 351 Short URLs 351 Expression Blend Resources 352 SketchFlow Resources 352 XAML Resources 353 Silverlight Resources 353 WPF Resources 354 Windows Phone 7 Resources 354 Surface Resources 354 C# .NET Development Resources 355 M-V-VM Resources 355 Summary 356 Index 357