What exactly is Microsoft Expression Studio and how does it integrate with Visual Studio?

Question

My university is part of MSDNAA, so I downloaded it a while back, but I just got around to installing it. I guess part of it replaces FrontPage for web editing, and there appears to be a video editor and a vector graphics editor, but I don't think I've even scratched the surface of what it is and what it can do. Could someone enlighten me, especially since I haven't found an "Expression Studio for Dummies" type website.

Answer 1

From Wikipedia:

Microsoft Expression Studio is a suite of design and media applications from Microsoft aimed at developers and designers. It consists of:

• Microsoft Expression Web (code-named Quartz) - WYSIWYG website designer and HTML editor.
• Microsoft Expression Blend (code-named Sparkle) - Visual user interface builder for Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight applications.
• Microsoft Expression Design (code-named Acrylic) - Raster and vector graphics editor.
• Microsoft Expression Media - Digital asset and media manager.
• Microsoft Expression Encoder - VC-1 content professional encoder.

For web development Expression Web is useful. For XAML development, Blend and Design are useful.

Answer 2

I read the Wikipedia article, but I'm not sure how I might use it for .NET programming (web based or otherwise).

Answer 3

The Expression site is the first place to start. These are tools that bridge the developer/designer gap for building rich internet applications with Silverlight and WPF. They compete with Adobe Studio products.

Whilst Visual Studio is good for working with code, it has some weaknesses when it comes to dealing with XAML. In many cases a designer will build something visually different from a Windows application and Expression Blend allows them this freedom. It ties in Visual Studio for the C#/VB coding and debugging part of development.

Answer 4

Expression Studio is targeted more at designers. It integrates with Visual Studio in that Expression Studio uses solution and project files, just like Visual Studio. Which makes collaborating with designer easier. The developer and the designer open up the same project. The developer sets up the initial page with all the binding and the designer takes that page and makes it look pretty.

Answer 5

Please check for XAML .NET development, most of the tutorials makes use of many Expression tools.

Answer 6

Expression Studio is basically a design studio. It consists of a bunch of design software that Microsoft has bought for the most part. The audience is designers, not developers. The gist of the software is that Expression Blend enables designers and programmers to work seamlessly together in letting the designer create the graphical user interface.

In a normal workflow, the designer would deliver a mockup which the developer would have to implement. Using Expression Blend in combination with WPF, this is no longer necessary. The graphical UI made by the designer is functional. All the developer has to do is write the code for the function behind the design.

This in itself is great because developers invariably fail to implement the design as thought out by the designer. Technical limitations, lack of communication … whatever the reason. UIs never look like them mockup done up front.

Expression Design is basically a vector drawing program that can be used to design smaller components that are then used within Expression Blend as parts of the UI. For example, graphical buttons could be designed that way. It can also be used as a vanilla drawing program. I did the graphics in my thesis using Expression Design.

Answer 7

EDIT: Okay, I type too slow so most of what I had to say was already mentioned, so I'll strip it out except for...

The BIG thing to take note of is that the WSYWIG designer they used in Expression Web made it's way into Visual Studio 2008, which is a VERY GOOD thing. There is now EXCELLENT support for CSS, a better editing interface, and you can even go into a split edit mode to see the code and the content while editing.

For the longest time I was using Expression Web to do all my initial layout and then loading that into Visual Studio 2005. With Visual Studio 2008, there is no need to do it.

Answer 8

The idea is that designers will work in Expression Design (to design vector artwork) and Expression Blend (to build and style XAML interactions, as well as to define timeline based animations and interactions).

Developers will work on the application in Visual Studio. Visual Studio includes very basic XAML editing capabilities, so developers would only be making minor edits and would mostly be focusing on the code-behind.

That's the theory / product strategy side of it. In reality, if you're performing both roles, you'll end up having your project open in both Expression Blend and Visual Studio, switching back and forth between them depending on whether you're doing "designer tasks" or "developer tasks". Fortunately, Expression Blend and Visual Studio use the same project files.