expression-blend

How do I stub data for designers when using Expression Blend and Visual Studio?

We are trying out Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend on a new project. The goal is to clearly define the role of the developer and designer as separate, but reap the benefit of the developer being able to directly consume the XAML produced by the designer. For the most part this has worked great, and I really like the possibilities...

WPF Data Triggers and Story Boards

I'm trying to trigger a progress animation when ever the ViewModel/Presentation Model is Bussy. I have a IsBussy Property, and the ViewModel is set as the DataContext of the UserControl. What is the best way to trigger a "progressAnimation" story board when the IsBussy property is true? Blend only let med add Event-Triggers on a UserCont...

Silverlight development [Visual Studio 2008 vs Expression Blend]

I'm a .Net developer and want to get into developing Silverlight applications. I have VS 2008 but wanted to know if I should/need expression blend. What are pros/cons of having blend along side VS? ...

Convert an image to XAML?

Does anyone know of any way to convert a simple gif to xaml? E.G. A tool that would look at an image and create elipses, rectangles and paths based upon a gif / jpg / bitmap? ...

How to change the default Browser in Expression Blend

I want to set IE as my default browser for running Silver light applications from Expression Blend, but I don't want to change my windows default from Mozilla. Is there a settings option in Blend to do this? ...

Finding Expression Blend Designers

What are some recommendations for finding Expression Blend/WPF Designers to perform contract work? I think a (local) freelance designer might be the most reasonably priced, but I don't even know where to start. As additional background, I am located in the Midwest region of the US, where designers are not as prevalent. ...

Tools to develop WPF or Silverlight applications

List out the Tools and Utilities to develop Rich Interactive Application on Microsoft platform The recommendations should have some sort of direct relationship with either XAML or Silverlight/WPF and not the common .NET utilities. Expression Blend - XAML Development Expression Design - Graphic asset creation KaXaml, A cool and handy X...

Silverlight 2 development using just Visual Studio?

OK, so see questions like this one and this one and the question I have is - does one have to use Expression Blend to do Silverlight development or can any of it be done with just Visual Studio? (2008, in this case) I haven't gotten started using Silverlight yet and through my workplace's MSDN I can get Expression Blend without any issu...

Xaml not WPF

I am interested in using Xaml with expression blend for creating user interfaces in an application. However, because of the limitations of the target architecture, I cannot use WPF or C#. So, what I am interested in is in any examples / existing projects or advice from anyone who has experiance of this technology on the use of Xaml in i...

WPF visual state manager in Blend 2 sp1

Can anyone explain to me how to get the visual state manager to work with a WPF application? It's just been added to the new wpftoolkit. I installed it as told, but even the sample doesn't show the VSM. In silverlight it work, but not in WPF. If installed the latest Blend 2 and updated with the SP1. ...

How do you manage huge and barely maintainable XAML files?

I'm having real difficulties with XAML files in Silverlight since they get very big very fast when using Blend. It just becomes a wall of text after only a handful of controls are added and animated. I'm hoping a better vesion of Blend will come out soon, so that our designers will never even have to see XAML. For now, though, that is n...

Expression Blend 2 Issue with Creating Silverlight 2 Projects?

I have Expression Blend 2, Service Pack 1, and cannot create a Silverlight 2 project. When I attempt to create a Silverlight 2 project, I get the following error: Blend cannot continue because a compatible Silverlight version could not be found. I installed Blend a few weeks ago, and service packed it yesterday. The order I did thi...

Design-time rendering of Silverlight controls in Expression Blend 2

I'm working on some Silverlight controls and I would like to explicitly handle the way they appear in Blend. Specifically, these controls have dependencies that are initialized at runtime, and thus throw exceptions in the designer. But even in the absence of the exception, I would like to make them appear a certain way in Blend. I know ...

What is the best way to learn Expressions Blend 2?

What is the best way to quickly get up to speed on Microsoft Expressions Blend 2? Are there some good web sites that can get me started or does someone have a good book that they would recommend? ...

Will Expression Blend relieve me from having to learn xaml?

I don't mind learning xaml and I'm sure I need to be familiar somewhat, but when I was first trying out Silverlight 1 with javascript it looked like a tremendous amount of overhead. I decided to wait until tools matured and asp.net was added. Well, asp.net has been added with Silverlight 2.0, and now I want to look at using it. But, x...

Silverlight: template binding

I'm trying to create a perfectly circular button, So I created a template from a standard button control using Expression Blend. A normal button has the BorderThickness property of the Background object (Border Type) bound to the template using template binding. If I wanted the border of my button to be customizable at design time, how...

Exposing an ImageSource property in a UserControl for use in Blend

I have a user control that exposes a property of type ImageSource. I want to expose this property in Blend so that I can edit it in Blend, rather than specifying the image in code. Based on what I've Googled, I've added a dependency property, and specified appropriate attributes to expose the property in Blend. I can see it there, and...

Changing the style of a Combo-Box in WPF (in Blend preferably)

I'm having some issues trying to change the look / style of a combo box in Expression Blend / WPF. While there are tutorials out there describing setting styles for buttons, there seem to be a few wrinkles with ComboBox controls. Can anyone offer any advice, or point me towards good tutorials that cover re-styling something more comple...

Is there some way I can make blend reload a project which has been modified in Visual Studio?

I have a Visual Studio solution which is open in both blend 2 SP1 and VS2008 SP1 simultaneously. If I make changes in VS, then switch over to blend, it notices that the project has changed and reloads things, however this is really unreliable. Sometimes it doesn't notice changes, and sometimes it does notice changes, but doesn't reload ...

Expression Blend does not list my application's objects in CLR objects

I'm following a video tutorial on data binding with Visual Studio / Expression Blend. In the tutorial the application's custom objects are listed when the presenter clicks on the "+CLR Object" button, but in when I do it, my application's objects are not listed. What do I need to do to get my application's objects to be listed here? ...