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  • Building extensions for Expression Blend 4 using MEF

    - by Timmy Kokke
    Introduction Although it was possible to write extensions for Expression Blend and Expression Design, it wasn’t very easy and out of the box only one addin could be used. With Expression Blend 4 it is possible to write extensions using MEF, the Managed Extensibility Framework. Until today there’s no documentation on how to build these extensions, so look thru the code with Reflector is something you’ll have to do very often. Because Blend and Design are build using WPF searching the visual tree with Snoop and Mole belong to the tools you’ll be using a lot exploring the possibilities.  Configuring the extension project Extensions are regular .NET class libraries. To create one, load up Visual Studio 2010 and start a new project. Because Blend is build using WPF, choose a WPF User Control Library from the Windows section and give it a name and location. I named mine DemoExtension1. Because Blend looks for addins named *.extension.dll  you’ll have to tell Visual Studio to use that in the Assembly Name. To change the Assembly Name right click your project and go to Properties. On the Application tab, add .Extension to name already in the Assembly name text field. To be able to debug this extension, I prefer to set the output path on the Build tab to the extensions folder of Expression Blend. This means that everything that used to go into the Debug folder is placed in the extensions folder. Including all referenced assemblies that have the copy local property set to false. One last setting. To be able to debug your extension you could start Blend and attach the debugger by hand. I like it to be able to just hit F5. Go to the Debug tab and add the the full path to Blend.exe in the Start external program text field. Extension Class Add a new class to the project.  This class needs to be inherited from the IPackage interface. The IPackage interface can be found in the Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility namespace. To get access to this namespace add Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility.dll to your references. This file can be found in the same folder as the (Expression Blend 4 Beta) Blend.exe file. Make sure the Copy Local property is set to false in this reference. After implementing the interface the class would look something like: using Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility; namespace DemoExtension1 { public class DemoExtension1:IPackage { public void Load(IServices services) { } public void Unload() { } } } These two methods are called when your addin is loaded and unloaded. The parameter passed to the Load method, IServices services, is your main entry point into Blend. The IServices interface exposes the GetService<T> method. You will be using this method a lot. Almost every part of Blend can be accessed thru a service. For example, you can use to get to the commanding services of Blend by calling GetService<ICommandService>() or to get to the Windowing services by calling GetService<IWindowService>(). To get Blend to load the extension we have to implement MEF. (You can get up to speed on MEF on the community site or read the blog of Mr. MEF, Glenn Block.)  In the case of Blend extensions, all that needs to be done is mark the class with an Export attribute and pass it the type of IPackage. The Export attribute can be found in the System.ComponentModel.Composition namespace which is part of the .NET 4 framework. You need to add this to your references. using System.ComponentModel.Composition; using Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility;   namespace DemoExtension1 { [Export(typeof(IPackage))] public class DemoExtension1:IPackage { Blend is able to find your addin now. Adding UI The addin doesn’t do very much at this point. The WPF User Control Library came with a UserControl so lets use that in this example. I just drop a Button and a TextBlock onto the surface of the control to have something to show in the demo. To get the UserControl to work in Blend it has to be registered with the WindowService.  Call GetService<IWindowService>() on the IServices interface to get access to the windowing services. The UserControl will be used in Blend on a Palette and has to be registered to enable it. This is done by calling the RegisterPalette on the IWindowService interface and passing it an identifier, an instance of the UserControl and a caption for the palette. public void Load(IServices services) { IWindowService windowService = services.GetService<IWindowService>(); UserControl1 uc = new UserControl1(); windowService.RegisterPalette("DemoExtension", uc, "Demo Extension"); } After hitting F5 to start debugging Expression Blend will start. You should be able to find the addin in the Window menu now. Activating this window will show the “Demo Extension” palette with the UserControl, style according to the settings of Blend. Now what? Because little is publicly known about how to access different parts of Blend adding breakpoints in Debug mode and browsing thru objects using the Quick Watch feature of Visual Studio is something you have to do very often. This demo extension can be used for that purpose very easily. Add the click event handler to the button on the UserControl. Change the contructor to take the IServices interface and store this in a field. Set a breakpoint in the Button_Click method. public partial class UserControl1 : UserControl { private readonly IServices _services;   public UserControl1(IServices services) { _services = services; InitializeComponent(); }   private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { } } Change the call to the constructor in the load method and pass it the services property. public void Load(IServices services) { IWindowService service = services.GetService<IWindowService>(); UserControl1 uc = new UserControl1(services); service.RegisterPalette("DemoExtension", uc, "Demo Extension"); } Hit F5 to compile and start Blend. Got to the window menu and start show the addin. Click on  the button to hit the breakpoint. Now place the carrot text _services text in the code window and hit Shift+F9 to show the Quick Watch window. Now start exploring and discovering where to find everything you need.  More Information The are no official resources available yet. Microsoft has released one extension for expression Blend that is very useful as a reference, the Microsoft Expression Blend® Add-in Preview for Windows® Phone. This will install a .extension.dll file in the extension folder of Blend. You can load this file with Reflector and have a peek at how Microsoft is building his addins. Conclusion I hope this gives you something to get started building extensions for Expression Blend. Until Microsoft releases the final version, which hopefully includes more information about building extensions, we’ll have to work on documenting it in the community.

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  • How to style a treeview in Expression Blend

    - by RobDemo
    (Using Expression Blend 4 RC, Silverlight 3) I have a treeview with several different item templates for different levels. When I open this project in Blend, it seems I can only really style the top-most DataTemplate (via right-click the TreeView in the Objects/Timeline view, Edit Additional Templates-Edit Generated Items (ItemTemplate) - Edit Current). How do I drill down into the level I want and edit those templates? Rob

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  • Small change in MVVM Light Toolkit templates for Blend 4 RC

    - by Laurent Bugnion
    Ah, the joy of new releases… You will find that the MVVM Light Toolkit works fine with Visual Studio 2010 RTM and Blend 4 RC except for a few adjustments: Blend templates The path to the Expression Blend 4 project templates changed. If you start Expression Blend 4 RC now, you will likely not see the MVVM Light templates in the New Project dialog.   New Project dialog with MVVM Light To restore the templates, follow the steps: Open Windows Explorer Navigate to C:\Users\[username]\Documents\Expression (or simply type My Documents in Windows Explorer and then open the Expression folder). Change the name of the “Blend 4 beta” folder into “Blend 4”. That’s it, you should now see the templates in the New Project dialog in Blend 4. Note that since the new name is “Blend 4”, I hope that I won’t need to do the same exercise when Blend 4 RTM is released! Windows Phone 7 templates Since the Windows Phone 7 tools are not ready yet for Visual Studio 2010 RTM and Blend 4 RC, the templates in the Silverlight for Windows Phone folders will not work. You will get an error if you try to create a new such project in the newly released environment. I hesitated to remove these templates from the current packages, but honestly that is a lot of trouble for a very short time before the tools for Windows Phone 7 are released (note: I don’t have any information as to when these tools will be released). In the mean time, just don’t create a WinPhone7 application. Reminder: If you want to write code for Windows Phone 7, you need to keep the Visual Studio 2010 RC as well as Expression Blend 4 beta. Updated package I uploaded an update to the Blend 4 templates. It is available like before on the “Install manually” page and on the Codeplex page.   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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  • Blend for Visual Studio 2013 Prototyping Applications with SketchFlow

    - by T
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tburger/archive/2014/08/10/blend-for-visual-studio-2013-prototyping-applications-with-sketchflow.aspxSketchFlow enables rapid creating of dynamic interface mockups very quickly. The SketchFlow workspace is the same as the standard Blend workspace with the inclusion of three panels: the SketchFlow Feedback panel, the SketchFlow Animation panel and the SketchFlow Map panel. By using SketchFlow to prototype, you can get feedback early in the process. It helps to surface possible issues, lower development iterations, and increase stakeholder buy in. SketchFlow prototypes not only provide an initial look but also provide a way to add additional ideas and input and make sure the team is on track prior to investing in complete development. When you have completed the prototyping, you can discard the prototype and just use the lessons learned to design the application from or extract individual elements from your prototype and include them in the application. I don’t recommend trying to transition the entire project into a development project. Objects that you add with the SketchFlow style have a hand-sketched look. The sketch style is used to remind stakeholders that this is a prototype. This encourages them to focus on the flow and functionality without getting distracted by design details. The sketchflow assets are under sketchflow in the asset panel and are identifiable by the postfix “–Sketch”. For example “Button-Sketch”. You can mix sketch and standard controls in your interface, if required. Be creative, if there is a missing control or your interface has a different look and feel than the out of the box one, reuse other sketch controls to mimic the functionality or look and feel. Only use standard controls if it doesn’t distract from the idea that this is a prototype and not a standard application. The SketchFlow Map panel provides information about the structure of your application. To create a new screen in your prototype: Right-click the map surface and choose “Create a Connected Screen”. Name the screens with names that are meaningful to the stakeholders. The start screen is the one that has the green arrow. To change the start screen, right click on any other screen and set to start screen. Only one screen can be the start screen at a time. Rounded screen are component screens to mimic reusable custom controls that will be built into the final application. You can change the colors of all of the boxes and should use colors to create functional groupings. The groupings can be identified in the SketchFlow Project Settings. To add connections between screens in the SketchFlow Map panel. Move the mouse over a screen in the SketchFlow and a menu will appear at the bottom of the screen node. In the menu, click Connect to an existing screen. Drag the arrow to another screen on the Map. You add navigation to your prototype by adding connections on the SketchFlow map or by adding navigation directly to items on your interface. To add navigation from objects on the artboard, right click the item then from the menu, choose “Navigate to”. This will expose a sub-menu with available screens, backward, or forward. When the map has connected screens, the SketchFlow Player displays the connected screens on the Navigate sidebar. All screens show in the SketchFlow Player Map. To see the SketchFlow Player, run your SketchFlow prototype. The Navigation sidebar is meant to show the desired user work flow. The map can be used to view the different screens regardless of suggested navigation in the navigation bar. The map is able to be hidden and shown. As mentioned, a component screen is a shared screen that is used in more than one screen and generally represents what will be a custom object in the application. To create a component screen, you can create a screen, right click on it in the SketchFlow Map and choose “Make into component screen”. You can mouse over a screen and from the menu that appears underneath, choose create and insert component screen. To use an existing screen, select if from the Asset panel under SketchFlow, Components. You can use Storyboards and Visual State animations in your SketchFlow project. However, SketchFlow also offers its own animation technique that is simpler and better suited for prototyping. The SketchFlow Animation panel is above your artboard by default. In SketchFlow animation, you create frames and then position the elements on your interface for each frame. You then specify elapsed time and any effects you want to apply to the transition. The + at the top is what creates new frames. Once you have a new Frame, select it and change the property you want to animate. In the example above, I changed the Text of the result box. You can adjust the time between frames in the lower area between the frames. The easing and effects functions are changed in the center between each frame. You edit the hold time for frames by clicking the clock icon in the lower left and the hold time will appear on each frame and can be edited. The FluidLayout icon (also located in the lower left) will create smooth transitions. Next to the FluidLayout icon is the name of that Animation. You can rename the animation by clicking on it and editing the name. The down arrow chevrons next to the name allow you to view the list of all animations in this prototype and select them for editing. To add the animation to the interface object (such as a button to start the animation), select the PlaySketchFlowAnimationAction from the SketchFlow behaviors in the Assets menu and drag it to an object on your interface. With the PlaySketchFlowAnimationAction that you just added selected in the Objects and Timeline, edit the properties to change the EventName to the event you want and choose the SketchFlowAnimation you want from the drop down list. You may want to add additional information to your screens that isn’t really part of the prototype but is relevant information or a request for clarification or feedback from the reviewer. You do this with annotations or notes. Both appear on the user interface, however, annotations can be switched on or off at design and review time. Notes cannot be switched off. To add an Annotation, chose the Create Annotation from the Tools menu. The annotation appears on the UI where you will add the notes. To display or Hide annotations, click the annotation toggle at the bottom right on the artboard . After to toggle annotations on, the identifier of the person who created them appears on the artboard and you must click that to expand the notes. To add a note to the artboard, simply select the Note-Sketch from Assets ->SketchFlow ->Styles ->Sketch Styles. Drag and drop it to the artboard and place where you want it. When you are ready for users to review the prototype, you have a few options available. Click File -> Export and choose one of the options from the list: Publish to Sharepoint, Package SketchFlowProject, Export to Microsoft Word, or Export as Images. I suggest you play with as many of the options as you can to see what they do. Both the Sharepoint and Packaged SketchFlowProject allow you to collect feedback from one or more users that you can import into the project. The user can make notes on the UI and in the Feedback area in the bottom left corner of the player. When the user is done adding feedback, it is exported from the right most folder icon in the My Feedback panel. Feeback is imported on a panel named SketchFlow Feedback. To get that panel to show up, select Window -> SketchFlow Feedback. Once you have the panel showing, click the + in the upper right of the panel and find the notes you exported. When imported, they will show up in a list and on the artboard. To document your prototype, use the Export to Microsoft Word option from the File menu. That should get you started with prototyping.

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  • Blend Interaction Behaviour gives "points to immutable instance" error

    - by kennethkryger
    I have a UserControl that is a base class for other user controls, that are shown in "modal view". I want to have all user controls fading in, when shown and fading out when closed. I also want a behavior, so that the user can move the controls around.My contructor looks like this: var tg = new TransformGroup(); tg.Children.Add(new ScaleTransform()); RenderTransform = tg; var behaviors = Interaction.GetBehaviors(this); behaviors.Add(new TranslateZoomRotateBehavior()); Loaded += ModalDialogBase_Loaded; And the ModalDialogBase_Loaded method looks like this: private void ModalDialogBase_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { var fadeInStoryboard = (Storyboard)TryFindResource("modalDialogFadeIn"); fadeInStoryboard.Begin(this); } When I press a Close-button on the control this method is called: protected virtual void Close() { var fadeOutStoryboard = (Storyboard)TryFindResource("modalDialogFadeOut"); fadeOutStoryboard = fadeOutStoryboard.Clone(); fadeOutStoryboard.Completed += delegate { RaiseEvent(new RoutedEventArgs(ClosedEvent)); }; fadeOutStoryboard.Begin(this); } The storyboard for fading out look like this: <Storyboard x:Key="modalDialogFadeOut"> <DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="(UIElement.RenderTransform).(TransformGroup.Children)[0].(ScaleTransform.ScaleX)" Storyboard.TargetName="{x:Null}"> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="1"> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction> <BackEase EasingMode="EaseIn" Amplitude="0.3" /> </EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction> </EasingDoubleKeyFrame> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="0:0:0.4" Value="0"> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction> <BackEase EasingMode="EaseIn" Amplitude="0.3" /> </EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction> </EasingDoubleKeyFrame> </DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames> <DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="(UIElement.RenderTransform).(TransformGroup.Children)[0].(ScaleTransform.ScaleY)" Storyboard.TargetName="{x:Null}"> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="1"> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction> <BackEase EasingMode="EaseIn" Amplitude="0.3" /> </EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction> </EasingDoubleKeyFrame> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="0:0:0.4" Value="0"> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction> <BackEase EasingMode="EaseIn" Amplitude="0.3" /> </EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction> </EasingDoubleKeyFrame> </DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames> <DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="(UIElement.Opacity)" Storyboard.TargetName="{x:Null}"> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="1" /> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="0:0:0.3" Value="0" /> <EasingDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="0:0:0.4" Value="0" /> </DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames> </Storyboard> If the user control is show, and the user does NOT move it around on the screen, everything works fine. However, if the user DOES move the control around, I get the following error when the modalDialogFadeOut storyboard is started: 'Children' property value in the path '(0).(1)[0].(2)' points to immutable instance of 'System.Windows.Media.TransformCollection'. How can fix this?

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  • Adventures in Windows 8: Understanding and debugging design time data in Expression Blend

    - by Laurent Bugnion
    One of my favorite features in Expression Blend is the ability to attach a Visual Studio debugger to Blend. First let’s start by answering the question: why exactly do you want to do that? Note: If you are familiar with the creation and usage of design time data, feel free to scroll down to the paragraph titled “When design time data fails”. Creating design time data for your app When a designer works on an app, he needs to see something to design. For “static” UI such as buttons, backgrounds, etc, the user interface elements are going to show up in Blend just fine. If however the data is fetched dynamically from a service (web, database, etc) or created dynamically, most probably Blend is going to show just an empty element. The classical way to design at that stage is to run the application, navigate to the screen that is under construction (which can involve delays, need to log in, etc…), to measure what is on the screen (colors, margins, width and height, etc) using various tools, going back to Blend, editing the properties of the elements, running again, etc. Obviously this is not ideal. The solution is to create design time data. For more information about the creation of design time data by mocking services, you can refer to two talks of mine “Deep dive MVVM” and “MVVM Applied From Silverlight to Windows Phone to Windows 8”. The source code for these talks is here and here. Design time data in MVVM Light One of the main reasons why I developed MVVM Light is to facilitate the creation of design time data. To illustrate this, let’s create a new MVVM Light application in Visual Studio. Install MVVM Light from here: http://mvvmlight.codeplex.com (use the MSI in the Download section). After installing, make sure to read the Readme that opens up in your favorite browser, you will need one more step to install the Project Templates. Start Visual Studio 2012. Create a new MvvmLight (Win8) app. Run the application. You will see a string showing “Welcome to MVVM Light”. In the Solution explorer, right click on MainPage.xaml and select Open in Blend. Now you should see “Welcome to MVVM Light [Design]” What happens here is that Expression Blend runs different code at design time than the application runs at runtime. To do this, we use design-time detection (as explained in a previous article) and use that information to initialize a different data service at design time. To understand this better, open the ViewModelLocator.cs file in the ViewModel folder and see how the DesignDataService is used at design time, while the DataService is used at runtime. In a real-life applicationm, DataService would be used to connect to a web service, for instance. When design time data fails Sometimes however, the creation of design time data fails. It can be very difficult to understand exactly what is happening. Expression Blend is not giving a lot of information about what happened. Thankfully, we can use a trick: Attaching a debugger to Expression Blend and debug the design time code. In WPF and Silverlight (including Windows Phone 7), you could simply attach the debugger to Blend.exe (using the “Managed (v4.5, v4.0) code” option even for Silverlight!!) In Windows 8 however, things are just a bit different. This is because the designer that renders the actual representation of the Windows 8 app runs in its own process. Let’s illustrate that: Open the file DesignDataService in the Design folder. Modify the GetData method to look like this: public void GetData(Action<DataItem, Exception> callback) { throw new Exception(); // Use this to create design time data var item = new DataItem("Welcome to MVVM Light [design]"); callback(item, null); } Go to Blend and build the application. The build succeeds, but now the page is empty. The creation of the design time data failed, but we don’t get a warning message. We need to investigate what’s wrong. Close MainPage.xaml Go to Visual Studio and select the menu Debug, Attach to Process. Update: Make sure that you select “Managed (v4.5, v4.0) code” in the “Attach to” field. Find the process named XDesProc.exe. You should have at least two, one for the Visual Studio 2012 designer surface, and one for Expression Blend. Unfortunately in this screen it is not obvious which is which. Let’s find out in the Task Manager. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del and select Task Manager Go to the Details tab and sort the processes by name. Find the one that says “Blend for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 XAML UI Designer” and write down the process ID. Go back to the Attach to Process dialog in Visual Studio. sort the processes by ID and attach the debugger to the correct instance of XDesProc.exe. Open the MainViewModel (in the ViewModel folder) Place a breakpoint on the first line of the MainViewModel constructor. Go to Blend and open the MainPage.xaml again. At this point, the debugger breaks in Visual Studio and you can execute your code step by step. Simply step inside the dataservice call, and find the exception that you had placed there. Visual Studio gives you additional information which helps you to solve the issue. More info and Conclusion I want to thank the amazing people on the Expression Blend team for being very fast in guiding me in that matter and encouraging me to blog about it. More information about the XDesProc.exe process can be found here. I had to work on a Windows 8 app for a few days without design time data because of an Exception thrown somewhere in the code, and it was really painful. With the debugger, finding the issue was a simple matter of stepping into the code until it threw the exception.   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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  • Expression Blend 4 available and training resources

    - by pluginbaby
    As you may know Expression Blend 4 has shipped! It is still part of Expression Studio, which now comes in 2 “flavors”: Expression Studio 4 Ultimate Expression Blend SketchFlow Expression Web + SuperPreview Expression Encoder Expression Design Expression Studio 4 Web Professional Expression Web + SuperPreview Expression Encoder Expression Design So the version you want for Silverlight is Expression Studio 4 Ultimate (because you can’t buy Expression Blend alone). Expression Blend is an awesome tool but might be difficult to approach at first, specially for people coming from Visual Studio… this tool target designers so it can takes time for a developer to get comfortable enough. Good news is the availability of a free “Blend Fundamentals Training” which contains plenty of resources to help you master Expression Blend in 5 days: http://www.microsoft.com/expression/resources/BlendTraining/   Also don’t forget the .toolbox: http://www.microsoft.com/design/toolbox/ This Microsoft website contains courses and tutorials to help you learn UI Design for Silverlight with Expression Blend.

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  • Extending Blend for Visual Studio 2013

    - by Chris Skardon
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/cskardon/archive/2013/11/01/extending-blend-for-visual-studio-2013.aspxSo, I got a comment yesterday on my post about Extending Blend 4 and Blend for Visual Studio 2012 asking if I knew how to get it working for Blend for Visual Studio 2013.. My initial thoughts were, just change the location to get the blend dlls from Visual Studio 11.0 to 12.0 and you’re all set, so I went to do that, only to discover that the dlls I normally reference, well – they don’t exist. So… I’ve made a presumption that the actual process of using MEF etc is still the same. I was wrong. So, the route to discovery – required DotPeek and opening a few of blends dlls.. Browsing through the Blend install directory (./Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0/Blend/) I notice the .addin files: So I decide to peek into the SketchFlow dll, then promptly remember SketchFlow is quite a big thing, and hunting through there is not ideal, luckily there is another dll using an .addin file, ‘Microsoft.Expression.Importers.Host’, so we’ll go for that instead. We can see it’s still using the ‘IPackage’ formula, but where is that sucker? Well, we just press F12 on the ‘IPackage’ bit and DotPeek takes us there, with a very handy comment at the top: // Type: Microsoft.Expression.Framework.IPackage // Assembly: Microsoft.Expression.Framework, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a // MVID: E092EA54-4941-463C-BD74-283FD36478E2 // Assembly location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Blend\Microsoft.Expression.Framework.dll Now we know where the IPackage interface is defined, so let’s just try writing a control. Last time I did a separate dll for the control, this time I’m not, but it still works if you want to do it that way. Let’s build a control! STEP 1 Create a new WPF application Naming doesn’t matter any more! I have gone with ‘Hello2013’ (see what I did there?) STEP 2 Delete: App.Config App.xaml MainWindow.xaml We won’t be needing them STEP 3 Change your application to be a Class Library instead. (You might also want to delete the ‘vshost’ stuff in your output directory now, as they only exist for hosting the WPF app, and just cause clutter) STEP 4 Add a reference to the ‘Microsoft.Expression.Framework.dll’ (which you can find in ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Blend’ – that’s Program Files (x86) if you’re on an x64 machine!). STEP 5 Add a User Control, I’m going with ‘Hello2013Control’, and following from last time, it’s just a TextBlock in a Grid: <UserControl x:Class="Hello2013.Hello2013Control" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="300"> <Grid> <TextBlock>Hello Blend for VS 2013</TextBlock> </Grid> </UserControl> STEP 6 Add a class to load the package – I’ve called it – yes you guessed – Hello2013Package, which will look like this: namespace Hello2013 { using Microsoft.Expression.Framework; using Microsoft.Expression.Framework.UserInterface; public class Hello2013Package : IPackage { private Hello2013Control _hello2013Control; private IWindowService _windowService; public void Load(IServices services) { _windowService = services.GetService<IWindowService>(); Initialize(); } private void Initialize() { _hello2013Control = new Hello2013Control(); if (_windowService.PaletteRegistry["HelloPanel"] == null) _windowService.RegisterPalette("HelloPanel", _hello2013Control, "Hello Window"); } public void Unload(){} } } You might note that compared to the 2012 version we’re no longer [Exporting(typeof(IPackage))]. The file you create in STEP 7 covers this for us. STEP 7 Add a new file called: ‘<PROJECT_OUTPUT_NAME>.addin’ – in reality you can call it anything and it’ll still read it in just fine, it’s just nicer if it all matches up, so I have ‘Hello2013.addin’. Content wise, we need to have: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <AddIn AssemblyFile="Hello2013.dll" /> obviously, replacing ‘Hello2013.dll’ with whatever your dll is called. STEP 8 We set the ‘addin’ file to be copied to the output directory: STEP 9 Build! STEP 10 Go to your output directory (./bin/debug) and copy the 3 files (Hello2013.dll, Hello2013.pdb, Hello2013.addin) and then paste into the ‘Addins’ folder in your Blend directory (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Blend\Addins) STEP 11 Start Blend for Visual Studio 2013 STEP 12 Go to the ‘Window’ menu and select ‘Hello Window’ STEP 13 Marvel at your new control! Feel free to email me / comment with any problems!

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  • New features for Expression Blend 4 Release Candidate

    - by kaleidoscope
    With Microsoft Expression Blend 4, you can create websites and applications based on Microsoft Silverlight 3 and Microsoft Silverlight 4, and desktop applications based on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) 3.5 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and WPF4. Expression Blend provides new support for prototyping, interactivity through behaviors, special Silverlight functionality, and on-the-fly sample data generation. Expression Blend includes new behaviors that are quickly and easily configured Expression Blend offers new sample data, behaviors, and features of project templates to support the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern The MVVM pattern is a way to structure a Silverlight or WPF application so that user interface (UI) objects are as decoupled as possible from the application's data and behavior. This makes it easier for design tasks and development tasks to be performed independently and without breaking each other. Essentially, your UI is the View. You bind objects in the View to properties and commands of the ViewModel, and the View can also call methods on the ViewModel. Compatible with Silverlight 3 and WPF 3.5 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) Interoperate able with Visual Studio. Included New Shapes: The Assets panel in Expression Blend contains a new Shapes category, including presets for the easy creation of arcs, arrows, callouts, and polygons. New Controls: Expression Blend has tooling support for the RichTextBox control in Silverlight. XAML cleanliness :Expression Blend generates less XAML with respect to animations and animation-related properties. MVVM project template: Expression Blend includes a new project template that offers a basic starting point for Model-View-ViewModel pattern applications. Run project with CTRL+F5:To improve consistency with Visual Studio, you can now invoke the Run Project command by pressing either CTRL+F5 or F5 Technorati Tags: Rituraj,Features of Expression Blend4 RC

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  • Problem using Blend 3 Interaction.Behaviours in VS2010

    - by Andre Luus
    There seems to be a problem with support for the Interactivity namespace of Blend 3 in the VS2010 xaml editor. I have the following installed: VS2010 Blend 3 + Blend 3 SDK I am trying to compile a demo project that is targeted at .Net 4 Client Profile and has a reference to System.Windows.Interactivity (in the Blend 3 folder). In the object browser everything appears to be fine. I can also access Interaction.Behaviours from code-behind, but if I put the namespace xmlns:i="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/2010/interactivity" in the xaml file and try to use it, the intellisense is blank. If I copy something in there anyway, the compiler says: The tag 'Interaction.Behaviors' does not exist in XML namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/2010/interactivity'. Do I need to install Blend 4 RC or something?

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  • How to improve workflow between developer and designer with Expression Blend?

    - by Amenti
    We use WPF and Expression Blend 4. I'm trying to improve our workflow by tutoring one of our designers to use it for styling and animation. Slowly but surely I get the impression Blend in itself is to technical for the designer in question. I myself use it only occasionally (it's great for Visual States for instance) because a lot of things are easier done in code or not possible at all in Blend alone. It seems a developer with design experience is a lot more productive with it than a sole designer. Are there any good online resources or advice you could give me how to improve this situation?

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  • How can I improve the workflow between developer and designer with Expression Blend?

    - by Amenti
    We use WPF and Expression Blend 4. I'm trying to improve our workflow by tutoring one of our designers to use it for styling and animation. Slowly but surely I get the impression Blend in itself is to technical for the designer in question. I myself use it only occasionally (it's great for Visual States for instance) because a lot of things are easier done in code or not possible at all in Blend alone. It seems a developer with design experience is a lot more productive with it than a sole designer. Are there any good resources or advice as to how I can improve this workflow?

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  • XamlParseException using Silverlight Toolkit control in Expression Blend

    - by Dan Auclair
    I am having a strange issue opening up my UserControl in Expression Blend when using a Silverlight Toolkit control. My UserControl uses the toolkit's ListBoxDragDropTarget as follows: <controlsToolkit:ListBoxDragDropTarget mswindows:DragDrop.AllowDrop="True" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch"> <ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding MyItemControls}" ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Disabled"> <ListBox.ItemsPanel> <ItemsPanelTemplate> <controlsToolkit:WrapPanel/> </ItemsPanelTemplate> </ListBox.ItemsPanel> </ListBox> </controlsToolkit:ListBoxDragDropTarget> Everything works as expected at runtime and looks fine in Visual Studio 2008. However, when I try to open my UserControl in Blend I get XamlParseException: [Line: 0 Position: 0] and I can not see anything in the design view. More specifically Blend complains: The element "ListBoxDragDropTarget" could not be displayed because of a problem with System.Windows.Controls.ListBoxDragDropTarget: TargetType mismatch. My silverlight application is referencing System.Windows.Controls.Toolkit from the Nov. 2009 toolkit release, and I've made sure to include these namespace declarations for the ListBoxDragDropTarget: xmlns:controlsToolkit="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Toolkit" xmlns:mswindows="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Windows;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Toolkit" If I comment out the ListBoxDragDropTarget control wrapper and just leave the ListBox I can see everything fine in the design view without errors. Furthermore, I realized this is happening with a variety of Silverlight Toolkit controls because if I comment out ListBoxDragDropTarget and replace it with <controlsToolkit:BusyIndicator /> the same exact error occurs in Blend. What is even weirder is that if I start a brand new silverlight application in blend I can add these toolkit elements without any kind of error, so it seems like something dumb that is happening with my project references to the toolkit assemblies. I'm pretty sure this has something to do with loading the default styles for the toolkit controls from its generic.xaml, since the error has to do with the TargetType and Blend is probably trying to load up the default styles. Has anyone encountered this issue before or have any ideas as to what may be my problem?

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  • Blend "Window is not supported in a WPF Project"

    - by Andy Dent
    I am having a frustrating time with Blend reporting "Window is not supported in a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) project." due to unbuildable configurations but can't quite work out how to mangle my way out of it. I've worked out it is probably due to my trying to have a single solution with x86 and x64 configurations. There is no way to tell Blend 2 which is the active Solution Configuration and active Solution Platform. I think it's a bit of a weakness in the configuration system, or maybe the way I've set things up, but I have Debug64 and Debug solution configurations one of each is used with the platform x86 and x64. I also think it's a simple sorting problem - x64 comes before x86 and Debug comes before Debug64 so Blend ends up with an unbuildable config of Debug with x64. When I choose the combination of Debug and x64 in VS, its XAML editor can't load either. The solution is a moderately complex one - there's a pure Win32 DLL, C++/CLI Model project and two other WPF assemblies used by the main WPF project. UPDATE I have ripped all the x64 config out of my solution and rebuilt everything with no effect. I then uninstalled Blend 2 and installed Blend 3 - it doesn't like things either. The Visual Studio XAML editor is still very happy as is the program building and running. (echoes of strangled scream of frustration from oz)

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  • Expression Blend 3 TFS referesh problem

    - by bitbonk
    When I checkout, checkin, rename soemthing in Vs 2008 SP1 while I have the project open in Expression Blend 3, these changes are not updated in Blend until I close and reopen the solution in blend or I try to checkout/checkin an item that is aready checked out. Is this a known bug? And is there a workaround?

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  • Opening Visual Studio created XAML in Expression Blend

    - by Jens A.
    I have created a console application using Visual Studio 2008. In a few cases, this application shows a WPF dialog. Now, the design view of Visual Studio is a little limited, so I'd like to edit this dialog using Expression Blend 3. Blend does not seem to have an option to load individual XAML files, and when I open my solution in Blend, only the XAML code is displayed when I try to edit the dialog. Edit: I've noticed, that no IntelliSense is available in the text view either. When I create a new WPF Project inside Blend, and copy my dialog there (overwriten MainWindows.xaml), I get a design view. What do I have to do to actually get a design view here? Thank! =) Edit: Header of my XAML file: <Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" x:Class="QuantumAnalysis.Deployment.Activation.Checker.MainWindow" x:Name="Window" Title="MainWindow" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Width="600" SizeToContent="Height">

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  • Expression Blend 2/WPF Book

    - by Michael Damatov
    I'm looking for an Expression Blend 2 book that includes best-practices (Expression Blend 2/Visual Studio 2008) designer perspective (Expression Blend 2) programmer perspective (interoperability with Visual Studio 2008) How-To-chapters for Windows Forms developers (how to solve the same problem with WPF) Could you make a recommendation?

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  • WPF - List items not visible in Blend when 'DisplayMemberPath' is used

    - by Andy T
    Hi, We're currently working out how to implement MVVM and I've got to the point where I've got the MVVM Light Toolkit set up in blend and can specify dummy data to be supplied if running in Blend. All good. I've created a dummy list of data. The list contains 6 instances of a very simple class called DummyItem which has Age and Name properties. Here's the main code from my 'DummyList' class: public class DummyItem{ public string Name; public int Age; public DummyItem(string name, int age){ this.Name = name; this.Age = age; } } public class DummyList : ArrayList { public DummyList() { this.Add(new DummyItem("Dummy1", 00)); this.Add(new DummyItem("Dummy2", 01)); this.Add(new DummyItem("Dummy3", 02)); this.Add(new DummyItem("Dummy4", 03)); this.Add(new DummyItem("Dummy5", 04)); this.Add(new DummyItem("Dummy6", 05)); } } Here's the operative part of my XAML. The DataContext line does work and points to the correct ViewModel. <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot"> <ListBox x:Name="ListViewBox" DataContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource Locator}, Path=ListViewModel}" ItemsSource="{Binding TheList}" DisplayMemberPath="Name"> </ListBox> </Grid> The problem is, when I add 'DisplayMemberPath', as I have above, then I can no longer see the list items in Blend. If I remove 'DisplayMemberPath', then I see a list of objects (DummyItem) with their full path. When the app is run, everything works perfectly. It's just that in Blend itself I cannot see the list items when I use 'DisplayMemberPath'. Anyone know why I can't see the items inside Blend itself when I use DisplayMemberPath? Thanks! AT

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  • Dealing with Expression Blend's lack of support for C++/CLI projects

    - by Brian Ensink
    I have a WPF C# project that references a C++/CLI mixed mode project. I'm having trouble using the WPF project in Expression Blend 3. I'm new to Blend so perhaps this is obvious, but it won't display the xaml designer properly until it builds the project. In my case it complains that my custom commands are not "recognized or accessible" and the solution is to build the project in Blend. But I can't build the project because it references a C++/CLI mixed mode project which Blend won't load. The WPF project is pure C# it just happens to reference a C++/CLI mixed mode project but I'm not asking Blend to do anything with the mixed-mode assembly. How can I work around this problem? Edit: I was able to get it to build by removing the reference to the C++/CLI mixed mode project and replacing it with a reference to the actual assembly. However this is not ideal because in my past experience Visual Studio will not always be able to resolve the reference when switching between release and debug configurations.

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  • Be careful when installing the Blend Windows Phone 7 Add-In

    - by Laurent Bugnion
    There was a small issue today with the release of the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (April 2010 Refresh) refresh. The issue is that the Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone (April Refresh) is not compatible with Blend 4.0.20408.0, which was the public RC (release candidate). A few days ago, the Blend team released a fix for an issue that was sometimes causing a crash when Blend was starting up. This new release (V4.0.20421.0) was not very well announced however, and many people (including me) did not install it. After all, Blend did not crash at startup of either of my machines, so I didn’t deem necessary to install yet a new RC. However, it is now clear that the Windows Phone 7 Add-In needs this latest-and-greatest version to work. If you have Blend 4.0.20408.0, you won’t be able to work with Windows Phone 7 in Blend. To add to the confusion, the page where you can download V4.0.20421.0 from has an error, and the wrong version number is wrong (at least at the time of writing). Do not let this confuse you. You must download this version and install it. Hopefully this helps clarify some of the confusion… Happy WinPhone7 coding :) Laurent

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  • Expression Blend + Sketchflow Preview for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012

    - by T
    Expression Blend has released a preview version of Blend that addresses some of the missing features of the version of Expression Blend that ships with VS 2012.   Here is a download to the preview version that has a lot of the features that were missing in the shipped version.  My suggestion is that anyone that works with Xaml and VS 2012 download this version of Blend  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30702

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  • Extending Expression Blend 4 &amp; Blend for Visual Studio 2012

    - by Chris Skardon
    Just getting this off the bat, I presume this will also work for Blend 5, but I can’t confirm it… Anyhews, I imagine you’re here because you want to know how to create an addin for Blend, so let’s jump right in there! First, and foremost, we’re going to need to ensure our development environment has the right setup, so the checklist: Visual Studio 2012 Blend for Visual Studio 2012 OK, let’s create a new project (class library, .NET 4.5): Hello.Extension The ‘.Extension’ bit is very very important. The addin will not work unless it is named in this way. You can put whatever you want at the front, but it has to have the extension bit. OK, so now we have a solution with one project. To this project we need to add references to the following things: Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility (from c:\program files\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Blend\   -- x86 folder if you are on an x64 windows install) Microsoft.Expression.Framework (same location as above) PresentationCore PresentationFramework WindowsBase System.ComponentModel.Composition Got them? ACE. Let’s now add a project to contain our control, so, create a new WPF Application project, cunningly named something like ‘Hello.Control’… (I’m creating a WPF application here, because I’m too lazy to dig up the correct references, and this will add all the ones I need ) Once that is created, delete the App.xaml and MainWindow.xaml files, we won’t be needing them. You will also need to change the properties of the project itself, so it is only a class library. Once that is done, let’s add a new UserControl, which will be this: <UserControl x:Class="Hello.Control.HelloControl" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="300"> <Grid> <TextBlock Text="HELLO!!!"/> </Grid> </UserControl> Impressive eh? Now, let’s reference the WPF project from the Extension library. All that’s left now is to code up our extension… So, add a class to the Extension project (name wise doesn’t matter), and make it implement the IPackage interface from the Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility library: public class HelloExtension : IPackage { /**/ } We’ll implement the two methods we need to: public class HelloExtension : IPackage { public void Load(IServices services) { } public void Unload() { } } We’re only really concerned about the Load method in this case, as let’s face it, the extension we have doesn’t need to do a lot to bog off. The interesting thing about the Load method is that it receives an IServices instance. This allows us to get access to all the services that Expression provides, in this case we’re interested in one in particular, the ‘IWindowService’ So, let’s get that bad boy… private IWindowService _windowService; public void Load(IServices services) { _windowService = services.GetService<IWindowService>(); } Nailed it… But why? The WindowService allows us to register our UserControl with Blend, which in turn allows people to activate and see it, which is a big plus point. So, let’s do that… We’ll create an ‘Initialize’ method to create our new control, and add it to the WindowService: private HelloControl _helloControl; public void Initialize() { _helloControl = new HelloControl(); if (_windowService.PaletteRegistry["HelloPanel"] == null) _windowService.RegisterPalette("HelloPanel", _helloControl, "Hello Window"); } First we check that we’re not already registered, and if we’re not we register, the first argument is the identifier used by the service to, well, identify your extension. The second argument is the actual control, the third argument is the name that people will see in the ‘Windows’ menu of Blend itself (so important note here – don’t put anything embarrassing or (need I say it?) sweary…) There are only two things to do now - Call ‘Initialize()’ from our Load method, and Export the class This is easy money – add [Export(typeof(IPackage))] to the top of our class… The full code will (should) look like this: [Export(typeof (IPackage))] public class HelloExtension : IPackage { private HelloControl _helloControl; private IWindowService _windowService; public void Load(IServices services) { _windowService = services.GetService<IWindowService>(); Initialize(); } public void Unload() { } public void Initialize() { _helloControl = new HelloControl(); if (_windowService.PaletteRegistry["HelloControl"] == null) _windowService.RegisterPalette("HelloControl", _helloControl, "Hello Window"); } } If you build this and copy it to your ‘Extensions’ folder in Blend (c:\program files\microsoft visual studio 11.0\blend\) and start Blend, you should see ‘Hello Window’ listed in the Window menu: That as they say is it!

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  • Grabbing values from Expression.Blend.SampleData

    - by Mitchell Skurnik
    I am trying to figure out how to grab a value from Expression.Blend.SampleData. If my id is equal to a drop down for example, I can grab it by doing this: ((Expression.Blend.SampleData.MyDatabase.something)(MyDropDown.SelectedItem)).description; I need some way to place my own value where (MyDropDown.SelectedItem) is. Visual studio wants me to convert it a "Expression.Blend.SampleData.MyDatabase.something" format. I have tried a few ways to do this but I have been unsuccessful. Any Ideas? EDIT I am starting to think there is no way in Silverlight to do this

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  • Create Silverlight application in Blend then migrate to Visual Studio

    - by Mohit Deshpande
    I want to make a Silverlight application in Expression Blend because of the rich UI and navigation of Blend. But I want to store the Silverlight application in an ASP.NET MVC web project. When I try to make a new Silverlight application, the default web application is an ASP.NET Web application (or web site, if I'm wrong). Can I make a single Silverlight application (no web project) then import in an ASP.NET MVC application? How can I do this?

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