Microsoft Expression Blend Beta 2

Overview

We are pleased to present the second Beta version of Expression Blend.

Your input is essential during our development cycle to help us make a better product. Please send your feedback to us via our discussion forum or our product feedback center as you encounter bugs or usability issues, or if you simply want to request a feature. Have fun designing, and we look forward to your continued feedback!

If you are new to Expression Blend and are building user experiences for .NET 3.0 applications on the Windows platform, this is a great place to start. The betas are a great way to experiment and begin familiarizing yourself with the tool. We hope you will try the innovative features in Expression Blend, such as rich 2D and 3D graphics, animation, dynamic layout, data binding, style and template editing, and resource management.

We recommend that you explore the included sample projects and documentation. Additionally, some knowledge of .NET 3.0 programming may help you when working with the beta. For more information about the .NET Framework 3.0, see the .NET Framework 3.0 Development section of the Windows Software Development Kit. Please also refer to 3rd-party books that are good resources for learning WPF.

In order to edit code, you will also need a free copy of a Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 Express edition from the Visual Studio Express Web site (choose either the Visual Basic or C# edition).

What’s changed in this Beta?

• You can now instantiate resources from the Resources panel. For example, you can drag and drop a button style onto the artboard and create a button out of it instead of creating a button and applying it as a separate task.
• You can see inner exceptions when an exception happens on the design surface, allowing you to see more details about the cause of an exception.
• You now get font previews in the Text category of the Properties panel which makes it easier to choose your font.
• After adding an event handler, the XAML file is now automatically saved for you.
• Configuring value editors has been improved. For example, you’ll find editing BitmapEffects or adding items to an ItemsControl such as ContextMenu are now much easier to do.

Installation Instructions
Installing on Windows Vista:

1. Download and install Expression Blend.
2. When prompted to enter a product key, just click the Continue button for a 30-day trial from the first installation of Beta 1, or if you want to enable the 180-day license, please enter the product key as follows: J33H2-43BTF-JG47Y-KWWWT-43QJV.
3. Download and install Visual Studio 2005 Express (Visual Basic or C#).

Installing on Windows XP SP2:

1. Uninstall all previous versions of Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, MSXML 6.0 and SDK, and Expression Blend (or Interactive Designer) using Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel.
2. Please be sure to install .NET Framework 3.0 first before attempting to install Expression Blend.
3. Download and install Expression Blend.
4. When prompted to enter a product key, just click the Continue button for a 30-day trial from the first installation of Beta 2, or if you want to enable the 180-day license, please enter the product key as follows: J33H2-43BTF-JG47Y-KWWWT-43QJV.
5. Download and install Visual Studio 2005 Express (Visual Basic or C#).

For more information and to download the Microsoft Expression Blend Beta 2, please visit [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=31f7b20e-9a1d-4317-8146-fbb6a39b1a2c&DisplayLang=en]

 

 

 

Posted by: Eric Lam

Location: Canberra/Australia
Category: Microsoft Technologies