Microsoft Expression Blend 3 Release Notes

This document provides information that supplements the Microsoft Expression Blend 3 User Guide.

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Contents

Installation and prerequisites

1. Installing Silverlight 3
2. Silverlight Runtime Viewer
3. Enabling Team Foundation Server 2008 support inside Expression Blend 3
4. Parallels Shared Folders

Known Issues

1. The WPF Toolkit June 2009 does not always install completely
2. Combining paths generates more points than necessary
3. Expression Blend causes excess memory to be used on Windows XP when working with a Silverlight project
4. Using a stylus to rearrange workspace panels can cause Expression Blend to stop responding to mouse and stylus
5. Enabling the display of supported language strings in the SketchFlow Player

Installation and prerequisites

1. Installing Silverlight 3

   Expression Blend 3 supports creating Silverlight content targeting Silverlight 3 only. The default installation of Expression Blend will install everything you need to start creating Silverlight 3 content, but if you want to enable editing inside Visual Studio, follow these instructions.

   Expression Blend 3 installs version 3 of the Silverlight SDK, and it requires version 3 of the Silverlight runtime to be installed on your computer.

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2. Silverlight Runtime Viewer

   The Silverlight runtime viewer is installed along with the Silverlight SDK when you install Expression Blend. Expression Blend uses this version of the runtime to display your project in Design view, but when you test your Silverlight application, the application will be rendered using the version of Silverlight that your browser uses. Your browser might use a version of the runtime that is more recent than the version that was installed with Expression Blend if you have visited a website that required a newer version of the runtime.

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3. Enabling Team Foundation Server 2008 support inside Expression Blend 3
   To enable support for Team Foundation Server 2008 inside Expression Blend 3, you have to install the following prerequisites:
   1. Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Explorer
   2. Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1
      Note:Visual Studio 2008 is not necessary for enabling Team Foundation Server support inside Expression Blend. However, you have to install Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Explorer Service Pack 1, which is installed as a part of the VS 2008 SP1 installer.
   3. Update Team Foundation Server 2008 to work with Expression Studio 3
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4. Parallels Shared Folders

   Expression Blend 3 cannot be installed from Parallels Shared Folders. Copy installation files into a folder on the virtual machine before running Setup.

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Known Issues

1. The WPF Toolkit June 2009 does not always install completely

   Expression Blend 3 Setup installs the WPF Toolkit June 2009 before installing Blend 3 itself. However, a complete install of the WPF Toolkit June 2009 depends on an existing installation of either Blend 2, Blend 3, or Visual Studio. If none of these products is present then certain parts of the WPF Toolkit June 2009, that are needed for a full tooling experience of the toolkit controls, will not be installed. This issue manifests as missing icons in the Asset pane, and missing design-time features for Toolkit controls both on the artboard and in the property inspector. To correct this issue reinstall Blend and choose Repair, or reinstall the WPF Toolkit June 2009 and choose Repair. If you installed Blend from recordable media or from a network then you can reinstall the WPF Toolkit June 2009 by running Setup\WPKToolkit.msi.

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2. Combining paths generates more points than necessary

   Clicking Combine on the Object menu generates more point information than necessary. If you are affected by this issue, you can apply the update.

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3. Expression Blend causes excess memory to be used on Windows XP when working with a Silverlight project

   When you are working with a Silverlight 3 project in Expression Blend 3 on Windows XP, memory leaks can occur. This is an issue with the version of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) that Expression Blend 3 requires to run. If you are affected by this issue, you can apply the update.

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4. Using a stylus to rearrange workspace panels can cause Expression Blend to stop responding to mouse and stylus

   Using a stylus to undock a panel and dock it in another panel group can sometimes cause Expression Blend to stop responding to mouse and stylus events. You can still use the keyboard to save your documents and restart the application.

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5. Enabling the display of supported language strings in the SketchFlow Player

   No changes are required to display strings in the native language when running a WPF project in the SketchFlow Player on one of the supported localized operating systems (de, en, es, fr, it, ja, ko, zh-Hans and zh-Hant). To enable the display of supported languages when running a Silverlight-based prototype project in the SketchFlow Player, the language codes need to be added to the <supportedcultures> tag in the .csproj or .vbproj file for the player harness project. For example, the following will enable Italian, Japanese and English:
   <supportedcultures>it;ja;en</supportedcultures>

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