Microsoft Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 Features

Please note: Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 will install as an update to your existing installation of Expression Blend 2. This is different from previous Expression Blend Previews which installed side by side with your earlier versions of Expression Blend. Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 updates the supported Silverlight platform to Silverlight 2 which enables you to take full advantage of the new features available in the platform. If you do not have Expression Blend 2 installed a trial version is available here. This installation can then be updated with Expression Blend 2 SP1.

What’s been updated?

Silverlight 2 Support

Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 fully supports the Silverlight 2.

The Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 exposes two new features of the platform, control skinning and the Visual State Manager, that for the first time allow designers to take complete control of the interaction model of Silverlight 2 based applications.

Template editing to skin controls

Silverlight 2 introduces a powerful control model that allows you to build rich web applications quickly and effectively using a set of reusable components. Skinning is the process that allows you to edit and change the look and feel of the Silverlight controls by editing the individual elements that make up the control. Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 puts skinning and template editing capability firmly in the hands of the designer.

Designers and developers building desktop applications have enjoyed the ability to separate the underlying architecture of the application from the way the user will interact with the application as well as how it looks. Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 seamlessly enables this powerful feature of the platform in your Silverlight applications for the first time.

The breadcrumb trail (introduced in Blend 2) allows designers to quickly and easily access the template editing capabilities of Blend, enabling the designer to either edit a copy of the template, or start with a blank template for maximum creative freedom.

The designer has complete expressive freedom to customize controls to enable them to exactly fit the function they play within an application.

You can see an example of how to edit a Silverlight 2 button control here.

Using templates to skin the look of the controls is extremely powerful but is only half the story. For a designer to give feeling and texture to an application having complete freedom and control to edit the look of the control is not enough, they also need to be able to freely experiment with the interaction model of the application, which is where the Visual State Manager comes into play.

Visual State Manager

Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 exposes the Visual State Manger of Silverlight 2 and gives designers a flexible and powerful way to design the interaction model of their Silverlight 2 applications.

Each control within a Silverlight 2 project has the ability to contain a state group, and it’s the state group that contains the different states for that particular control (mouseOver, mouseDown etc) as well as the information on how the different states should transition from one to another.

The Visual State Manager harnesses the raw power of state groups to give designers a flexible and visual way to control precisely how each element of a control will behave and look in a given state. Whether an element in a control snaps into position or glides, moves in a linear fashion or with inertia, the designer has the freedom to quickly and accurately experiment with different interaction models before finely tuning and finalizing the user experience of the application.

Designers can utilize the power of the Visual State Manager with both User Controls and Custom Controls allowing the designer to be in complete control of the user experience across the whole of the application. Let’s sample the power of the Visual State Manager by taking a look at how quickly the states of a control can be edited and refined by looking at a simple example.

Useful links:

For the latest news and discussion of Expression Blend please visit our Expression Community web site.

If you can’t wait to download Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 – click here to go directly to the downloads center. Important: This is a Service Pack that will only install if you already have Expression Blend 2 installed.

To get started on your first Silverlight project please visit the Silverlight.net Getting Started section, where you’ll have access to all the tools and information you need to take your first success steps with Silverlight 2.

For a full overview Expression Blend 2 please visit the Expression Blend 2 features page.