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Microsoft Expression Blend 3 creates workflow with designers


By David Worthington
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July 23, 2009 —  Expression Blend 3, a Microsoft interface development tool that facilitates collaboration among clients, designers and developers, became available today for download.

Blend is a UI builder for rich Internet applications that provides tooling for Silverlight 3, which was released earlier this month. It was first announced at MIX 09 in March.

This version of Blend includes a new prototyping feature called SketchFlow, which models the composition, flow, screens and states of an application interface. SketchFlow incorporates animation, drawing tools and images, and can load Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation controls into prototypes.

Microsoft has focused on improving Blend's animation and easing functions, 3D transforms, visual effects and visual state manager.

SketchFlow prototypes are designed for sharing and reviewing design intent, and they can be annotated with in-context feedback, Microsoft says. Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) code is automatically generated for prototypes so that they become usable artifacts.

Microsoft is attempting to fill in a gap in the developer/designer/client workflow, said Eric Knipp, a senior research analyst at Gartner. "The ability to generate printed slides from low-fidelity prototypes quickly and easily is a big improvement.

"I like to think of it like this: In the past, designers would draw up some prototypes, consult with the client, and at some point hand them off to the developer, who would go implement the software based on feature requirements and the designs," he added. "Then, a miracle would happen, and the end result might or might not look like what the designer intended. Microsoft is trying to eliminate the need for such miracles during the construction of Silverlight apps."

Other developer-focused features are interoperability with Visual Studio Team System 2008, a code editor that supports Visual C#, Visual Basic and XAML, and the ability to generate design-time sample data in applications.

An API is available for developers to write custom actions, behaviors and triggers for use in Silverlight and WPF projects.

Blend 3 is also capable of importing from Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop in instances where designers are not using the Microsoft stack. Photoshop files can be imported layer by layer and regrouped to retain their original element formats for editing within Expression, the company said.

Upgrade pricing is set at US$349, and the full version costs $599. Microsoft offers a 60-day evaluation copy. It is also available under Expression Professional subscriptions.




Related Search Term(s): Microsoft, Silverlight


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