Foundation Expression Blend 2: Building Applications in Wpf and Silverlight

By Victor Gaudioso

Expression Blend was Microsoft's first entry into the web application and design space; the first time they trod on Adobe Flash's toes. They got a lot of things right, and started to carve out a market, but they didn't get the crossover numbers they wanted. Blend 2 is where they put that right. This book details everything a designer or developer needs to know to start developing web applications in Blend.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590599764
• ISBN13: 9781590599761
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Apress
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.5" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Greatly Improved my Understanding

This book was great for me. I am an old-style coder/programmer who hasn't done much actual coding for a long time. I recently ran across some stunning product simulations written using Expression Blend, so I installed a copy and tried to figure it out. I didn't have a clue! So, I looked around and found this book, bought it, and went through the examples. What a revelation! I finally understand why Microsoft wanted to "blend" the content designer and the developer worlds w/ this product. Not only that, but this book also gave me more insight into how Visual Studio can work on the SAME code set that Blend is using. Great technique for collaboration. The book is well-paced, well-written and full of useful examples. Downloads of more complex examples are available, if you want to save some time. The author did a great job adding clarity to what can be a complicated development domain.

The best book for designers by far

As a designer who'd previously been using Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver for the past 10 years to lay out Web pages, orienting myself to the Silverlight/Blend paradigm was a challenge. Xbaps, Xaps, C#, Visual Studio and serious development are all enough to scare the frozen latte out of the average designer with my credentials. But boredom, a zest for the next cutting edge technology, and a desire to expand my portfolio of skills landed me squarely in the midst of this challenge and I'm here to tell you Mr. Gaudioso's book is the one you want if you're a designer like myself. With exceptionally patient and generous writing, Gaudioso takes the designer into the world of serious development and stays with you throughout. He does so by introducing you step by step to this unique new application designed for the very purpose of bringing designers and developers together to create the Web applications of the future. He doesn't sugar-coat anything, Blend is a serious tool meant to be used with other serious development tools like Visual Studio. But he's able to step into the mind of the uninitiated and walk you through setting up your development environment in easy-to-understand ways. I especially appreciated those instances in which he analogizes Web paradigms to explain WPF design constructs, comparing, for example, resource files to CSS and certain layout elements to HTML tables. If you're a designer interested in getting your arms around WPF, Silverlight and Expression Blend, Gaudioso's book ought to be the first book you buy.

Very Good Introduction to Blend 2

Silverlight and Blend new product releases are moving so fast that it is very difficult to find books that are up to date; however, one of the things I especially like about this book is the awesome and rapid support that Victor provides for the readers. Victor has updated samples rapidly, added new examples, fixed examples that were broken with the new releases of Silverlight 2 and Blend 2.5 preview (now Blend 2 sp1) very quickly. Victor has provided new examples and Word docs for the Blend 2.5 (now Blend sp1) update which includes the new Visual State Manager, MediaElement, and custom button creation. David Roh

Exactly what I needed...

This book is great for someone looking to get started in Expression Blend. There are a lot of tips and tricks and it really helps you navigate through the tool easily. I particularly liked that the author pointed out who the book is for and what you need to know before getting started. Also, it is a fun read and filled with real world examples! I look forward to the more advanced book that I am sure is in the works.

That's what I needed.

This book is a very good tutorial for beginners. Easy to follow step by step directions really make learning experience painless.