Microsoft Expression Blend 2

Expression Blend's interface maximizes space for your work. A dynamically filterable Properties panel helps you find what you are looking for instantly.

Composite your vector and bitmap artwork, video, audio and rich text. Or create custom vector elements using advanced gradients, alpha transparency, and sophisticated layout and snapping tools.

Add standard controls such as buttons, scroll bars, list boxes, menus, radio buttons, and checkboxes--or composite multiple control elements together to form compound controls.

Deliver highly usable and enjoyable user interfaces to your customers.

Design Ultimate Experiences

Create stunning web experiences
Deliver eye popping experiences with, full screen HD video, animated graphics, sound and interactivity through the combination of Expression Blend 2 and Silverlight.

Build compelling user experiences for Microsoft Windows
Deliver better usability and user experiences that pack the power of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 and incorporate both online and offline data capabilities. Now your users can sync with the Web and take your applications virtually anywhere.

Create engaging multimedia user interfaces
Broaden the potential of your designs. Create compelling user interface designs that use a full spectrum of media types, including vector and pixel art, video, audio, text, 3D, and animation. Work within a rich, real-time design environment designed to shorten the distance between idea and execution.

Add interactivity to your designs--without writing code
Codeless interactivity is built into Expression Blend 2. Fully customizable controls let you create design elements from simple graphical buttons to sophisticated custom views of data. Link interface elements to each other or to live data. Simply drag and drop to add custom code or controls to your application.

Collaborate with confidence
Harness the power of XAML the .NET Framework 3.5 and Silverlight to ensure the designs you create in Expression Blend 2 carry through to the final Microsoft Visual Studio project. Your interaction design and layout can be used intact in the final product, so you keep creative control.

Tools for creativity
Composite vector and bitmap artwork, HD video, audio, text, and containers with sophisticated WYSIWYG design tools.

• Control animations with precision using onscreen motion path editing, vertex animation and inproved visual storyboard controls with Expression Blend 2.
• Split view allows you to view the design surface and XAML code at the same time, you can work seemlessly in either mode
• Produce high-quality typographic designs with Microsoft ClearType support, then easily embed all or part of any typeface.
• Customize the look and feel of controls without writing code. Define reusable custom styles or apply standard Microsoft Windows themes.
• Import 3D models; manipulate and animate in true 3D, using camera position, surface materials, z-space animation, and surface texture mapping.
• Silverlight 1.0 applications can be opened as a website allowing for improved workflow with Visual Studio 2008
• The built in Javascript editor allows you to add interactivity to your Silverlight web applications and avoid changing applications mid-flow

Codeless interactivity

• Bind your interface elements to each other, to user input, or to data from Web services and .NET objects so that your objects update dynamically and your application comes to life even before you write code.
• Design adaptive layouts using containers that automatically handle scaling and repositioning of content and controls.
• Advanced controls and layout functions--including ready-made grid splitters, ink canvases, treeviews, expanders, sliders, tab controls, and more--add robust functionality to your interface.

Efficient collaboration

• Make immediate creative decisions based on real-time previews of interface elements that are dynamically bound to external data sources.
• Incorporate design elements from Microsoft Expression Design 2, as well as other leading creative professional tools, using XAML exporters.
• Share projects with Visual Studio to add depth and polish to your application. Visual Studio enables debugging, Web services design, and enterprise application lifecycle management.
• Directly edit XAML code with colored syntax highlighting. Maintain quality and vision when converting your prototype files to final products because the Expression family and Visual Studio speak the same "language."
• Leverage existing external resources by importing and referencing .NET code libraries through simple drag-and-drop actions.

Deliver better experiences

• Deliver cinematic and compelling user experiences, both on the desktop and the web through the power of Silverlight and WPF