Laurent Duveau : Expression

Blend SketchFlow project: from prototype to real screens?

pluginbaby — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:34:03 GMT

I have been doing many demos of Blend SketchFlow, but never tried the process to go from sketch to real screens when prototyping is finished.
After MIX09, my first understanding was that one of the goals of SketchFlow was being able to easily switch from prototype to "real" app. But I was wrong and I found that many people are.

Maybe the confusion comes from what is written on the site:
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Sketchflow_Overview.aspx

"Traditional prototypes are generally redundant after the concept phase and discarded. SketchFlow enables you to leverage all the previous conceptual work, every asset and component created is reusable in your production project – nothing goes to waste."

I think many people (like me) incorrectly understood that we could simply switch from prototype to real screens, which is not really the case.

On the Blend documentation (Hit F1, select SketchFlow and click on “Convert a prototype”) you can find the official procedure to “convert your SketchFlow prototype into a production-ready project”. Have a look at it and you’ll see the process is long and really painful… far from a “convert to production” button that would remove the Sketch style from every control and clean the solution.

In fact the point is that you generally wouldn’t want to do that, and someone from the Blend Team confirmed this. You should build your prototype without production consideration in mind. The structure of a SketchFlow prototype itself is not done as a typical well-architected production solution would be. SketchFlow is very good to help you build mock-ups in a RAD-style development, then for production you have to start a clean new project and reuse some of the assets you created during the prototype. But no “convert project to production” button here, and no plan to have one as I heard (for the reasons described above).

Note: I am not trying to minimize the benefits of this tool, just pointing out the “switch to production” might be surprising at first.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,SketchFlow

Expression Studio 3 available online

pluginbaby — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:30:06 GMT

Final version of Expression Studio 3 is now available online as free 60 days trial.

Expression Blend 3 was already available as RC since Silverlight 3 shipped some days ago, but we never had beta version of the rest of the suite, so here they are:

Nice! installing all that right now…

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Expression Studio

Silverlight resources for designers

pluginbaby — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:10:07 GMT

When I am training Silverlight I am often asked by designers how to find resources on Silverlight/XAML/Expression, so here is a post for them:

First you can find lots of Expression Studio videos training in the new Microsoft videos portal:
www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/categories/products/expression

Lynda.com provides videos training on Expression Blend and Expression Design:

Expression Blend Beta Preview (3 hrs)
Getting Started with Expression Blend (3 hrs)
Getting Started with Expression Design (6 hrs)

Expression Design tutorials on the Microsoft Expression Team blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/expression/pages/samples-and-tutorials-gallery-expression-design.aspx

Here are some XAML exporters to help you do Silverlight with your assets from Adobe tools:

Illustrator AI to XAMLExport
Photoshop Psd2Xaml
Infragistics Fireworks to XAML Exporter

The fantastic NibblesTutorials website (Expression Blend):
www.nibblestutorials.net

This blog post collect free Silverlight controls and tools available on the net:
www.webresourcesdepot.com/free-silverlight-controls-and-tools-for-brighter-websites/

And finally this interesting blog:
www.designwithsilverlight.com

Also as a designer you NEED to know about the Expression Professional Subscription, for a very good price ($999 USD) you get:

Expression Studio 2
Visual Studio 2008 Standard
Windows Vista Business
Windows XP SP2
Office Standard
Office Visio Professional
Pre-configured virtualized server environments (VPC)
Virtual PC (to use the VPC)
Parallels Desktop for Mac (a 3rd party application to run Windows OS on Apple hardware concurrent with OSX)

So typically if you are a MAC designer with no Microsoft platform tools you get everything you need to get started and create awesome user experience applications with Silverlight!

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Silverlight training,Expression,designers,xaml

Expression training in the new Microsoft videos portal

pluginbaby — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:12:58 GMT

Microsoft has launched a new videos portal in Silverlight.

> www.microsoft.com/videos

Good news, there is an Expression Studio category with already more than 140 videos!!

Expression Encoder 2 SP1 available!

pluginbaby — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:34:14 GMT

The main info is in the title…

Download the SP1 of Expression Encoder 2 here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A29BE9F9-29E1-4E70-BF67-02D87D3E556E&displaylang=en

Why is it so nice?

Because you can now export your encoded videos to a Silverlight 2 player with a new set of templates!

Then easily open the output in Visual Studio 2008 and add your C# or VB code! How cool is that?

The blue “I” gives you information about the template applied to your video/settings like: “The gallery bar in this template supports thumbnails, but not all your media files have them.” nice!

2 days ago we (RunAtServer Consulting) were invited by Microsoft Montreal to demo Silverlight during a presentation to their major media customers, we needed that SL2 templates to show VS2008 integration after export from Encoder 2, and had the chance to get a pre-version of the SP1 thanks to Joel!

Technorati Tags: Expression

Looking for a Canadian Silverlight designer

pluginbaby — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:15:25 GMT

Are you a talented designer ?
Are you well-versed in web design ?
Using Photoshop and Illustrator on your day to day job ?
Are you a flash designer interested to add a Silverlight competency ?
Are you living in Quebec or available for remote work ?

Then contact us at RunAtServer Consulting!

RunAtServer Consulting is a company based in Montreal, we are specialized in web development with Microsoft technologies.

We are seeking a web designer with skills on the new Microsoft designers tools like Expression Blend, as well as good knowledge of XAML.

We are web developers looking to work in pair with a designer for our Silverlight projects.

[Cool Tool] Vector Magic

pluginbaby — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:47:02 GMT

Vector Magic is an online tool that converts bitmaps into vector images. It provides a wizard that helps you through the process, so you can easily generate your vector graphics from bitmaps, then import into Microsoft Expression Designer or Blend. I already used it several times and the results are amazing! It is also impressive to have such a service as a website!

http://vectormagic.com/

First step is to upload your picture (gif or jpg):

At first the tool try to identify your image (logo or photo):

The correct type is automatically selected for you:

Then you match the quality level of your picture:

This step is for logos:

You get a list of colors palettes related to your logo, with the best match selected for you:

Finally the tool vectorizes your image and show a preview of the result with a comparison to the original:

Now you can download your image as a vector file!

Note: this service is not free anymore, but you can try it (upload, vectorize, preview, get unlimited png images and 2 vector results) without any subscription.

Expression Encoder 2 publish to Silverlight Streaming plugin

pluginbaby — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:15:00 GMT

Expression Encoder 2 is out, but you might wonder where is the Publish to Silverlight Streaming feature ??

Remember you had to install a plugin for that purpose.

You still need a plugin and the updated version is there:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/2/a/22a8da23-ffa7-4e5a-8fed-8239d3a7b322/SLSPlugin for Expression Encoder 2.msi

Now you can encode your videos with Expression Encoder 2 and publish right to your free 10GB Silverlight Streaming account!

Technorati Tags: Expression Encoder 2,Silverlight Streaming

Expression Blend 2.5 June preview FAQ

pluginbaby — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:19:00 GMT

Following my Silverlight 2 beta 2 Mega-FAQ here is a FAQ on Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 preview as announced at TechEd 2008:

Is customer support offered with the Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview?
Support for pre-release products is offered on the Microsoft Discussion Forum where you can solicit feedback and help get your questions answered by the Expression community.

When will Expression Blend 2.5 be final?
We have not announced a release schedule for Expression Blend 2.5 however it is our intention to release it as soon as possible after Silverlight 2 is finally released.

When will Expression Studio 3 be released?
We have not announced a release schedule for Expression Studio 3.

Is Expression Blend 2.5 compatible with the tools in Expression Studio 2?
Yes.

Does Expression Blend support Silverlight 2?
Expression Blend will fully support Silverlight 2 in a future release. At TechEd we released an updated preview of Expression Blend 2.5 (Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview) to enable designers to start immediately exploring the power of Silverlight 2. We are currently evaluating how best to release this to market once Silverlight 2 is finally released, however we are committed to releasing preview versions to support the Silverlight 2 preview versions.

Customers who purchase Expression Studio 2 or Expression Blend 2 will receive the future version of Expression Blend that supports Silverlight 2 for free.

Are the features in Silverlight 2 Beta 2 exposed in Expression Blend 2.5 June Preview?
A large number of the features of the Silverlight 2 Beta 2 are available, specifically those which focus on the visual, design aspects of the platform.

Is Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview compatible with Visual Studio 2008 SP1?
Yes.

Where can I download Expression 2.5 2008 June Preview?
The preview can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/expression/try-it/

Why isn’t the full Expression Studio included in MSDN Subscriptions?
We recognize the tremendous interest in the Microsoft Expression product line within the existing MSDN subscriber community and have included Expression tooling in the premium MSDN subscription levels as a result.

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite with MSDN Premium includes Expression Studio.
All other MSDN Premium levels include Expression Web and Expression Blend.

Developers with design responsibilities want access to Expression just as designers with development responsibilities want access to Visual Studio. We provide tooling for each group with the MSDN subscription levels above--for developers who do design--and the new Expression Professional Subscription--for designers who do development.

Which Expression products are included in each MSDN subscription level is a business decision reflecting our desire to continue meeting the needs of professional developers while delivering an "MSDN for Designers" option that appeals directly (and uniquely) to professional designers.

Technorati Tags: Expression Blend,Silverlight 2

Blend 2.5 march preview: Where is the Silverlight DataGrid ??

pluginbaby — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:52:00 GMT

[Post written as of Silverlight 2 beta 1 and Expression Blend 2.5 march preview]

Strange that the DataGrid is not in Expression Blend 2.5 march preview toolbox, but only in VS2008 !?

If you add a DataGrid in VS2008 and then switch to Blend that will break your designer.
It seems like there are problems with these assemblies references in Blend 2.5:

System.Windows.Controls.dll
System.Windows.Controls.Data.dll
System.Windows.Controls.Extended.dll

Remember that controls are not part of the runtime, they are part of the SDK and must be distributed with each application. Here are the different folders:

Runtime: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\2.0.30226.2"
SDK: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v2.0\Libraries\Client"

Thanks to Michael Sync from the Silverlight forums, you can fix this:

1. Fix the reference in Blend:
Add reference to "System.Windows.Controls.Data.dll" from the SDK folder.

2. Add this markup in <UserControl declaration:
xmlns:data="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data"

3. then, you can add a DataGrid like that:
<data:DataGrid></data:DataGrid>

Now you can find the DataGrid in Blend 2.5 Toolbox :

Click on "Asset Library" (bottom of toolbox)
Check "Show All"

Expression Web 2

pluginbaby — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:37:14 GMT

Back from MIX08 I've just installed Expression Studio 2 and my first try is Expression Web 2, not for the new features yet, but to check if my 2 most frustrating bugs were fixed, and they were!

1. EW2 now remembers your credential when accessing remote web site... no need to type your ftp password again and again.

2. Custom controls now works properly (IntelliSense, smart tag, toolbox), they broke the designer before, read: http://weblogs.asp.net/lduveau/archive/2007/11/18/expression-web-and-custom-controls.aspx.

That's a good start!

[MIX08] pre-conference day

pluginbaby — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:13:00 GMT

Today march 4 was the MIX08 VIP pre conference "Together@MIX". We had sessions and panels on the morning and an afternoon full of fun activities (I chose the Las Vegas Extreme rides!).

Here is the speakers and a bit of what they said:

Steve Guttman (PM for Expression Web)

Expression branding
Expression Web 2
- PHP support (intellisense & syntax highlight, cassini for web server)
- Photoshop layers support
- ActiveX for Flash
- AJAX
Expression Encoder 2 "a real post-production tool"
- lots of new features
- XAML and video overlays
- Edit player in Blend
More at the keynote "I've been in Microsoft for years and the number of announcements at the keynote tomorrow is un-be-lie-vable !!"

Doug Olson

Designer/Developer workflow
Expression Studio 2 for April (focus on Silverlight)
Expression Blend 2 (for Silverlight 1)
Expression Design (XAML slice like Dreamweaver)

George Moore (GM Live Platform)

Live Messenger API
Silverlight Streaming
Audience Analytics

Brad Abrams (ASP.NET Team)

Silverlight ASP.NET control
Silverlight Localization
Silverlight 2 UI controls
MVC sample app

Tim Sneath

WPF
- "WPF is the Ferrari, Silverlight is the Mini Cooper..."
- Service Pack in september
- Light .NET client install

Daniel Makoski (Interactive Design Manager for Surface)

Microsoft Surface User Experience Team, or Microsoft Surface UX or Microsoft SUX...
Very funny video on Surface "Big Ass Table" !

We had some keynote leaks today, but... let's wait for tomorrow !

The afternoon was busy trying every roller coaster of Las Vegas !!!!

Technorati Tags: MIX08,Canadian MIXers

Expression Blend Service Pack 1 for VS2008

pluginbaby — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 22:11:57 GMT

The Service Pack 1 for Expression Blend contains several fixes and changes, and also optimize Visual Studio 2008 support.

Download link:
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/download.aspx?key=blendsp1

Expression Web and Custom Controls

pluginbaby — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:41:46 GMT

In case you wonder how Expression Web deals with custom ASP.NET controls, there are 2 things to notice :

Having the control assembly into the \bin directory will not give you any design time rendering in Expression Web.
Expression Web do not support custom controls into the Toolbox.

Ok, that's not good so far...
So how do you get custom controls to work in Expression Web ?

Andrew Jewsbury, the Expression Web program manager gives a solution on his blog :

http://blogs.msdn.com/andrewj/archive/2006/12/13/custom-asp-net-controls-and-expression-web.aspx

Basically you have to install the custom control in the GAC, then use a "<%@ Register Assembly=..." tag with fully qualified name, or a "<add assembly=..." tag in the <controls> section of your web.config.

Humm, this is not a designer friendly solution... but it works.
Note only the "<%@ Register Assembly=..." seems to work for me.

Then you get full design time support and even smart tag as well as IntelliSense in code for your customs controls.

Expression Encoder publish to Silverlight Streaming plug-in

pluginbaby — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 04:02:54 GMT

You can now encode your videos in Expression Encoder and export directly to Silverlight Streaming!

That's cool!

The Silverlight Streaming Publishing Plug-In for Expression Encoder is now available to download for free.