Expression Blend: First Impressions

So now that Expression Blend is up on MSDN, I figured it was ready to take for a spin. First impression, it's very cool. For creating user interfaces, it easily beats the Flash IDE... with one exception, no code editor. Give me a break. Who's the retard that made that decision? Maybe there is some way to get a better experience, but when you want to add 2 lines of code to an event handler in the default install is beyond horrible, it just shells to my .cs file editor. Come on... you seriously couldn't provide a even a basic code editor in the IDE itself?

9 Comments

  • I could have sworn that the earlier betas of Blend let you edit the C# code-behind just like it lets you edit the XAML. I agree, it's totally lame how it shells out to a different app. I don't care if Blend doesn't give me intellisense, I just wanna tweak a little bit of code without switching contexts!

  • Not to mention the XAML view, which it does provide doesn't even have autocomplete. Totally lame.

  • As far as I understand it (I'm not necessarily agreeing with this), the thinking behind removing this functionality during the betas was simply: Blend is aimed at designers, not developers. The designers won't ever care about the XAML, or writing code. The developers will be using Orcas with the designer interface integrated with Visual Studio. Therefore - no code editing facility in Blend.

  • Just like the designers that use Flash never write actionscript huh ;). I think the logic there is flawed on two counts:
    1) Designers aren't the only people that want to use Blend (I'd be suprised if the interface in orcas is anywhere near as slick).
    2) Designers are capable of writing 2 lines of code in an event handler and assuming someone will never want to do something other than a role that you pidgeon hole them into is just plain ignorant. There are a ton of talented Flash designers that aren't hardcore programmers, but are comfortable writing a few lines of code here and there to hook things up.

  • I'm gonna have to agree on the IDE stuff for this one. Before CS3 the ide of flash has always been a bit weak in my opinion, as far as the code editing goes, I've thought for a while that MS splitting up the 2 different elements of app design, Design/Coding, was a weak move, there are plenty of developers out there that are capable of designing decent interfaces, and plenty of designers capable of coding basic functions. It should be an application that brings them together, so that when they do work together to build a product, than it is easier to make those changes across both areas, so that the people aren't pidgeonholed into their own areas. Collaboration always makes for a better product.

  • It's really hard to decide for other people what they can do. You just end up telling them and oftentimes limiting their mental horizons.

    There seems to be a disconnect within Microsoft about this. From the outside it looks like limiting people. Inside I'm sure there's a debate over Personas etc. (It might also be territory fights between departments, or worse still decisions by those who have limitations.) Hopefully we'll see allowance for more rounded developers.

    (Else it seems that the execution squads have been told to round up all programmers who can create visual-design, AND all visual-designers who can program....)

  • Ijust got my MSDN subscription and a DVD for Blend. I've been searching for 10 minutes to find out what it does. The MS FAQ for what it does says:

    Microsoft® Expression Blend is a professional design tool to create compelling user experiences and applications for Windows using the new .NET Framework 3.0 (which includes the Windows Presentation Foundation).

    I already do that in Notepad so I guess I don't really need to install it.

  • Having a new prototyping tool is great - if you can prototype with it !!

    Most of us have applications with multiple screen that require navigating to - Blend can not do this easily - it has to jump out to either VB ir C#. And I still can't find code that will let me simply navigate from one page to another - in VB - what kind of prototyping tool is that !

  • it's a very neat project

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