20 common expression blend design and development skills (1)

 

 

Microsoft Expression blend is an excellent user interface design tool. It can be used for Silverlight, WPF, and Windows Phone 7 app uidesign, its built-in SDK class library contains a large amount of code to help designers achieve dynamic interaction without entering any background code. If you are not familiar with expression blend, read the following professional tutorial books:

Microsoft Expression blend 4 unleashed

Microsoft Expression blend 4 step by step

Pro expression blend 4

Read the following expression blend Chinese Tutorial:

Expression blend knowledge sharing

Expression blend instance Chinese tutorial Series

This article will summarize 20 common expression blend design and development skills, hoping to help you improve design and development efficiency.

Tip 1: All property windows can be hidden or displayed on the design page.

 

 

In the actual project design, the designer can close or hide each property window at any time, or make the Property Window floating display on the design interface, this provides a larger view and code design space for the primary design interface.

 

Tip 2: "resource" Property Window-quick access to and modify template styles

 

The Silverlight Project template style and resource information are stored in the styles. XAML file. This file does not support view mode and can only be modified in code mode. On the blend design platform, you can access and modify template styles or resource information through the resource attribute window. You do not need to read a large amount of XAML code to improve development efficiency.

 

Tip 3: Use the internal navigation bar of the control

 

Expression blend allows developers to edit and modify the Silverlight/WPF/Windows Phone control templates and styles in view mode. During modification, blend provides the internal navigation bar of the control, designers can easily jump to the components inside the control, or jump back to the parent control or other control templates.

 

Tip 4: paint toolbar and gradient effect Toolbar

The paint and gradient effects toolbar allows designers to easily add and modify pages and controls in view mode.

 

Tip 5: behavior-Behaviors

Expression blend provides a "behaviors" behavior function for designers to achieve dynamic interaction without writing dynamic code.

For more tutorial on behaviors behavior, visit.

 

Tip 6: F6 Shortcut Keys implement page design view and animation design view workbench Switch

Based on personal experience, the F6 shortcut is very practical, especially when the page design with more animation effects is frequently used.

 

Tip 7: Use a drag tool to drag a view

 

Click a widget on the design view page or press and hold the widget on the page to move the layout.

 

Tip 8: double-click the drag tool. The design View window automatically places the selected object in the center of the window.

 

Tip 9: quick search of project resources

 

In the toolbar, assets provides a quick search function. Designers can quickly locate project controls, styles, behaviors, and other resources.

 

Tip 10: ALT function keys allow object relocation to layout controls

When editing the control position on the page, select the control object to be dragged, and press the "Alt" function key to move the control object to the layout control.

 

Today, we will introduce 10 frequently-used design and development skills. If you have any questions during design, please leave a message to discuss them.