AjaxLine Books » Expression Blend

Microsoft Expression Blend Unleashed

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:03:09 +0000

Microsoft Expression Blend (formerly code-named Interactive Designer) is a brand new technology from Microsoft. It is a design tool for creating rich user interfaces in both Windows and Web based applications. It will bring a whole new dimension to the application development process. This will be one of the first books on Expression Blend, and will be essential reading for any developer who wants to get up to speed quickly on this new tool. The author assumes that the reader is already familiar with the basics of .NET development, and shows how Blend fits into the whole .NET 3.0 universe of tools, especially with Windows Presentation Foundation and XAML. (Blend is essentially a WYSIWYG front-end for WPF and XAML.) The author also shows developers how to understand and appreciate the work a designer can do with this new UI design tool. This will help designers better understand their working lifecycle, and help them to integrate UI design as a seamless part of the application development lifecycle. In short, developers who have never touched any other design tools (such as Flash) will be lost when they need to write a new application using .NET 3.0. They will need this book to learn this new approach.

Professional Expression Blend: Developing .NET Applications

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:30:42 +0000

* Expression Interactive Designer (EID) provides an easy interface for programming desktop applications that are both visually attractive and use advanced design features such as 3D in a functional way
* Offering an approach for and from a programmer’s perspective, this book begins with the general concepts involved with EID and the advancements in design and development that it seeks to achieve
* With the intent to add useful skills to a developer’s repertoire of knowledge, the material goes on to cover designs and file systems for using EID, XAML documents, creating building blocks (shapes, objects, graphics, textual elements, user interface controls), creating and combining scenes (layers, keyframes, storyboard), animating objects, and advanced design and animation (3D, topography, video integration, data-aware animations)

Microsoft Expression Blend Bible

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:24:58 +0000

Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer will simplify the development of rich, interactive Web applications and this comprehensive reference introduces every tool and characteristic of this new software
Detailing the ins and outs of the program, veteran authors Gurdy and Mary Leete provide professional Web designers, developers, and serious home users with the know-how they need to create amazing Web sites
Readers interested in online game development will enjoy the coverage of 3D Web animations-something Flash can’t do
Key topics include working with drawings, text, and 3D objects; adding audio, video, and animation; programming Expression Interactive Designer; and more
Discusses how to integrate this program with the Vista operating system as well as other components of the Expression suite

From the Back Cover
Create amazing interfaces that encourage visitorsThe impact of an aesthetically pleasing user interface is remarkable. Web site visitors respond eagerly to attractive, easy-to-use designs, and Blend allows you to create these with much less effort. This A-to-Z guide shows you how to design a new generation of applications that make the most of digital media, including animation, 3D, audio and video, sophisticated typography, and other stunning visual effects�all without bogging down in code. Here’s everything you need to succeed with Blend.

Apply principles of interactive design, graphic design, and animation
Create and transform vector graphics
Explore animated transparencies and opacity masks
Use ready-made Windows� Presentation Foundation controls, or create your own
Connect your applications to data sources

Companion Web site

At www.blendtips.com, you can download files to use while working on the examples presented in the book and modify them to create your own features. The site also includes full-color figures from the book and late-breaking news about Blend.