Testing Expression Blend

Since Expression Blend is also part of my MSDN subscription, I decided to download the ISO image and test the thing on my Vista box. Works like a charm, though it's not just an afternoon stroll to master this application. The user interface is black and limited saturation, which makes it look like Adobe Lightroom (LR), though I'd still give slight edge to LR in visual appeal. Blend is faster to use, though. And reminds me of my beloved old ImageStyler.

Now then, what can Blend do? It allows your to create native .NET applications with both C# and VB.NET, and it is easy to get started. The applications used XAML and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and under the hood there's your C# compiler (csc.exe) or the VB.NET equivalent, if you like. For example, when testing my simple Hello World application, the Results pane showed the following command line:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Csc.exe /noconfig /nowarn:1701,1702
/define:DEBUG;TRACE /reference:"C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\
Framework\v3.0\PresentationCore.dll" /reference:"C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\
Microsoft\Framework\v3.0\PresentationFramework.dll" /reference:C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\
Framework\v2.0.50727\System.dll /reference:C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\
v2.0.50727\System.Xml.dll /reference:"C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\
Framework\v3.0\WindowsBase.dll" /debug+ /debug:pdbonly /out:obj\Debug\Hello__World_.exe
/resource:obj\Debug\Hello__World_.g.resources /target:winexe /win32icon:Application.ico
App.xaml.cs AssemblyInfo.cs Window1.xaml.cs "C:\Users\Jani Järvinen\Documents\Expression\
Expression Blend Projects\Hello, World!\obj\Debug\Window1.g.cs" "C:\Users\Jani Järvinen\
Documents\Expression\Expression Blend Projects\Hello, World!\obj\Debug\App.g.cs"

Hello, World! -> C:\Users\Jani Järvinen\Documents\Expression\Expression Blend Projects\
Hello, World!\bin\Debug\Hello__World_.exe

The build has successfully completed.

Looks familiar! And Blend can be used to build Silverlight applications as well, though I'm yet to figure out how.