Foundation Expression Blend 4 with Silverlight 4

By Victor Gaudioso

Foundation Expression Blend 4 with Silverlight 4 takes you through your first steps in creating Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) using the latest release of Microsoft’s technology. You’ll explore features such as custom user controls that you can reuse throughout your projects and the media element that allows you to easily add sound and video to your applications. Silverlight 4 enables you to rapidly develop compelling, cross-platform RIAs using the extensive .NET 4 libraries, the powerful, design friendly Blend 4 Integrated Development Environment, and an enhanced workflow that allows designers and developers to work on the same set of files at the same time. At the end, you’ll put everything you have learned together to create a sample Silverlight 4 website.

Whether you’re an experienced .NET or web developer, or you’re just starting out, this book will provide you with all you need to create RIAs with Expression Blend 4.

• Develop stunning RIAs in a short time using Blend 4 and Silverlight 4.
• Learn basic Object Oriented Programming Principles.
• Get familiar with the Blend 4 development environment.

What you’ll learn

• Learn the Blend 4 and Visual Studio 2010 Integrated Development Environments (IDE).
• Learn how to create stunning animations using Silverlight 4 Storyboards and incorporate video and sound into your RIAs with the Silverlight MediaElement.
• Learn how to develop quickly and efficiently using Silverlight 4’s reusable resources such as UserControls, ControlTemplates and DataTemplates.
• Learn about the Visual State Manager and the State panel in Blend 4 to easily add MouseEnter and MouseLeave states to your UserControls.
• Put everything you have learned together to create a sample Silverlight 4 website.

Who is this book for?

Web designers and developers wanting to learn Expression Blend 4 from the ground up. Those who have a background in the development of RIAs and want to learn this new technology.

This book is part of friends of ED's 'Foundation' series

The Foundation series is perfect for beginners to a technology, because it doesn't assume any previous knowledge. Each book in the series takes you step by step through your chosen technology, starting with the absolute fundamentals and working through all aspects of the technology, ultimately providing you with a firm grasp of the basics that will enable you to create your own applications or web sites. You will learn by following complete examples at every stage of your journey, often by extended case studies that you will build upon throughout the book. The Foundation series will give you the broad and solid base you need in order to progress to a higher level of expertise.