We are pleased to announce a new preview build in the Expression Blend 2 train – our September Preview. The September Preview has a slew of new features, many of them made possible based on your feedback!. We have also made available some videos that highlight the new features in this build. Visit the Expression Blend 2 September Preview page for viewing these, and to download and install the latest build.

 

As usual, we look forward to your feedback!

Many thanks,

The Expression Blend team

 

What is new in this release?

 

Visual Studio 2008 Support

The Expression Blend 2 September Preview can open and work with Microsoft Visual Studio^® 2008 (formerly known as Microsoft Visual Studio code name “Orcas”) Beta 2 projects and solutions. By default, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) projects that are created in the Expression Blend 2 September Preview are now Visual Studio 2008 projects, if Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 is installed and such projects cannot be edited in Visual Studio 2005. The Expression Blend 2 September Preview can still open projects that were created with earlier versions of Expression Blend or Visual Studio 2005.

 

Making Controls from Existing Objects

The Expression Blend 2 September Preview contains new functionality that lets you refactor  (in other words, convert) existing content into a control that can be reused (instantiated). Selected elements, their referenced resources, and referenced animations are refactored into the new control. You must build the project to be able to see and instantiate the new control.

 

Split View and XAML Editor Improvements

The Expression Blend 2 September Preview lets you view an open document in both Design view and XAML view at the same time by selecting the new Split tab on the right side of the artboard. Additionally, you can specify font size, font family, tab size, and word-wrap for the XAML editor (XAML tab) by modifying the Code Editor settings under Options in the Tools menu.

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