Microsoft Expression Studio 3 review

Expression Web is aimed at traditional page-based web authoring, but Microsoft's main interest in the web arena lies in the production of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). In other words it isn't Dreamweaver that Microsoft has in its sights with the release of Expression Studio 3 but Flash.

So, while the Expression Studio 3 includes the latest versions of Expression Web, Design and Encoder, its core is Expression Blend, which is used to design full-blown WPF-based applications for the Windows desktop, and lightweight Silverlight-based applications for the web.

Solid, creative power is essential to this mission and Blend's existing drawing tools have been enhanced with better gradient and selection handling, as well as automatic artboard scrolling. In addition, Expression Blend 3 introduces a new system for handling bitmap effects. Only two options - drop shadows and blurs - are provided by default, but the system is extensible and others are available for download.

If Blend doesn't provide the creative power that you require, you can always cut and paste XAML graphics from Expression Design. Alternatively, you can now import work from PowerPoint, Illustrator and Photoshop (with varying degrees of support and success). And you can cut and paste bitmap images directly from the Clipboard, which does make life very easy.

The look of your application is important, but ultimate success depends on what it can actually do. With Blend, the various components that make up your user interface are handled as controls, and in this new version they're accessed through the supremely efficient new Assets panel.

If you're creating a Silverlight 3 web application, you now have around 80 controls to choose from; for full-blown WPF desktop application development there are around 120, including powerful options for handling adaptive layouts and 3D.

In a finished application, some of these controls are likely to be connected to live, XML-based data feeds, binding which can be complex to set up, and which may not be available during the design stage. To sidestep both of these problems, Expression Blend 3 lets you quickly generate and deploy sample data.

And to manage the appearance of text, the new Font Manager makes it simple to choose typefaces and character subsets to embed in the application.

Consistent and reliable handling of UI controls is crucial, but life would be dull if every Expression application looked and behaved in exactly the same way.

To give your application its own unique stamp, you can quickly change the formatting of controls in the Properties panel, or create completely custom designs. For Silverlight projects there's a new Parts panel where you can allocate graphical elements to act as components of your control.

You can also customise applications and controls by creating different visual states for them in the new States panel. Once you've added a state and selected it, any changes you make to the current window are automatically recorded.

You can also preview transitions between states live on the artboard and set up fluid layout changes, such as those between a three-column and two-column grid layout. Finer control can be applied to how elements are animated via the Objects and Timeline panel.

And, if you're producing a Silverlight project, you can now animate significantly more properties and apply predefined easing functions to create smoother, more natural animations.

Better interactivity

Controlling how users interact with all of the various elements is another area that has changed for the better. In previous versions, the only way you could do this was to write the necessary code largely from scratch. Expression Blend 3 is much more helpful, providing a range of preset behaviours in the Assets panel. Built-in core options include actions to manage properties, states and storyboards, and to load URLs, all of which can be customised in the Properties panel. The system is extensible, with additional behaviours downloadable from Microsoft's Expression Gallery site.

To move beyond presentation, though, someone is going to have to bite the bullet and write some code, and this at last has become a realistic option for the standalone user. Expression Blend 3 finally provides a code editor, where you can add your own Visual C# or Visual Basic.NET code, and it comes complete with syntax completion, automatic formatting, brace matching and event handler creation.