During the TechDays 2012 conference, I have seen a course about “Blend for designers” from Michel Rousseau. It is now time to go on through this way:

• Blend is also for ergonomic specialist.
• Blend is also for developers.

How many times I have seen people saying :
“I am a developer so I develop the application and give it to the designer” : Without an ergonomic study before, you might create an application inside out, upside down and back-to-front…
“I am not a developer so I do not use Blend” : It is the biggest stupidity I have ever heard about Blend… I will prepare few samples that is usefull for developers inside Blend context.
What can be done in less than 15 seconds :

• Manage sample data and data sources
• Create a template associated to a control
• Edit a template
• Create animation
• Create states
• Using external user controls
• Edit shapes
• UI design with usefull tools
• Use and edit behaviors
• Manage resources

Manage sample data and data sources

Panel for sample data management:

Simple click to add data from classes:

Edit data format for better result:

Create a template associated to a control

Accessible to right click over the control with contextual result:

You can create a “copy” of the existing template and going directly to edition or apply an existing one :

Edit a template

Edition of a template with instant result preview :

Create animation

Animation edition based on timeline, direct edition/key recording, direct result with play button:

Create states

Few clicks to create a group and populate it with states :

Easy to see transition type and directly see result without launching application :

Using external user controls

After build, capability to search for a custom user control, define in your project or in a referenced assembly :

Edit shapes

Capability to create a shape, edit it visualy, combining multiple shape (binary operation over multiple items), converting to paths items defined in the layout :


 

UI design with usefull tools

Display/Hide and Lock/Unlock object in object view to prevent unwanted edition

Use and edit behaviors

Once created in your project or referenced in an assembly, behavior can be created by drag and drop over the associated object.

Manage resources

You can move resources for project re-factoring :

 

Conclusion

Here is few sample to boost productivity with blend without any graphic fancy stuff. It is just another helpfull tool but we MUST use it for all Xaml edition. I think it could be interisting for Html5 version of blend to propose same capabilities 🙂