Foundation Expression Blend 4 with Silverlight 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.

Victor is a senior application engineer at IdentityMine, a top-tier software company specializing in designing and developing cutting edge software applications, creating customized WPF/Blend and Silverlight training programs and creating tools for designers and developers. Victor has worked with Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Harrah\'s, Mattel, NBC/Universal, Disney, Best Buy, GameStop, Vivendi Universal Games, and New Line Cinema among others. Victor, a former Flash/ActionScript engineer still stays active in the Flash community by writing articles and tutorials on www.actionscript.org where he is also a moderator.