I'd like to develop a small game but as I created a Windows Phone Game-Solution, all I get is C#.
I am used to have access to Expression Blend, to edit "Pages" and their elements, so that I can implement their codes behind seperated in Visual Studio.
Is there a way, to have something like that (Visual Studio for code/Blend for UI) for XNA games? After all I work with people who don't understand code at all.
Take a look at the FlatRedBall-Engine, its based off XNA and has some (quite clunky) editors.
I would recommend you the Beefball-Tutorial: http://www.flatredball.com/frb/docs/index.php?title=Tutorials:Beefball
No, there is no visual editor for XNA projects. You will have to write the core or use third-party libraries to facilitate the development.
this one I recommend for people who are beginners in XNA and WP7
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tess/archive/2012/03/02/xna-for-windows-phone-walkthrough-creating-the-bizzy-bees-game.aspx
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What is the new Microsoft way of UI prototyping since VS2015 doesn't support SketchFlow projects. (I'm having hard time to accept that they removed such a useful tool without providing alternative)
I know we still have PowerPoint StoryBoards for basic UI mock-ups but I would like to use interactive prototypes through Visual Studio. Therefore please do not suggest alternative products
Visual studio 2012, being run under desktop mode under windows 8. Doesn't share the look of other windows 8 desktop applications.
How was this GUI achieved?
Did Microsoft scrap MFC/Winapi altogether (since its so different) and use Direct2d to create the custom gui? Or, have they just made calls to Winapi to customize it they way it looks?
Is there any shortcut for us developers to implement the vs2012 theme in our applications? Using the MFC Application template wizard we can chose from many themes but no vs2012 alike is available.
Indeed, Visual Studio 2010/2012 leverages WPF.
LEVERAGING WPF
WPF utilizes DirectX. WPF attempts to provide a consistent programming model for building applications and provides a separation between the user interface and the business logic. WPF leverages XAML, which is a declarative markup language. XAML stands for eXtensible Application Markup Language, which is based on XML. XAML is designed as a more efficient method of developing application user interfaces
ITS ABOUT MULTIPLE DOCUMENT WINDOWS AND FLOATING TOOL WINDOWS
Visual Studio was written to support multiple document windows and floating tool windows.
GREAT LIBRARIES ARE AVAILABLE
Codeplex provides a library to model the multiple document windows.
http://wpfmdi.codeplex.com/
There is also a docking library you can leverage:
http://avalondock.codeplex.com/
MEF IS USED HEAVILY
The internals have been redesigned using Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF).
MEF allows application developers to discover and use extensions without messing around with configuration files.
MEF allows you to easily encapsulate code and avoid fragile hard dependencies.
This allows developers to create add-ins to modify the behavior of the IDE.
DESIGN GOALS
In Visual Studio 2012, a one change is that the interface uses of all-caps menu bar.
Some design goals include reduced clutter and visual complexity by removing excessive lines and gradients in the UX.
The UI has been modernized by removing outdated 3D bevels.
You can take Spy++ which comes with Visual Studio and inspect the windows/class names of the application. If you do it with VS 2008, it's obvious that it's MFC. If you do it with VS 2010 and later, you will see that it's all WPF stuff--no MFC involved.
Just wanted to know that how good is the Visual Studio 2010 for designing UI wireframe?
Is there any major shortcoming in VS2010 in this area.
The UI that i am going to create are the mock up UI but i intend to use the same in future for actual web application development.
Please help, as i am going to use it for the above mention work .
I would rather use visio or any other Mockup tool, see here: http://webdesignledger.com/inspiration/18-great-examples-of-sketched-ui-wireframes-and-mockups
I don't think Visual Studio alone without any AddIn would be very useful in this.
If you want a microsoft product why not use sketchflow http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Sketchflow_Overview.aspx
AS you may already have blend installed.
I've started using the Balsamiq mock-up tool for quick prototypes, it's good for that early mock-screen stage but it might be too simple for what you want.
http://balsamiq.com/
There is a web-demo you can try, my favourite feature about it is that it doesn't look like a finished product so it keeps things looking suitably "prototypey". I've tried sketchflow after watching the incredible demo video but it was much buggier and unreliable when I tried it for myself and I spent more time fighting with it than I did coding so I just ditched it and went back to the Balsamiq tool.
OK, so see questions like this one and this one and the question I have is - does one have to use Expression Blend to do Silverlight development or can any of it be done with just Visual Studio? (2008, in this case)
I haven't gotten started using Silverlight yet and through my workplace's MSDN I can get Expression Blend without any issues, but for my side work, do I have to drop the $499 for Expression Blend 2? (I know there's a trial but I'm thinking beyond that)
Obviously I'm concerned that in order to get into Silverlight development there's a huge financial investment involved and I already own Visual Studio 2008 - is it possible to do development without Expression Blend or would that just be impossible?
You can do everything in Visual Studio. But then again you can do everything in Notepad as well... it all depends on how much the given tool will help you along in the process. Having Blend will be a great asset from a design point of view but wont really do much for you in terms of programming the application. Download the trial and see how it works... if it adds value and saves time then it's well worth the purchase.
I've heard rumours that since there is no Expression Blend Express or Expression Blend Light that there will at least for a while always be a version of Blend in a "Preview" state and the next one will come out before the previous one expires.
That being said, it would be hard to bet your business on something like that. There are third party tools like Kaxaml that can do some of the things Blend can do and I wouldn't be surprised to see more to fill this niche.
You can do it in Visual Studio 2008 and it will work. The issues that I have come across in trying to only do Visual Studio is that I find I can do things a lot quicker in Blend than I can in Visual Studio. The visual designers are different enough that, depending on what you are going to do, you may find yourself using both environments.
If you are doing just small projects, and not a lot of UI components, then you can get away with just Visual Studio. However if you are doing a lot of design work and UI is important to you, then I would recommend geting the entire expression studio as you will find yourself using Blend and Designer.
It quite is possible. If you don't care too much about the eye candy.
Blend is more of a designer's tool than a development tool.
You could try the Microsoft Action Pack Special edition for Web Solutions if you are at least a Microsoft Registered Partner.
And now you can even use Eclipse. :)
My university is part of MSDNAA, so I downloaded it a while back, but I just got around to installing it. I guess part of it replaces FrontPage for web editing, and there appears to be a video editor and a vector graphics editor, but I don't think I've even scratched the surface of what it is and what it can do. Could someone enlighten me, especially since I haven't found an "Expression Studio for Dummies" type website.
Expression Studio is basically a design studio. It consists of a bunch of design software that Microsoft has bought for the most part. The audience is designers, not developers. The gist of the software is that Expression Blend enables designers and programmers to work seamlessly together in letting the designer create the graphical user interface.
In a normal workflow, the designer would deliver a mockup which the developer would have to implement. Using Expression Blend in combination with WPF, this is no longer necessary. The graphical UI made by the designer is functional. All the developer has to do is write the code for the function behind the design.
This in itself is great because developers invariably fail to implement the design as thought out by the designer. Technical limitations, lack of communication … whatever the reason. UIs never look like them mockup done up front.
Expression Design is basically a vector drawing program that can be used to design smaller components that are then used within Expression Blend as parts of the UI. For example, graphical buttons could be designed that way. It can also be used as a vanilla drawing program. I did the graphics in my thesis using Expression Design.
The idea is that designers will work in Expression Design (to design vector artwork) and Expression Blend (to build and style XAML interactions, as well as to define timeline based animations and interactions).
Developers will work on the application in Visual Studio. Visual Studio includes very basic XAML editing capabilities, so developers would only be making minor edits and would mostly be focusing on the code-behind.
That's the theory / product strategy side of it. In reality, if you're performing both roles, you'll end up having your project open in both Expression Blend and Visual Studio, switching back and forth between them depending on whether you're doing "designer tasks" or "developer tasks". Fortunately, Expression Blend and Visual Studio use the same project files.
From Wikipedia:
Microsoft Expression Studio is a suite of design and media applications from Microsoft aimed at developers and designers. It consists of:
Microsoft Expression Web (code-named Quartz) - WYSIWYG website designer and HTML editor.
Microsoft Expression Blend (code-named Sparkle) - Visual user interface builder for Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight applications.
Microsoft Expression Design (code-named Acrylic) - Raster and vector graphics editor.
Microsoft Expression Media - Digital asset and media manager.
Microsoft Expression Encoder - VC-1 content professional encoder.
For web development Expression Web is useful. For XAML development, Blend and Design are useful.
EDIT: Okay, I type too slow so most of what I had to say was already mentioned, so I'll strip it out except for...
The BIG thing to take note of is that the WSYWIG designer they used in Expression Web made it's way into Visual Studio 2008, which is a VERY GOOD thing. There is now EXCELLENT support for CSS, a better editing interface, and you can even go into a split edit mode to see the code and the content while editing.
For the longest time I was using Expression Web to do all my initial layout and then loading that into Visual Studio 2005. With Visual Studio 2008, there is no need to do it.
The Expression site is the first place to start. These are tools that bridge the developer/designer gap for building rich internet applications with Silverlight and WPF. They compete with Adobe Studio products.
Whilst Visual Studio is good for working with code, it has some weaknesses when it comes to dealing with XAML. In many cases a designer will build something visually different from a Windows application and Expression Blend allows them this freedom. It ties in Visual Studio for the C#/VB coding and debugging part of development.
Expression Studio is targeted more at designers. It integrates with Visual Studio in that Expression Studio uses solution and project files, just like Visual Studio. Which makes collaborating with designer easier. The developer and the designer open up the same project. The developer sets up the initial page with all the binding and the designer takes that page and makes it look pretty.
Please check for XAML .NET development, most of the tutorials makes use of many Expression tools.