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Open a project

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You can open a project in Microsoft Expression Blend, whether the project was created in Expression Blend or in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.

To open a project

  1. On the File menu, click Open Project/Solution, and then browse to the project (.csproj or .vbproj) or solution (.sln) file that you want to open.

  2. In the Open Project dialog box, browse to the folder where your project is saved, and then double-click the solution file (.sln).

    Tip

    You can also open a project by double-clicking the project file (.csproj or .vbproj).

To close an open project in Expression Blend

  • On the File menu, click Close Solution (CTRL+SHIFT+C).

To open a recently edited project

  1. On the File menu, click Recent Projects. The ten most recently edited projects appear in a list.

  2. Select a project from the list.

    Tip

    You can also open a recently edited project by using the Projects tab on the Welcome Screen (Help menu).

To open a Silverlight project that was created in Visual Studio 2008

  1. On the File menu, point to Open Project/Solution (CTRL+SHIFT+O).

  2. In the Open Project dialog box, browse to the folder where your Visual Studio 2008 project is saved, and then double-click the solution file (.sln).

    The Microsoft Silverlight project opens for editing.

    • If the Visual Studio 2008 project was created by using the Dynamically generate an HTML test page to host Silverlight within this project option, the startup page appears on the artboard.

      The file structure of the Visual Studio 2008 project is the same as the file structure of an Expression Blend project, except that when you build the project, the test page in the Bin/Debug folder is named TestPage.html instead of Default.html.

    • If the Visual Studio 2008 project was created by using the Add a new Web to the solution for hosting the control option, the solution includes a website project and the Silverlight control project.

      If the Silverlight control project is the startup project for the solution, the startup page appears on the artboard.

      If the website project is the startup project, no page appears on the artboard. You can open your content page for editing by double-clicking the name of the file (typically Page.xaml) in the Projects panel.

      Note

      If you do not see the content of your application when you test your project (F5), the ProjectNameTestPage.aspx or ProjectNameTestPage.html file might not be set as the starting web file. In Expression Blend, right-click one of these files in the website project, and then click Startup. Testing your project (F5) will then display your content.

To open a Silverlight project in Visual Studio 2008

  1. If you have not installed the Silverlight tools for developers, you will not be able to create or modify Silverlight projects in Visual Studio 2008. Install the tools from Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008.

  2. Open Visual Studio 2008.

  3. On the File menu, point to Open Project/Solution (CTRL+SHIFT+O).

  4. In the Open Project dialog box, browse to the folder where your project is saved, and then double-click the solution file (.sln).

See also

Tasks

Install the Silverlight tools and runtime