Draw a control in your Silverlight 2 project
.png "This page applies to Silverlight 2 projects only")
User interface controls such as buttons and textboxes enable your application to respond to user input. Versions of many of the Windows Presentation Foundation controls are available to Silverlight 2 projects in Microsoft Expression Blend 2 with Service Pack 1 installed.
To draw a system control
In the Toolbox, select a control.
Tip
To view all the tools in a tool container, right-click the tool that is visible in the Toolbox.
.png "Dd185511.72fa303a-da86-4aed-8920-1b116769024a(en-us,Expression.10).png")
Tip
To view all the available controls, click the Asset Library
.png "Dd185511.0224cabd-5da1-4e01-bddd-4a647401a098(en-us,Expression.10).png")
button in the Toolbox. After you select a tool in the Asset Library, it will appear above the Asset Library button in the Toolbox.On the artboard, draw the control by dragging with the mouse. The result will depend on the type of control that you draw.
After you draw a text control, the resulting object enters text-editing mode so that you can change the content that is displayed in the object.
.png "Dd185511.9a094de5-242d-4a64-9541-5d1babf34d17(en-us,Expression.10).png")
To exit text-editing mode, press ESC. To enter text-editing mode again, select the object by using the Selection
.png "Dd185511.2ff91340-477e-4efa-a0f7-af20851e4daa(en-us,Expression.10).png")
tool, and then press F2. After you exit text-editing mode, translation handles appear that you can use to scale, rotate, or move the object or perform other actions.Note
For more information about how to format text, see Format text.
After drawing a nontext control, translation handles appear around the resulting object. By using these handles, you can scale, rotate, move, skew, and perform other actions. The mouse pointer changes to indicate which action you can do, shown as follows.
.png "Dd185511.7018bff7-57de-4616-8908-4dbc9be4721b(en-us,Expression.10).png")
If the control displays text, such as the content of a button or check box, you can quickly change the text by pressing F2 to enter text-editing mode. To exit text-editing mode, press ESC.
Save your work (CTRL+S).
Next steps
You can customize the appearance of the system control you have just drawn by modifying the template that is applied to the control. Controls look different depending on which state they are in. For example, a button changes color slightly when you move the pointer over the button. "MouseOver" is a state that you can customize. For more information, see Modify the appearance of a system control in different states.
You can extend the time it takes for a control to transition between states. For more information, see Modify the transition time between state changes in system controls.
You can add more animation to the state transitions of a control. For more information, see Add animation that will play after a change in state.