Getting started

Welcome to Microsoft Expression Blend, a full-featured professional design tool for creating engaging and sophisticated user interfaces for Microsoft Windows applications that are built on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), for web applications that are built on Microsoft Silverlight, for interactive prototypes using SketchFlow, and Windows Phone applications. Expression Blend lets designers focus on creativity while letting developers focus on programming.

Important

SketchFlow is available only in Expression Studio Ultimate.

Important

Expression Blend for Windows Phone is available only when you install the Windows Phone Developer Tools .

Important

The Silverlight runtime viewer is installed along with the Silverlight SDK when you install Expression Blend. Expression Blend uses this version of the runtime to display your project in Design view, but when you test your Silverlight application, the application will be rendered using the version of Silverlight that your browser uses. Your browser might use a version of the runtime that is more recent than the version that was installed with Expression Blend if you have visited a website that required a newer version of the runtime.

Getting started

Start learning about Expression Blend by reading the following topics:

• About Expression Blend   Learn how Expression Blend is used and what it can do.

• What's new in Expression Blend   See what's changed in this version, along with links to the latest topic updates.

• Making more room to work   Make your workspace suit your personal preferences.

Helpful things to know when you read topics

• If a topic does not apply to both WPF and Silverlight, a gray box appears at the top of the topic to let you know the project types to which it applies. Specific version differences are explained in notes.

• To print a topic, click inside the topic window, and then press CTRL+P.

Send feedback about this topic to Microsoft. © 2011 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.