Foundation Expression Blend 2:
Building Applications in WPF and
Silverlight by Victor Gaudioso
Excellent Book On Blend 2
In this book, youll:
Learn the Blend 2 and Visual Studio 2008 development
environments Create designs using Blend 2s unique tools Use
XAML and C# to add interactivity to your designs Publish your Rich
Media Applications to the Web using Silverlight The only real tool
available for creating Rich Media Applications, web-based animations, and
games has been Flash—until now! WPF (Windows Presentation
Foundation) and Silverlight have opened the door of Rich Media
Application development to Microsoft .NET developers. With Microsofts
new Blend 2 and Visual Studio 2008, you can now create compelling Rich
Media Applications complete with animations and even 3D!

This book shows you how to take full advantage of Blends new
interface, together with and Silverlights vastly improved designer-
developer workflow, guiding you through every step of development from
downloading and installing of the development environment through
creating finished, functional projects. Youll learn how to create simple
drawing applications with the InkCanvas, make tabbed and scrollable
interfaces, as well as build fully featured media players, photo galleries,
and interactive 3D designs.
Each chapter discusses major WPF and Silverlight features, provides
a hands-on tutorial, and explains how that feature is implemented in the
real world. In the end, you will have a collection of impressive WPF and
Silverlight applications that can be added to your portfolio.
Whether youre an experienced .NET or web developer, or youre just
starting out, this book will provide you with all you need to create Rich
Media Applications with Expression Blend 2.
Personal Review: Foundation Expression Blend 2: Building
Applications in WPF and Silverlight by Victor Gaudioso
The book starts the reader off without any assumptions regarding the
reader's past experience. If a person is interested in going through the
book, that person will likely already have the qualifications to understand
its contents. As long as the person going through the book is able to take
direction coupled with the ability to be self motivated, I think that many
people will find this book to be an easy read - which is saying a lot for a
book which sits among others which are often dry and difficult to get
through due to their nature as being technical oriented.
The progression of the book from chapter to chapter is well paced, starting
easy with a bang to draw the reader in, and later becoming challenging,
but not impossible to accomplish. Just as the reader passes the middle of
the book, the difficulty raises ever-so slightly, but not too far where the
reader is thrown off.
The very last chapters are well placed as they are essentially review over
the entire contents of the book. These chapters concrete the reader's
newly acquired abilities while adding a touch of more difficulty to keeps the
reader moving forward because they continue to learn more even to the
end.
Finally, once one has gotten through the book, I'm left with the feeling that
these 15 chapters are only the tip of the iceberg, that I can either obtain
further knowledge through other books, or chart out on my own. The
author on several occasions lists his email address for the readers to
contact him, and I've discovered that unlike other authors, he actually does

respond and is interested in what the reader is accomplishing, instead of
having an assistant or someone else pat the reader on the head.
The only criticism that I truly have for the contents of the book is on the
level of the User Experience. Throughout the book the author steps the
readers through the creation of a multitude of custom controls, buttons and
the like, but never steps the reader through a complete button as most
users are comfortable with seeing, where the button or control interacts
when hovering or clicking upon a button. That being said, there are several
occasions where the author leads the reader through areas where the
reader can locate and discover how to do such a task on their own. The
book reads as a very complete well rounded book, save for that one lack,
and for that, I find myself feeling that the inconsistency is uncharacteristic
when compared to the solidarity which the rest writing presents.
Regardless, I much enjoyed reading the book. The author's personality
shined through the book from cover to cover and gave the sense that he
was talking to the reader, as opposed to at the reader.
Ariel Leroux
FacingBlend.com
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