CPSC 481 – Week 11

Expression Blend

Sowmya Somanathssomanat@ucalgary.ca

(based on tutorials by Bon Adriel Aseniero and David Ledo)

Announcements

• Final project submission due Dec. 4.• Check your assignment sheet for a description of what’s

required.

• If you need help or have questions regarding your project, please let me know!• Talk to me before/after class• Email me: ssomant@ucalgary.ca• Set up an in-person meeting

Expression Blend

• Enables you to build rich and compelling applications for the desktop and web.• Enables you to take full advantage of the underlying

power of the platform.• Rapid prototyping without writing code• 3D transformations• Pixel effects (blur, glow, ripple, etc.)• Animation

• Visually edit the template of a control easily on the design surface, redesigning it to perfectly fulfill the function it will play within an application.

Expression Blend

• Enables you to build rich and compelling applications for the desktop and web.• Enables you to take full advantage of the underlying

power of the platform.• Rapid prototyping without writing code• 3D transformations• Pixel effects (blur, glow, ripple, etc.)• Animation

• Visually edit the template of a control easily on the design surface, redesigning it to perfectly fulfill the function it will play within an application.

A BETTER DESIGNER!

Basic Idea

• Design your interface in Expression Blend• Code the logic and interaction in Visual Studio

Starting Expression Blend

Starting a Project

• Click on New Project if you want to start a project directly in Expression Blend.• Choose this one for this

tutorial.

• Click on Open Project if you want to use an existing project (which may have been created in Visual Studio).

Starting a Project

• Select WPF Application• Name it• Hit OK

The Interface

Project/Solution viewer

The Interface

Tools

Tools

The Interface

“Drawing Board”

The Interface

Objects and Timeline “Layers”

Objects

• This is where you see your Visuals• Arranged as a reversed stack

• Visuals on the bottom are on top• Also true for Visuals inside Containers

which are inside another Container

• Think Layers and Groups

The Interface

Object Properties

Properties

Selecting a visual here… …brings up that visual’s properties in here.

Properties

• Brushes Properties• Used to edit the background fill,

border stroke, opacity, etc. of a visual• Uses RGB and alpha values or the

hex value of a colour• Nice resource for named colours:

http://cloford.com/resources/colours/500col.htm

Properties

• Appearance• Used to change the

appearance of a visual by setting its visibility and opacity, or adding effects to it such as blur or dropdown shadows

Properties

• Layout• Used to change how the window will

appear on the screen, or how a visual will flow with other visuals in a container.• Use this to edit sizes, positions, and

alignments.

Properties

• Some properties are only available to specific types of visuals.• E.g., only windows can have an icon property or a

window state property (maximized, minimized, etc.).

• These properties can be set in the Code Behind as well.

Coding

Choose View – Split View

To view the XAML Editor

Coding

• You can code directly in Expression Blend, BUT it is highly suggested to use Visual Studio in parallel with it for coding.• Why?

• Because you gain access to Visual Studio’s rich set of tools for coding (refactor, debugger, etc.).

• Use Expression Blend for designing the GUI, use Visual Studio to code the logic.

Hands On

• We will create a picture viewer application using Expression Blend and Visual Studio.• Functionalities:

1. Home screen2. Page to see all photos3. View each photo

PicturO

Window

Select the window Change its width & height to 800x600

Window

Change the Background colour to #FF353535

Select ‘Background’

Window

WindowStyle = None

ResizeMode = NoResize

Title = “PicturO”

Window

• Rename the grid contained in the window to ‘MainGrid’.• Insert a new grid within it,

call it ‘SplashGrid’.

Grids

• For both the MainGrid and SplashGrid:• Set the width and height to

‘Auto’• Set the

HorizontalAlignment and VerticalAlignment to ‘Stretch’

Start Screen

Start screen

• Path: BackgroundShape• TextBlock: P• TextBlock: AppTitle• Button: ViewPhotosButton

• Button: ExitButton• Button: MinimizeButton

Animation

• Can be done in C# WPF using Storyboards.• Can also be done easily using Expression Blend.

Animation

On the “Object & Timeline” tab, click +

This will add a Storyboard Resource

Animation

• As the Animation starts to record…• Edit a Visual’s property

at a starting time then add a new Keyframe to the ending time and put in the new value of the property.

Controls

• Visuals such as Buttons, Containers, and Shapes are called Controls.• They have an underlying template specifying how

they should look.• The template is customizable.

Custom Button

• Add a Button to your window• Right click -> Edit Template -> Create Empty• Call it ‘TileButton’• You can then apply this template to other buttons

later on

Custom Button

• Good Interfaces should be responsive, so let us add feedback to our custom button when it gets hovered over.• Add these:

• Cover: A transparent rectangle on top of the button• Content: The content (text)

presenter• HoverColor: The coloured

rectangle that shows up when the button gets hovered over

Custom Button

• On the Triggers tab, add the IsMouseOver = true event• This means that every time the

mouse is over our button, the animation will be triggered

Click ‘+ Property’

Change the second and third dropdowns to:‘IsMouseOver’ and ‘True’ respectively

Custom Button

• On the first row under the Activated when tab, select grid on the first dropdown box

Custom Button

• Click + on the Actions when activating tab• Add a new Storyboard• The Storyboard will then start

recording

Custom Button

• Now our button gives us feedback• Add an event to it that

closes the app in Visual Studio• ExitButton.Click• this.Close();

Applying our Template

• Add a minimize button to our app (if not already there)• Right click on the

button -> Edit Template -> Apply Resource -> choose your template• Add an event to it

• MinimizeButton.Click• this.WindowState =

WindowState.Minimize

Photos

Create a new grid

• This is where we will show our photos• It has a

ScrollViewer that has a UniformGrid inside of it called PhotoViewerGrid

Visibility

• Separate our different views into Grids (if not already done)• If SplashGrid is visible,

then PhotoGrid should be hidden, and vice versa

Photo Tile

• Here, we will need to load photos into tiles which we call PhotoTiles• Create a Grid, and inside it, add an Image control

and a TextBlock• The Image control will contain our photo• The TextBlock will contain the title of the photo

Photo Tile

• Great! We now have a PhotoTile• But wait… Do we really

want to do this for every photo we have?• No!

• Use UserControls

User Controls

• User-defined Controls (e.g., CommentBox) that can be used as templates within a project.• Useful for when you have multiple things that

should look the same but have different content.

Photo Tile

• Right click and turn our PhotoTile grid into a UserControl• We can now reuse it for

many photos!

Loading Photos

On the Code Behind…• Create a Class called PhotoDB• This class will have a LoadPhotos method and will

contain all of the paths to our photos in a string array

Loading Photos

In PhotoDB.cs:class PhotoDB{ private string[] photos = { }; public string[] Photos { get { return this.photos; } }

public void LoadPhotos(string path) { try { photos = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(path); } catch (Exception) { // Do nothing } }}

Loading Photos

• We will then access the photos in this class and create PhotoTileControls for each of them, then add them to the PhotoViewerGrid

Viewing a Photo

Viewing a Photo

• Again, we will create a UserControl for this• Start with drawing a

grid that has TextBlock, an Image control, and a StackPanel for comments• Turn it into a

UserControl called PhotoPageControl

Viewing a Photo

• Go to the code where we create each PhotoTileControl and subscribe to its MouseDown event

Add this

Viewing a Photo

• Collapse all of the other views• Create an instance of the PhotoPageControl and

populate it with the data from the PhotoTileControl

Viewing a Photo

• Now, clicking on a PhotoTile will open up a photo page.• But we’re stuck! We can’t go back to the photo list

from the photo page.• Solve this by adding a back button inside the

PhotoPageControl.

Viewing a Photo

Extending this…

• To allow for comments within the PhotoPageControl, create a CommentBox UserControl that has TextBlocks for the name of commenter and the comment, and a delete button.• Add TextBoxes so that when someone types on it

and presses Enter (or a send button), it will generate a CommentBox with the respective data from the TextBox fields.• Append the CommentBox to a Scrollable StackPanel

within the PhotoPageControl.

Extending this…

• NO! You cannot submit this example app as your project.• You may reuse code from this example, as long as

you cite it.• Hope you learned something new!

Next Week

• Open session• Attendance is optional (but beneficial)• Ask questions about your projects (design, coding, etc.)• Your chance to make design decisions with me