XAML Authoring in Blend and VS: Workflow, tools, and tasks

On the Blend team we believe that deeper integration of design into software product planning and implementation will enable developers and designers to create great UX across desktop, web, and devices at a lower cost and with better productivity.  

Common app workflows

Not everyone builds apps the same way and our tools must provide the flexibility to support a variety of workflows. Here are a couple of examples of common workflows.

Design first

UX Designer/Developer produces a comp, prototype or starting application.

Code first

Developer provides a model which the UX Designer/Developer then uses to create the UX.

Design & Code

The same user is creating the application end-to-end, or the UX Designer and Developer work hand-in-hand throughout the project.    

The right tools for the user and the task

In order to best support all app developers and designers and workflows we now provide XAML authoring support in both Blend and Visual Studio, providing the right tools in the environment each user wants to work. Visual Studio provides a great development tool with some design features that domain/enterprise and entrepreneurial developers will feel most at home. It is a code-centric environment but still provides the ability to edit app elements visually where it makes sense. For a design-centric experience—for interaction designers, RIA developers, and the elusive “hybrid”—Blend provides even richer support for visual authoring that allows fine tuning and greater control over the styling and animation of their apps. Of course, some tasks that are simply core to creating a XAML app must be available in both products, as illustrated in the image below.

Feature Comparison

The following table shows how these tasks map to the tools offered in each product for this release.

For Blend we focused on providing a richer toolset around styling and animation through the States pane and the Timeline while only providing a more limited support for Code and XAML editing which is provided at full fidelity in Visual Studio. This is just the first release of both products leveraging some shared designer components. We plan to take this base and evolve each product based on feedback and targeted at each products unique users, workflow, and tasks. Joanna Mason Lead Program Manager Blend