LP Pinsonneault blog's

Two week ago i presented a session on Expression Blend for developers. I had a great time presenting (even if i had some issues remembering my slides). But what was interesting wasn’t the slides but the demos.

So today i will show you some tips and tricks based on my demos.  

Using gradient

Using gradient can help improve the visual aspect of an application. In Expression Blend the functionality is well implemented. First select the control you want to apply the gradient.

In the Properties bar you can select on which properties you want to apply the gradient. More often we apply the gradient on the background of an object.

Now you can select the third option. This is the gradient tools.

The gradient slider allow you to change the way the gradient will look like.

You can have multiple anchor in the slider

Here is an example of the way we can use the slider to create some effect. For each anchor we can change the color and the opacity.

Also there is a tool in the toolbar that allow us to change the direction of the gradient.

This tool display an arrow that let you change the direction of the gradient. It’s really simple to use.

So we can have professional background for our application by setting the gradient from “Black” to “Almost Black”. And use the Gradient Arrow to change the gradient direction.

Here is the result.

Next part: Creating Glass Effect

Regards,
Louis-Philippe