Do you use Expression Blend for your app development?

[jbigelow]

I'm curious about how many native developers use Expression Blend when building your apps. I've been a web developer working with HTML, javascript, and CSS in a plain text editor so long that the shift to XAML design work in Visual Studio is proving to be cumbersome. I've tried to manually tweak all the markup but the preview pane is very unforgiving, I'm wondering if I should just go all in with the visual designer and use Expression.

 

[crash1989]

I am a developer and a so-so designer.
I do it in visual studio, I tried to use Blend but was too much of a hassle for me. I use Photoshop, Visual Studio, SyncFusion MetroStudio and of course the greatest editor Notepad++ and a few other tools. I like to work mostly in XAML and I feel at ease with certain concepts like databinding in VS rather than blend. (I know Databinding can be done in blend)

 

[jkidd01]

I feel like Expression is too slow. I'm betting for most things, it's faster and easier to do the design in Visual Studio. Now, if I was getting help from a designer, I'd probably have them do it in expression so they didn't mess up the code or anything, but as long as it's just me I'll do it all in Visual Studio.

 

[polomint]

I only do it in VS, Blend is too much of a pain to use for me, I like to stay inside VS as much as possible,

@crash1989: I badly need to figure out all the databinding stuff, lol

 

[jongthechemist]

i do storyboards in blend. it's quick and easy. then back to vs for other markups.

 

[polomint]

i do storyboards in blend. it's quick and easy. then back to vs for other markups.

tbh, ive never spent more than 5 minutes in Blend. Might have to try it for storyboarding though.

 

[Nik Rolls]

I use Blend all the time. It takes a little to get used to, but boy is it worth it. It really makes the difference when building UIs, because of the storyboarding, sample data sources, properties panels, and the helpers for when you need to re-template a control (modifying a copy of the existing template is so much better than starting from scratch).

Its code editor is pretty bad, but its Design view blows the VS design view out of the water. So I find I do a lot of Ctrl + Shift + S, Alt + Tab, Alt A whenever I switch between (Save All, Switch, Reload All Changed Files).

 

[hopmedic]

I used blend once. Too much of a hassle trying to figure it out, so I use VS.

 

[Catholic Tech Geek]

I usually do my XAML in Visual Studio, but there have been a few occasions where using Expression Blend was better for what I wanted to do with the XAML.

 

[illidanx]

Blend is kinda complicated for a newbie like me. So I just stick with xaml.

 

[Ticomfreak]

Blend made more sense to me starting out and I've just kinda stuck with it. Not a fan of the code editor but the designer is SOOOO much better than VS's. I was upset to find that there's no Blend for Windows 8 :'(

 

[FrodoBaggins]

I'm not the most gifted designer, i'm a programmer. I normally throw my UI together in VS. If i'm going for something real professional then I may experiment with blend, but for the most part VS does all I need it to do. I mainly use blend for animating random circles and things when i'm bored