Expression Blend 4 Beta Feature Overview available for download
Expression Blend 4 Beta is out in the wild and available for download! As a companion whitepaper, check out the Expression Blend 4 Beta Feature Overview which provides a walkthrough of the new features. Here’s where we begin:
Introduction
Expression Blend 4 Beta adds support for Silverlight 4 and Windows Presentation Foundation 4, while maintaining the ability to create and edit Silverlight 3 and WPF 3.5 with Service Pack 1(SP1) applications. Interoperability with Visual Studio 2010 has been added, maintaining the seamless workflow between the two tools.
In response to customers’ desires to do more without code, new features in SketchFlow enable more dynamic prototypes to be created and provide an enhanced player experience. Additionally, Expression Blend 4 Beta adds powerful new behaviors for all application types and makes them configurable with conditional statements.
Expression Blend 4 Beta introduces new features that support the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern for business application development. New design-time data and resource features, along with behaviors such as CallMethodAction and InvokeCommandAction greatly increase the capability and experience for design tasks while building these applications.
Along with these three areas of focus, other additions include: new controls, such as the PathListBox, new pixel shader effects, transition effects and helpful tooling improvements.
Expression Blend 4 Beta is an exciting update that continues to revolutionize the speed and efficiency with which you can take your ideas from concept to completion on the Silverlight and .NET platforms.
The rest of the paper is divided into the following topics:
- SketchFlow Improvements for Better Prototypes
- Enabling Business Application Development with MVVM
- New Controls and Effects for Dynamic Interfaces
- More Interactivity and Less Code with New Behaviors
- Editor and Tooling Improvements
- and Expression Blend Resources
I hope you find the Expression Blend 4 Beta Feature Overview useful and that you share your feedback. We want to make sure the overview for the final release is even better!
Adam Kinney's blog has moved 
Download link doesn’t work. Going live after the keynote?
Yep, it was just delayed a little bit, everything should be working now. I think this is the first time I’ve gotten a comment in real-time before reading it. Nice to see you at MIX10!
Where can we find walkthroughs and details of new MVVM ( both WPF and SL ) project that is included in Blend 4 Beta? Good stuff this week:) Looking forward to RTM release later this year.
Page 9 in the Overview paper from this post talks about each extra file created when using the MVVM template. Are you looking for a walkthrough of MVVM as programming pattern? Try watching John Papa’s talk form PDC last year: http://johnpapa.net/silverlight/mvvm-and-prism-demo-for-pdc09-silverlight-session/
Thanks for reply. I was looking for more details/walkthrough on new Blend 4 MVVM project and examples. Meaning… Start Blend 4 Beta -> File -> New Project -> WPF/SL MVVM project.
Do basic overview on each piece added in project (e.g. ViewModel, Sample Data folders, etc. ).
Maybe include some of the new features. Layout Transitions while navigating to different views similar to eBay demo.
I’m new to MVVM and understand Papa and others have good MVVM talks. Would like to see more specifically for Blend 4, though.
Thanks again.
download link search is very difficult.
open previous vs2008 sp1 / blend 3 project in blend 4 beta, xaml files result in “grid is not supported in a windows presentation foundation (wpf) project” um whut?
the entire xaml has this for each element
It exclusively your opinion
Does blend 4 (ultimate) “integrate” with the VS 2010 Express version, or does one I have to buy a “Pro” level to get the blend (back and forth) integreation with VS 2010?