Announcing the availability of the March 2006 CTP of Expression Interactive Designer

If you've been using the January Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Expression Interactive Designer (EID) and you've been waiting for the March CTP that we mentioned in a previous post [1] then you'll be glad to hear that your wait is over!

We're pleased to present the March 2006 CTP of EID that targets the February 2006 CTP of Microsoft WinFX Runtime Components (RTC). We have had an opportunity to make incremental improvements to various features of the product as well as to incorporate some of your feedback.

To install this build of Expression Interactive Designer download it from the Microsoft Expression web site at https://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/interactive_designer/id_free_trial.aspx

To help us make a better product, please send your feedback to us via our discussion forum [2] or our product feedback center on the Microsoft Expression Web site [3].

Highlights in this CTP include:

  • Compatibility with latest WinFX CTP. The March 2006 CTP is fully compatible with the February 2006 CTP of Microsoft WinFX Runtime Components.
  • Improved grouping for elements. Elements can now be grouped in all containers instead of just within a Canvas panel.
  • Drag and drop. Elements within the structure view of the Timeline palette can now be reordered and drag and dropped into other controls and containers.
  • Improved binding to objects. Properties on objects inside a DataTemplate can now be bound-to directly.
  • Design-time visualization of data. Sample data is automatically generated for you if real data is not available at design time.
  • Improved URI support. Relative project references for URIs are now fully supported.
  • Enhanced clipboard interactivity. An element, as well as all its linked resources, are now copied when pasting that element into a different scene.

A gallery of samples and tutorials updated for this CTP [4] can be found in the Article Categories section to the right of the blog.

Very importantly, please also take a moment to read the Readme file for the March CTP [5] which contains known issues and workarounds.

[1] https://blogs.msdn.com/expression/archive/2006/02/22/537105.aspx
[2] https://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.expression.interactivedesigner&cat=&lang=en&cr=US
[3] https://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/default.mspx
[4] https://blogs.msdn.com/expression/articles/543834.aspx
[5] https://blogs.msdn.com/expression/articles/538345.aspx