Blend 2 SP1 + WPF Toolkit = Visual State Manager for WPF

The Blend 2 Service Pack 1 contains a secret ingredient that can be activated by installing the WPF Toolkit and then setting a Registry value. In a nutshell, this ingredient is Visual State Manager support for Windows Presentation Foundation projects. As you know, Visual State Manager is built into Silverlight 2 but the WPF Toolkit gives you an early peek into the future of VSM-for-WPF.

The WPF Toolkit is a collection of WPF features and components that are being made available outside of the normal .NET Framework ship cycle. The WPF Toolkit not only allows users to get new functionality more quickly, but allows an efficient means for giving feedback to the product team.

Once you have the Blend 2 Service Pack 1 installed, here are the steps you need to follow to get to the VSM-for-WPF goodness:

  1. Install the WPF Toolkit from https://www.codeplex.com/wpf/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=15598
     
  2. Create the following registry value and make it non-zero. The value should be of type DWORD. Or run the appropriate .REG file attached to this post (or by clicking here).
     
    • 32 bit OS : HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Expression/Blend/EnableVSM
       
    • 64 bit OS : HKLM/Software/Wow6432Node / Microsoft/Expression/Blend/EnableVSM
       
  3. If Blend was running during the previous step then restart it.
     
  4. Create a new WPF project.
     
  5. Add %Program Files%\WPF\WPF Toolkit\...\WPFToolkit.dll to the References folder (Right-click the References node in Project, then click Add Reference…).
     
  6. Close and reopen Window1.xaml. The States pane will now appear for the project.

Here are some VSM resources to get you going: https://blogs.msdn.com/expression/archive/2008/07/11/more-articles-on-visual-state-manager.aspx

Even though the built-in WPF controls (such as Button and CheckBox) weren’t designed with VSM in mind, the toolkit works some event interception magic that means your Visual States are applied provided they’re given the standard names such as Normal, MouseOver, Pressed, Disabled, Unchecked, Checked and so on. You can also use VSM-for-WPF to add interactivity to new custom controls you author yourself, although be aware that Blend will not read any default VisualState information out of the default template. And of course you can also add VSM interactivity to UserControls.

We hope you have fun!

-Steve

VSM Reg Files.zip