Silverlight 3 Release + SketchFlow Available

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Ever since MIX09 a few months ago, I’ve had lots of designers and developers asking me for preview copies of SketchFlow, demos, early access to Silverlight 3 builds and much more.

I’m thrilled that Silverlight 3 was officially released on Friday joined by new updated tools ready for you to try out.

If you’ve been playing with the Silverlight 3 beta, you’re aware that the new feature set includes perspective 3D support, GPU acceleration, H.264 video, new controls, richer networking and data binding support, and my favourite new feature: out of browser capability.Blend3SketchFlow

But what you really need to get your hands on is Expression Blend 3 which now includes for the first time  SketchFlow.  You can download Expression Blend 3 (release candidate) here.  For more on the new release, you should check out Christian Schormann’s blog post.

So what is SketchFlow, now that I’ve gotten you all excited to try it?  SketchFlow is a component of Expression Blend which provides the ability to rapidly sketch and prototype rich interactive applications in both Silverlight and WPF.  I work all the time with developers who are prototyping new applications for themselves or for a customer.  An interactive model is crucial for keeping everyone on the same page, but it can be time-consuming to build something up only to find out it’s not relevant or is completely the wrong idea.  SketchFlow helps with that process by generating these interactive prototypes more quickly and with more detail that most could afford to put into a roughdraft application.

I’ve only been using SketchFlow for a couple of months now, but there’s nothing else like it.  If there’s interest, I’d be happy to do some tutorial sessions on how to use it, how to get started & how to build great prototypes in a short amount of time.

More details on the features of Silverlight 3 and Expression Blend 3 can be found, where else, on the Gu’s blog.

To get started, http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ is your friend.  There you can find installs for the SDK, the runtime, VS project templates, tools and the Silverlight Toolkit.  It also has links to tutorial videos and much more.

Cross posted from Martha's Blog.