Url: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/mix/i…

Also announced today was a preview version of Blend 3. Blend 3 is going to support better experiences for designers and developers.  There will be lots of sessions and videos at MIX09 about these features but for the simple list here I go:

SketchFlow

Blend 3 adds the ability for designers to sketch designs and share them with clients. Clients can add annotations to feedback to the designer from SketchFlow.  Sketchflow is part Blend and part Silverlight 3 wrapper.

Tool Support

Illustrator and Photoshop files can be imported directly into Blend without having to use an intermediatary (e.g. Design).  This import is much better than Design’s import so that layers and objects come in even in Photoshop files.

Application Flow

Blend 3 can help you build the flow from page to page in Silverlight to help know not only which pages are shown but how those pages are transitioned.

**Sample Data **

Blend 3 also supports the ability to simply create sample data during design so that designs can show controls with sample data to better understand what a design will be look like at runtime.

Silverlight 3 Changes

All the Silverlight 3 features (e.g. Merge Dictionaries, Element to Element Binding, Based On Styles, etc.) are supported in Blend 3.

There is a lot more but too much to cover in a single blog post. You’ll see deeper examples of some of these features in the upcoming weeks (or the April 6th Silverlight Tour class which is covering Silverlight 3).