Blend 3 Sketch Flow New Features - Part I

Introduction

In my previous article on Blend 3 with Sketch Flow I introduced about the templates available in Blend 3. For the features of Blend 3 with Sketch Flow I will be providing you the new features available in Blend 3 in this article series.

Asset Library

In Blend 3 + Sketch Flow the Asset Library is enhanced and categorized into a new fashion. It consists of a left pane which has the categories. Such as: Project, Controls, Styles, Behaviors, Effects, Media, Categories and Locations.



The numbers you see for each category increases as you pause for some time; it discovers available assets from various categories.

Asset Library Tab

In addition to the above Asset Library, Blend 3 has a new Pane called the Asset Pane which has the same features as Asset Library.



Favicon Feature

You may be knowing about the Favicon concept, when you run a website its logo is displayed in the left of the address in the address bar. Favicon is nothing but an Icon (*.ico). By default in Blend 3 Favicon is added and it will carry the Blend 3 + Sketch Flow Icon. You can see it in the Project Pane.



Location Category in Asset Library

The Location category in Asset Library consists of the DLL files and their Namespaces. This category shows all the styles you created for the current document and current application.



Adding New Items to the Project

Previously when you were adding a new Item into your project, the options available were UserControl, ChildWindow, Resource Dictionary, Page and Class. Now in Blend 3 + Sketch Flow RC release three more Item templates are added. Such as: Action, Behavior, and Trigger.



Adding Image Brush to any Control

In Blend 3 + Sketch Flow RC release an easy feature is available for Brush capabilities. An Image Brush is added to the Brush Categories, where we can use images to fill for the controls Background properties. It is available for any Property that takes a Brush.



Relative Transform for Brushes

In Blend 3 + Sketch Flow, Relative Transform for each Brush Category is added.



Arranging Controls In Z Order

If you look at the Object and TimeLine Pane we have a small Button on Bottom Left corner. It arranges or disarranges the Controls in the Object Pane.



Cool, this is all about some of the new features available in Blend 3 + Sketch Flow RC release. We will see more in this article series.

Enjoy Coding.