Thursday, April 23, 2009

Open in Expression Blend - switch between 2 and 3

Since Silverlight 3 is available, Blend 3 Preview was also released. When installing Silverlight 3 tools it is no longer available to create Silverlight 2 applications. Thanks to Amy Dullard who created an awesome batch file/deinstaller/installer script it makes life a lot easier.

The only thing that was bugging me was Expression Blend 2 and 3. Although the Silverlight 2 tools are installed, once installed, Blend 3 is the preferred application when using the "Open in Expression Blend" option in the context menu in VS2008.
After some searching in the registry I found out that it was the following key that did the mapping:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Expression\Blend\VS]

I created 2 registry files, 1 for going from Blend 2 to Blend 3 and one for going from Blend 3 back to Blend 2. It doesn't install/uninstall anything, it just changes the value in the registry.

So after I created the registry files and copied them to the folder of the batch file that Amy created, I added the following command(s) to the corresponding batch files:
reg import Blend3-to-2.reg
reg import Blend2-to-3.reg

Now, when switching between Silverlight 2 and 3 the "Open in Expression Blend" option also switches to Blend 2 for Silverlight 2 and Blend 3 Preview to Silverlight 3.

NOTE: I created this and only tested it on a 64 bit machine. I did include x86 version of the registry keys but these are untested!

Sometimes being lazy is a good thing, right? :)

Download the registry key files

Added by Rob on 6:35 PM

5 comments:

  1. [~Sya~]April 27, 2009 at 3:39 AM

    Hi.

    I got some questions to ask you.
    Ive downloaded and installed my silverlight 2, but when i open my expression blend 2, why there is no silverlight 2 application for me to choose. There is only silverlight 1 site.

    And i am new to expression blend 2, do you have any examples or tutorials. I need to make a webpage using silverlight/expression blend 2.

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  2. RobApril 27, 2009 at 8:52 AM

    @~Sya~ : You should install Expression Blend Service Pack 1. This contains the projecttype.

    ReplyDelete
  3. [~Sya~]May 5, 2009 at 5:15 AM

    Hi,

    Appreciate your reply. So basically i have to re-install my Expression blend 2 sp1?

    Because right now i have already installed expression blend 2 sp 1.

    Question: After i install my blend 2 sp1, what other things I have to install in order to have "Silverlight 2 application" in my blend 2?

    ReplyDelete
  4. RobMay 6, 2009 at 9:38 PM

    @~Sya~ : Nothing. Installing SP1 for Expression Blend 2 should be enough to get started.

    ReplyDelete
  5. [~Sya~]May 7, 2009 at 5:52 AM

    Hey thanx alot Rob!! Finally i got it and it works beautifully. I really appreciatte your help.

    Just wondering, why i cant edit frm blend 2 to visual studio 2008? It says in blend 2 "Cannot edit in Visual Studio. The method or operation is not implemented".
    Why is that eh?

    ReplyDelete

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