Last week I installed the Microsoft Expression Studio. I’ve been playing with Expression Blend and watching a few of the packaged tutorials.

First impressions: The interface is very dark (I wasn’t expecting that) although, I’m sure it ‘s customizable somehow. The organization is done well. The pallets can be docked, closed or floated.

There is a GUI which represents the objects you create as well as a second panel which shows you the generated XAML. What is XAML?

(Extensible Application Markup Language; pronounced “zammel”)

XAML is a declarative XML-based language that defines objects and their properties in XML. XAML syntax focuses upon defining the UI (user interface) for the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and is therefore separate from the application code behind it.

From what I understand XAML is the common language between the Studio products. More to come later…