Create a new document or project

To create a new document

1. On the File menu, click New Item, and then do one of the following:

   • Click Window to add a top-level window or dialog box to your WPF project.

   • Click UserControl to define an interface component that you can embed within other parts of your WPF project.

   • Click Page to contain a section of your project that can be reached by navigation either in a browser-hosted application or navigation window in a WPF project.

   • Click ResourceDictionary to store and share resources among various parts of your project.

   • Click Scene to create a new interface component for a Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 project.

2. In the Name box, enter a name for the document if you would like to rename the file.

3. Select the Include code file check box (WPF only) if you would like to generate a code-behind file for the new document.

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To create a new WPF project

1. On the File menu, click New Project.

2. In the Create New Project dialog box, under Select a project type, click either WPF Application (.exe) or WPF Control Library.

3. In the Name box, enter a name for the project.

4. In the Location box, enter or browse to the folder where you want to store the project. By default, this is a folder named Blend Projects in your My Documents folder.

   Note

   The Location box is only available if the Save new projects to the Expression Blend Projects folder option is selected in the Project tab of the Options dialog box (Tools menu).

5. In the Language menu, select a programming language (Visual C# or Visual Basic).

   Note

   In general, you can bypass selecting a programming language and just use the default, which is C#. (Using C# creates .cs files.) However, there may be times when the developer who is working on your application may want to indicate a specific programming language—for example, Microsoft Visual Basic (which creates .vb files)—perhaps for ease of use, familiarity, or to integrate the project files more easily with legacy code.

6. Click OK. Microsoft Expression Blend creates a new project and opens it for editing, depending on the following settings that are selected in the Project tab of the Options dialog box (Tools menu):

   • Save new projects to the Expression Blend Projects folder   This setting automatically saves your new project to disk in the Expression Blend projects folder, or in the folder that you specified in the Location box of the Create New Project dialog box. Until a project is saved to disk, the project is in a temporary state, and there are some features (such as viewing events or browsing the project) that are unavailable.

   • Create a temporary project on startup   This setting automatically creates a temporary empty project when you start Expression Blend. This temporary project will not be saved to disk, regardless of the previous setting.

   • Use a Grid panel as the default layout for new items   This setting uses a Grid element as the root layout element in your document. If you do not select this setting, a Canvas element is used as the root layout element in your document.

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To create a new Silverlight 1 project

• See Create a Silverlight 1.0 project.

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To create a new Silverlight 2 project

• See Create a project for a Silverlight 2 application.

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