Skinning Silverlight controls just got easier

核心提示：This has been one of the features that I’ve been excited about for a while since I heard we were changing it.With the release of Silverlight 2 Beta 2 and

This has been one of the features that I’ve been excited about for a while since I heard we were changing it.　With the release of Silverlight 2 Beta 2 and the updated preview of Expression Blend 2.5 (June 2008), skinning and styling controls within Silverlight gets a bunch easier.

When Silverlight 2 Beta 1 was released there was the possibility of styling/skinning controls.　It wasn’t impossible, but perhaps a bit obfuscated to the eye for people with short attention spans like myself.　You can read more about those methods here and here.　WPF designers were probably laughing that Silverlight developers might have been struggling with skinning controls.　Why?　Because Blend for WPF supports a right-click “Edit Template” functionality for WPF…so where is it for Silverlight?　In the latest release of Blend 2.5 of course!

That’s right—simpler skinning.　At RIApalooza in fact I was asked about how one would know *what* elements could be skinned, etc.　Outside of the docs, and some spelunking, it wasn’t entirely intuitive.　But now, well, let’s take a look.　Let’s take a look at Blend 2.5 June 2008 preview and adding a ScrollBar to our design surface: