#511 – Blend Basics – The Tools Panel

When you start up Expression Blend, you’ll see a series of icons down the left side of the window.  Each icon represents a tool that you can use to work with elements in your application.  This area of the window is known as the Tools Panel.

This panel includes the following tools:

•   Selection and Direct Selection – Select objects
•    Pan – Slide the view in the artboard to see a different area of the GUI
•     Zoom – Zoom in/out on the artboard
•     Camera Orbit – Move the camera around in a 3D scene
•     Eyedropper and Paint Bucket – Copy attributes from one object to another
•     Gradient Tool – Create and edit gradient brushes
•     Pen – Draw and modify paths
•     Rectangle, Ellipse and Line – Draw a shape
•     Grid et al – Add a layout panel
•    TextBlock et al – Add a TextBox, Label or similar control
•     Button et al – Add a Button, CheckBox or similar control