Expression Design tips...

Expression Design tips I learned while at the  Express Yourself contest in San Fran last week.. :

1. The list of features that design does not support when importing Adobe illustrator files is in the readme ... It is here.. 
2. To use the Clipboard ( Cut  & Paste ) between Design with Expression Blend, you should set the options under Edit -> Options -> Clipboard (XAML)...   here you get options similar to what you do when selecting File-> Export XAML  ... The default settings are for WPF... so if doing silverlight you need to change these...

 Along with those two tips there a few common issues that you will have to workaround ...  [the design team is on top of these, but likely needs to wait for a Service pack or similar]

1. Design works in WPF device independent units 1/96 of an inch.. It does all conversions for you .. So highly recommended you work at 96 DPI ..  If you work at say 72 DPI you are going to see your export to be 4/3 the size you expected...  
2. Design puts an <?xml >  directive on top of their files..  Though this is still valid XML ...  CreateFromXaml ( ) does not parse it ...   [this applies to using downloaded object and creating from XAML in a file..  I believe it works fine if you use the Xaml files as a Source..
3. Design automatically generates names ...  (Group1, Group2,  Path1, etc. ) which can be an issue for Silverlight since it likes Unique names...   [this is only issue if loading two files into single object ... a simple  replace of x:Name="  to x:Name="prefix   does the trick .. .

PS -- The contest results were quite impressive... stay tuned at the VisitMix.com blog where I think they will show the videos of the competition ..