Blend Still Lives

I was surprised when editing the XAML of a UWP project that I saw a prompt to open the page in Blend – I’d all but forgotten that Blend exists.

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On launching Blend I noticed the fancy new splash screen but is the only thing that’s been worked on? Well I currently don’t use Blend, even for UWP development, so I’m not sure why this product even exists, considering most of its features are covered by the new tool windows in Visual Studio.

I did notice that when editing the UWP page, there was at least support for Visual States. Back in its prime, Blend led the way with developer-designer engagement. Now with hot reload support in most major frameworks, the reliance on a design time experience as all but gone away. I think it’s time to say RIP to Blend and move forward with a different approach to XAML developers.

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