Sean Gerety

Nice work Nick

Nick Thuesen just outed his WPF application, the New York Times reader in WPF.  It sounds great, and I assume would deliever a great experience.  Why?  Text in WPF rules.  Easy to read, clean and flows thanks to the FlowDocumentPageViewer.  Between the Times and the BBC it looks like we are going to see news delievered in a whole new way in Vista.  I just wish that they wouldn't wait until Vista (I assume).  This would be cool on a UMPC.  Remember it can handle WPF.

Another nice thing about this is that a newspaper could change how they do classified ads.  They could still have the old style text ads (which are easy to quickly scan) and then when you click on the add you could get some sweet content right there in the ad.  Here's the scenario, you're looking for a 3 bedroom house in the burbs, there's an ad that fits your needs to live in the burbs and has 3 bedrooms.  You click the ad and a video walk tour of the house plays.  That would rock.  And it wouldn't be intrusive like banner ads and it wouldn't be dumb text.  Hey, if someone patents this ad idea, add my name!  

Very nice work Nick.  When is it going to be available?

Sean

Tags: XAML | WPF

UMPC's and WPF

When I was out at Mix06 I got to play with all the UMPC's that Microsoft had demoed.  My favorites are the Founder and the ASUS.  The ASUS had slick styling and was nice and thin with a built-in camera, but the Founder had a better form factor and I have to say was my favorite.  The controls felt good in your hands and you didn't have to reposition your fingers to do things.  This is a win in my book.  The others had an eraser nub that wasn't easy to control with you thumb. 

Playing with them was very cool and the size was right.  The only clunky thing about them was the touch screen.  You had to use your finger nail on them to tap the screen.  This made the "DialKeys" very hard to use.  Luckily the rep at the table stated that this would be addressed closer to production and you would be able to use the pad of your finger instead of your fingernail.  The only other grip about them is the screen resolution, I wish it could be higher for a more paper like experience.

However, the coolest thing is that WPF will run on these.  Due to the size, vector based content (WPF/XAML apps) are a great fit for these devices.  And the addition of pen input will go nicely with the InkCanvas element.  It looks like between WPF is going to be everywhere!

Tags: XAML | WPF | UMPC | mix06

Forget Web 2.0

WPF is where it's at.  While you get great mashups and AJAX and ATLAS fun, to get a really immersive experience you need to use WPF.  Don't believe me?  Look at the BBC demo from yesterday's keynote.  And from what I hear there is an even cooler app coming today.  See you at Mix06 today.

Tags: Mix06 | WPF

WPF Process

I've been using Expression Interactive Designer (formerly known as Sparkle) since it was publicly released.  I have to say that even though this is a tool targeted at designers, it really can be used by developers, designers, information architects, interaction designers and hobbyists. 

It's great for quickly prototyping a UI and if you have a couple of web services or objects to push some data to you can quickly see how things look.  Add animation, event triggers and styles and you can get a great looking prototype very quickly. 

Below is a diagram to show the process of using VS.NET and Expression Interactive Designer together to create a WPF application.  There are a couple of entry points, EID and VS.NET and those depend on what you are doing.  If you're at Mix06 I'll be happy to talk about it.

Tags: Mix06

Mix06

When I was at the PDC last year, one of the best things was the lounge area.  If you didn't want to sit and listen a speaker, you could go and hang out with the orange shirts (WPF Team), look at some code, demos and chat.  It was an actual conversation with the people that owned whatever technology you where interested in.  If Mix06 can achieve this feeling that will be a nice departure of running from room to room catching speakers.  And it actually will be a conversation.

So a little about Mix06.  It's in Vegas, in March ,in 2006, inside the Venetian Resort.

There's lot's of speakers, and not just people from Microsoft.  People from Frog Design and O'Reilly.  There's breakouts, discussions and hands on labs.  And there's Vegas.

There are two tracks. "Beyond the Browser" (weighing in at 21 sessions) and "Next Generation Browsing Experience" (weighing in at 30 sessions).  Beyond the Browser deals with things like WPF applications, UX, and non browser based apps (Media Center, Sidebar and Mobile).  Next Generation Browsing is exactly what you would expect.  Talks about IE7 and beyond, WPF/E, AJAX. 

However there are two sessions that I would think belong in the Beyond the Browser track. 
Developing a WPF Application by Filipe Fortes and a Designer's Overview of WPF by Robert Ingebretsen.  Maybe they are just sprinkled in there for curiosities sake, should a web developer stumble in I'm sure that they'll be surprised.  (In a good way, not the bad way of waking up in your hotel bathtub with ice around you and a missing kidney).

Another cool thing about this conference will be the first public unveiling of WPF/E.  WPF/E is Windows Presentation Foundation / Everywhere.  Seeing what WPF/E will run on will be tasty. I'm sure they'll demo Firefox, and possibly a Mac, maybe cell phones, and hell if they get a wild hair, a SPOT watch.

Did I mention that I'll see you there?  I'm going.  Booked and Registered.  But did I mention that there is a contest to get you there?  You can win airfare, admission and lodging at the Venetian and a moded Xbox 360.  And they've got flair, hey after all this is a UX conference

Tags: Mix06 | Expression | UX | XAML