Microsoft just published it's second official Expression Newsletter. It contains part 1 of my "Designer Role" article.

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/news-press/newsletter/2007-12/Article02.aspx

WPF Transition Framework or WTF, is a simple (and FREE) set of controls (well, control for now) that help you add slick animated transitions to your WPF apps without having to resort to creating timelines or messing with code.

It's as simple as this:

This is the beta release and only 4 (of 10+) transitions are supported: BlurIn, BlurOut, FadeIn, and FadeOut. Check out our wishlist to see what we hope to add to it (including bitmap based animated effects!).

WTF let's you easily control the quality/performance ratio by using the QUALITY property. If you want to stop animations for a moment, then you just turn on HoldTransitions (bool) and it will deactivate all transitions.

Download WTF and check out the sample application!

WTF works with Microsoft Expression Blend 1.0 or later, and Visual Studio 2008 Beta 1 or later.

Show #227 | 4/9/2007
Dax Pandhi talks WPF and Expression

Graphics guru and WPF wonk Dax Pandhi shares his thoughts on WPF, WPF/e, Expression suite in general, and Blend in particular. You'll hear the story of how Dax came to be the "Pwop graphics guy" as well as his contributions to the WPF community.

Dax Pandhi is the CEO of Nukeation Studios, an award winning UX studio, he is also a very recent MVP, and one of the first people to say that WPF will rock the world! He and his company have been helping clients prepare for and adopt Windows Presentation Foundation for their applications since 2005. Dax is committed to bridging the gap between developers and designers in the new world of User Experience. He spends his time helping UX-impaired developers adopt WPF, writing about WPF, and trying to get a life. http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=227

I'm still finding that many people are still not trying WPF. Many don't know where to start. So to help people adopt WPF, Andy Eick and I are creating some cool "learning material".

Instead of assuming we know what you - "Joe Developer" or "Joe Designer" - want to know more about in WPF, we'll just ask you.

What do you want to learn about in WPF? Does databinding interest you? Or maybe custom controls? Or scalable layouts? Or the declarative XAML?

Post a comment and leave your thoughts. We will make sure we do our best to satisfy your questions in our "learning material". Really. Free training material tailored to your needs - what more could you ask for?!

Keep reading Andy's blog and mine for updates.

 

From left to right:

Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman of Microsoft India; Tarun Gulati, MD of Microsoft India; Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corp.; Dax Pandhi (Me), CEO of Nukeation Studios.

This week has been amazing! I don't do much public speaking but the guys at Microsoft got me to be a speaker at IndiMIX'06. The central focus of the event was Expression and Live. Designer and developer. Cricket and Bollywood.

The event (my first big event) was fantastic. It started with a keynote from Steve Ballmer. Following that the application MatchCast, a high-end cricket statistic and analysis application, was showcased by Anil Kumble. Nukeation was the UX consultant on the application.

There was more stuff after that (from 1100 to 1300) but I missed it for two reasons. First, as the winner of Microsoft Blogstar, I had to go backstage and meet Steve himself!

>> This blog has been interrupted to announce that you are reading the blog of a Blogstar. We now return to the regularly scheduled post. <<

I got my photo taken with him, but they haven't sent it to me yet. :/ And secondly, after Steve left, my team had to prepare for our session.

The Designer Session Team

This was my first real, big speaking event and I was nervous as hell at first. The main reason I was able to give a good presentation was because of three incredibly cool people - Leon Brown, Pandurang Nayak, and Deepak Gulati. Our session was 75 minutes and covered the three Expression products. We also launched www.1expression.net (more on that later) and the WebRockstars contest at http://www.webrockstars.in/

I couldn't have asked for a better team! These guys are amazing. Thanks so much, guys! We spent two days in a conference room in Microsoft Mumbai preparing for our stuff. It was a first-of-it's-kind experience for me. Of course, the traditional "pizza while debugging" was a familiar entity.

Our session went excellently. It opened up with Leon (who was our session host) and cricket player Murali Kartik (a name Leon still probably can't pronounce - man, he got a lot of torture from me about that - and lots of other stuff!), followed by a walkthrough of Expression Web by Pandurang.

Pandu explains the session to Murali Kartik

I followed that with a brief intro of Expression Graphic Designer and Expression Interactive Designer. After that Deepak and I did a Developer-Designer workflow integration demo. He made a strict "developer looking" application (aka, functional but crappy looking) in Visual Studio 2005 with "Orcas" tools. I opened the solution in ExprID and enhanced it with styles and animations. We got a really great response from the audience. Deepak and I immediately developed this chemistry which allowed us to create a funny little style of working together on-stage. And I think the people really loved it.

We ended our session with three important things: an announcement that great things will be revealed about Expression in the first week of December; the launch of www.1expression.net; and a Q&A session. My fun moment there was representing my fellow designers worldwide - the most audible form of that was during the closing when someone asked "What are the debugging capabilities of Expression Interactive?". Deepak, Leon, and Pandu gave good, real answers. I, of course, said "Designers don't debug". :)

Mandira Bedi, TV personality and the host of the live webcast

I again missed the next session (Developer) as I was asked to be interviewed on the live webcast (75k viewers - made my knees shake!) by Mandira Bedi. I was able to catch Bob Muglia's closing remarks and Q&A. After the event, Leon and I also did a short interview for CNBC.

Bob Muglia answers a question. The four guys in the background are Deepak Gulati, Janakiram MSV, Kevin D'Souza, and Rohit Kapoor.

Praveen Srivatsa, Microsoft Regional Director for Bangalore, takes software construction seriously

 

Over the past 5 days, I got to meet some really great people - Microsfties, MVPs, RDs, simple civilianss, business execs, Cricket stars, movie stars, and who can forget Steve Ballmer! I also got to learn so many cool things that I can't tell without violating a dozen NDAs. That's the price you pay for being close to Microsoft.

All I can say is: hang on - the ride has just begun!

PS. Leon, yes, still MEKNB.

A good family friend and the editor of Rediff.com (India's biggest portal) wrote an article about me and Nukeation.com is now temporarily out of service due to the Slashdot Effect.

If you're interested in knowing about my boring history, you can read the article at http://shrinkster.com/jmo or http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2006/nov/01outsource.htm. The story is also on the front page at rediff.com.

If you don't already know, MIX'06 is coming to India in the form of IndiMIX'06 (http://www.indimix06.com). The keynote will be given by Steve Ballmer.

I've been given the honor of being on the same stage as Steve B. I'm going to be doing a piece on .NET Framework 3.0 - essentially about Windows Presentation Foundation and the Designer / Developer work process. I'll be co-presenting the demo with some really cool people.

IndiMIX'06 will be held at the National Center for Performing Arts (NCPA), Nariman Point, Mumbai. It's a free public event and you can register for it at the official website. If you're not able to come to Mumbai, or if the event is sold out you can watch the live webcast. Register for either at the official site.

My presentation will be from 2:00pm to 3:15pm (local time, +5:30GMT).

For more info, visit http://www.indimix06.com

If you have a Flash control that needs to be "activated" - especially on a fully Flash site - you know how problematic and anti-productive it can be. Here's a workaround:

This code will "activate" all OBJECT tags in your page. Use with care. The irritant in IE may not fun, but the security concern is valid.

My article has finally been published on MSDN. Thanks to the nice people at MS for letting me write this!

No, no - not those Flashers! I mean Macromedia Flash users.

I know many a Flashers have been annoyed (and some downright pissed) at me. One of them actually started yelling at me on Skype. I had to block him!

In any case, yes, I totally acknowledge that I am biased towards Microsoft. If not for them, I'd be a 20-something schmuck with two degrees in computing but still prefering to work at a burger joint. On top of that, I'm a Microsoft Partner (well, technically my company is, but I own my company, so shaddup!) so I've sworn my loyalty to them. But even all that aside, Microsoft provides feature-rich tools that no other competing products can stand up against.

But I think I need to re-address some things I wrote in my "Future of..." post. I wrote about the "three waves" that could potentially crush Flash. While part of me still thinks it to be totally possible, I have come to re-assess some things. Partially, this is because of a couple of discussions I had with a couple of Microsofties (I've stopped naming names. I usually get them in trouble. Sorry about last time, "Mr. X").

The more I dive deeper into WPF, the more I realize it is NOT intended to compete with Flash. Maybe it will compete with Flex. Though, I haven't seen that much adoption of Flex-based apps yet. Maybe Adobe will whip it into shape.

Seriously. If you're one of those people calling Sparkle the "Flash Killer", then I think you oughta give it a shot. It's not really "comfortable" for animation and web purposes as Flash is. And I definetely miss the in-timeline scripting facility Flash provides. You can do that in EID/WPF, but its not as simple.

I would also like to add to my previous post's tirade, that WPF/E is but a small part of WPF which is but a part (well, 1/3 at least) of WinFX. And WinFX - WPF in particular (I can imagine Michele Leroux Bustamante rolling her eyes again) - is going to be what will set Windows apart from Linux and MAC and all.

I don't imagine more than 10% of the industry actively using or trying out WPF at the moment. Y'know, for REAL projects. I'd be more than happy to be proved wrong, of course. But only after using WPF for a real project or two (and I'm not talking simple demo apps, I mean something substantial) will people REALLY appreciate WPF. It sounds good in theory, but it is even better in reality!

Btw, if you haven't noticed, this post does not revolve around a specific point. I'm just ranting. Thank you.

But if you REALLY need me to make some points...

• Flash has an enourmous market cornered that Microsoft does not have a good chance of acquiring.
• Microsoft is smart enough to realize that and is not, in fact, competing with Flash.
• WPF/E is more of a competitor for Macromedia Flex.
• WPF/E will run Flex into the ground. Or Flex will only exist like JSP does with ASP.
• Sparkle DOES NOT have enough flexibility and features required to replace Flash (which was never the point, of course).
• WPF/E is but a part of WPF which is but a part of WinFx. Developers and designers who choose to work under the Microsoft flag best focus on WPF. That's where the gold is.
• WPF will have a bigger impact on "Joe Computer User" than WCF and WWF. Which is totally unrelated to the current topic, but I have to get that in whenever I can for all the years I've spent being labelled "inferior" by developers who consider graphics in the computer world to be sub-standard to code.

Alright, Flashers. Go sleep in peace now. You are no longer under threat.

I just read Andrew Lucking's blog post about my first video on EID, and it kinda inspired me to give my perspective on Flash vs EID.

Let's recount the basic stuff:

	Flash	EID/WPF
Programming Support	Medium (ActionScript 2.0)	Heavy (.NET 2.0 and XAML)
3D support	Medium (Shockwave 3D or Vectorized 3D output)	Heavy (WPF and DirectX)
Declarative Programming Support	No	Yes
Bitmap Effects Support	Limited	Extensive
Animation Model	Timeline-based: timeline is the ultimate controller; timelines are NOT optional	Trigger-based: timelines control the animation, but the timelines are controlled by triggers; timelines are also OPTIONAL
Cross-Platform support	Extensive	Limited / Currently unavailable (WPF/E details are still sketchy)
Drawing Tools	Heavy	Medium

 

What's EID and WPF potential over Flash? Well, can't say much about WPF/E until I actually use it, but taking WPF as a basic example, here are my thoughts:

NOTE: For the purpose of this post, EID and WPF (or at least the features) are the same. If it is in one, its in the other.

• It all comes back to the timeline. In Flash Timeline is God. In EID, Timeline is just another aspect of an object, and there are more than one timelines and each can be ran parallel to other timelines - even of the same object!! In other words, with Flash we're looking at "time" from a normal layman's perspective; with WPF, it's like looking at "time" from Einstein's perspective.
• In Flash, you have to stop the timeline in order to have a static frame, which makes creating a multi-section Flash website quite difficult. It's not difficult per-se, but difficult when you consider the trigger-only-timelines that EID presents. That would make this much easier.
• Creating 3D content in Flash has always been terribly difficult. Shockwave does add 3D support, but its more like VRML on steroids. If you don't know about VRML, it was a 3D web standard pushed in the late 90s. It was terrible!! With inherent and DirectX support for 3D with shaders and crap is actually fantastic! That alone will land a good blow to Flash.
• There's good DOCUMENT support in WPF. This gives you a document-data presentation component that Flash just can't do! This is one of the chief reasons why the Adobe people are gung-ho on integrating PDF and SWF.
• EID comes from a "component and controls, animate it all" point-of-view, while Flash is "all animation, some component... animate components? uhh, ok, you can try...". The WRAP PANEL and other such controls can seriously kick Flash's ass.

You might say: "Whoa! Hold on. WPF/E does not have all this! It's very puny and limited!"

If you're a Flash or non-Microsoft-stuff user, I'll let you go. If you're a Microsoft-user and you said that give yourself a big kick. Without going into the intricacies of numerology, we all know that this is just version 1. All we have to do is wait 2 more versions. Let me explain:

So I've said all the nice things about WPF and put down Flash. Well, that's not the whole story. WPF is severely limited in many ways that Flash isn't. The user base being not the least of it, of course. Right now, WPF is more close to Macromedia FLEX than Flash.

Branden Hall writes in his post titled "The Flash Killer Cometh":

Well, I can't say I disagree with the first part. For the "mythical Interactive Developer" (I might have to adopt that as my title) comment, well, I disagree there.

Mythical Interactive Developers are not, in fact, mythical. I am one myself, and in the last 7 years have trained 4 such people (10 years and 16 people if you want to count VRML in this). We (ahem) are rare, but not nonexistent. And more shall rise. The gates of Oblivion have opened!! Uhh... sorry, wrong topic.

Anyways, let me get back to my point.

If you are not a Microsofter or are very new to the Microsoft world - the REAL Microsoft World that only devs see - you don't know the power of number 3. As I said, again ignoring numerology, that this WPF 1.0. Microsoft ALWAYS strikes gold with Version 3.

Windows 3(.1) was the most popular in the first generation. Windows 98SE was WAY better than 95 or 98. Windows ME was a fluke, so let's forget that. In the third generation we had Windows 2000 and then XP, now we have Vista which will undoubtedly hit the mark.

Visual Studio 6.0 (#3 of II generation) was way better than anything else. Visual Studio 2005 (#3 of the III generation) is already doing great things!

So step back a bit. Look from a larger perspective. Microsoft is only laying the foundation. Bill Buxton said:

There is a new revolution coming. It will come in THREE waves. Here's my prediction for it:

• First Big Wave: We shift from WinForms to a more Web+Vector like platform. We learn the ropes for the upcoming waves. The Mythical Interactive Developer is born and many Flashers flock to the Microsoft banner - mostly because working with WPF will pay a LOT more than Flash does. Microsoft silently keeps working on the final stuff.
• Second Bigger Wave: After a year or more of having WPF out there, Microsoft will have perfect grasp on what's needed, what the public wants, what the designers+developers need. A 2.0 release gives you more power. More people flock under the Microsoft flag. More users keep adopting this technology - even just as runtime. Microsoft silently keeps working on the final stuff.
• Tsunami: The work is done. Microsoft has the perfect blend ready. Flash is either killed or is kept limping behind.

Branden Hall also writes:

I recommend reading the posts in this category in old-to-new order. But let explain in short:

Microsoft is right. WPF is not being primed (solely) as a Flash-killer. It will definetely be a Mac-killer tho. But my point is this: If you think WPF is only for making things pretty you are WAAAAAAAY off.

WPF is about getting the presentation layer of a software done quickly and flexibly. Things that required superior subclassing skills and knowledge can be done by an amateur now. The declarative model makes things much easier. WPF will be a boon for developers. It will solve a LOT of problems.

For record let me make it clear:

Windows Presentation Foundation or Expression Interactive Designer will not make anything extra-graphical or extra-interactive unless designer/developer goes to some lengths to actually make it so! When you DON'T skin a control, it will look just like a normal Windows control does. WPF will solve problems such as creating composite controls, creating resolution-independent applications, allowing better and economical usage of graphics hardware and vector to lower CPU usage that GDI+ does not, and more. This is not an animation package (yet).

No. WinFX/WPF/EID is the next generation of development platform. Of course, it won't take long for it become what ASP.net is for the web. But it will be like ASP.net in many ways. WPF/E will co-exist with Flash, just as ASP.net does with PHP and JSP. Of course, it goes without saying that ASP.net is better than PHP or JSP, and so will be WPF/e (eventually).

With that, and the sun shining in my face at 7:20 in the morning, I bid thee good night.

It is entirely possible to get lost at the Microsoft site. If you know how to find information, you can see how truly immense the site is. It could surely use a better navigation system, because often some great resources are hidden from plain sight and just might miss the mark.

I accidentally stumbled on this page that I had visited long ago. It's the Microsoft Design Resource site. At first glance you can see how the design is atypical of Microsofts normal trends (barring the 30th anniversary, Research, and Innovation presentations in the Corporate site).

This site is an excellent read and has some really nice, chic even, designs. The PEOPLE section is very interesting to people who are interested in design.

Here's an example of a cool thing - the "Office of the Future" design that won Microsoft an IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Award).

This is a UI targeted at a very wide (and curved) prototype computer Microsoft has made. It's like have three monitors, but without the breaks in between.

How developers will embrace WPF and the new vector design methods is yet to be seen. If the reactions I've seen so far are a sign of the future, I think it might take some time. While developers love the cold logic of code, computers are merging more and more into human life, and as such will need to be approached with a psychological view as well. Right now, only few software companies (most of which are giants) do such research and apply it to their products.

The role of the designer in the software industry will be a very powerful catalyst for the entire industry and how we work. The factors of psychology in relation to human-computer interaction (psychophysics I believe applies here) are very important as I've started to learn in the last few months. I only had shallow knowledge of such, but after reading a few essays and the book Emotional Design by Dr. Don Norman (www.jnd.org) I started developing a much deeper interest. My personal ideas and views conflict a bit with Dr. Norman's, but I have come to greatly appreciate his insight.

Usability might seem like a trivial thing - especially when worrying about the code you still have to write - but it is far more important than it seems. When dealing with a non-technical (or even technical) software product - a good aesthetic+psycholical influence can help you increase sales, make the product more usable, FUN, and increase productivity at the same time.

My thoughts will be continued in "The Human UX" and some other posts. I had hoped to have it published on MSDN sooner, but I will post a preview copy here as the MSDN schedule seems a bit delayed.

I saw a wonderful quote on Nathan Dunlap's blog:

Here is a great quote from Bill Buxton:

"My sense is that Microsoft is in transition from an engineering-led company to...a design-led company," he said. "There are more designers at Microsoft on any single team as there were, not too long ago, in the entire company. It's a wonderful change."

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6001234.html

I for one couldn't be happier. It's the design revolution!! The streets will be colored in Window.Resource and often ignored lowly designers will make the face of the software industry. Go pixel pushers!