For more than a year (actually several if you include research) we have been working on Visual Studio tool Codename NukeBall - a Dynamic Rapid UI Development tool. Essentially, it creates parts (or whole) of UI in your Windows Forms projects with a single click.

Over the past year, the core (NxC) of NukeBall evovled from a simple automation tool to an actual code adapter. We added support for creating your own UI chunks - called WADS (Widely Adaptable Dynamic Scraps) - and added complete support for 3rd party controls. The main power of NukeBall lies in seamlessly converting UI code from one .NET language to another - and some other things we are not yet ready to talk about. ;)

Without further ado, I leave you with a live demo of what Codename: NukeBall can do.

Please note that this video shows an internal build. The actual product UI and features will be much more enhanced.

Email me at dax [at] nukeation [dot] com if you're interested in beta testing NukeBall.

More information about will be published soon on this blog.

.NET | Downloads | Geek Stuff | NukeBall | reuxables | WPF

Comments [6]  |  Trackback

I was over at Ryan Stewart's AIR blog on ZDNet, reading his post Vista sells! More WPF apps coming?. I was reading a comment that Jason Etheridge (a Unix developer) wrote.

It's entirely possible that Microsoft's Silverlight will overtake Flash more quickly than most would think possible. Flash may have over 90% deployment of its player into browsers, but all Microsoft has to do is deliver Silverlight as part of a regular IE update... and suddenly it's almost everywhere. The more compelling argument for Silverlight is the ability to write browser-side apps in languages familiar to developers (C#, Ruby, Python), using Visual Studio's IDE. That's a much, much better story than using an effectively proprietary language like Actionscript (even if it's a variant of Javascript). How long before Microsoft release a platform like AIR that can run CLR apps on the Mac? Mono already allows .NET apps to run under Linux.

He goes on to write:

A platform can only survive if developers are willing to write code for it; with Flash now, there's not really a viable alternative.

Read the entire post and Ryan's response.

Jason's comments do ring true to my ears. A simple Windows Update can make Flash's market penetration seem not that grand. Microsoft already has an existing developer base that Adobe can't match (at least at the moment).

Here's the trump card (or rather, ONE of the trump cards) as I see it. We all know enterprises hate changing technologies. Mostly because a lot of code needs to be overhauled or rewritten from scratch. With Silverlight 1.1 (and going forward) you can virtually pull out your business objects from your existing SQL + ASP.net setup (or even a MySQL + Python whatever) and hook it up with a new simple middle layer to Silverlight. You get to reuse existing code - which saves a LOT of money and time, AND you get to leverage the full potential of RIA. While Flex does tote some nice compatibility features, but somehow I don't think it would match this.

Flex, etc. has become a much more respectable programming language than what ActionScript used to be. But it would have trouble competing with something like C# or VB. Many Flash/Flex/AIR people have been talking about the merging of the desktop and the web, but IMHO I think that some things are better left on the desktop or the web where they belong. The net is not really all that stable as it needs to be for such heavy things. In the future, sure, it could happen, but not yet. Moving things to the web for the sake of moving things to the web is just wrong. In fact, while it was an excellent technology showcase, I didn't particularly approve of the web-based media editor shown at MIX'07. I refer you to my previous rant.

Right now things may look unclear as to where the tide goes or turns, but I have a feeling in the next year or so, we will see some major changes in the RIA space.

In closing, I'd like to provide some insight into the whole WPF adoption thing that Ryan was asking about.

So now that we know people are actually buying Vista, what’s going to be the story for Windows Presentation Foundation? I’ve seen a lot of internet chatter about there being a lack of good WPF apps out there because of a lack of an installed user base. That actually runs contrary to what I’ve heard from shops like IdentityMine and Cynergy who have seen strong demand for WPF applications. I get the sense that most of these are on the business side and less on the consumer side however.

WPF presents a major change from the familiar Windows Forms that developers are so used to. See my Myths post about some of the (percieved or otherwise) obstacles in adoption. But if you look at the amount of excellent 3rd party stuff coming out from Developer Express, Infragistics, Telerik, and even Nukeation, there is a massive demand for WPF. In fact, about 80% of the work at Nukeation for the past year or so has been WPF rather than web-based stuff. Of course, it takes TIME to develop good applications. Expect to see many good applications that use WPF very soon. Some, like RIPT, are already out in beta. I myself have worked on a medical application, a large store chain management app, extremely large enterprise data management and visualization app, and various other applications. Most of these are to be released internally in corporations or select circles - but they shouldn't be discounted from the WPF adoption block.

Before I go, I'd like to ask why we're not seeing AIR and Flex and all that showing up everywhere - especially since they have 90%+ market penetration. ;)

Comments [25]  |  Trackback

Wow. It's been 3 months since I blogged!! Needless to say I was busy.

But before I get into that, just hop on over to www.nAesthetic.com - I just updated the blog design. Let me know what you think! The new blog shows (in the browser only) new art/photos posted to my deviantArt account as well.

At Nukeation we have been working hard on two products that will see a public release before the end of the year. One is for Windows Forms (long term followers of this blog may know what it is) and one is for WPF. Expect news soon.

I have also entered into an unholy alliance with my fellow Microsoft MVP Andrew Eick (of revolUXions fame) and Liam Cassidy (of BBC infamy) on a project that will change or ruin the world. We're hoping for the latter, but most probably end up with the former. Obviously, it involves drinking a lot and writing a ton of .NET 3.5 code.

I've also been writing some stuff regarding WPF which I shall soon publish. I have to wait until some of the software it talks of is released. On a recent trip to Microsoft Bangalore, I met with Pandurang Nayak and India's new UX Evangelist Supreet Singh. These guys planning great stuff for the local UX community - do keep a lookout for some great events like the recent Expression Around the Clock (which I missed at the last minute due to an emergency!). On that same trip I was familiarized with some of the new stuff Microsoft has on the horizon. It just blew me away.

I can't wait for the next-gen stuff to come out!!!

Comments [5]  |  Trackback

Even after reaching many mainstream projects, Windows Presentation Foundation (or WPF), is still a long way from completely succeeding Windows Forms as the main form of user interface.

Switching to a completely different method of creating applications is difficult for almost everyone. Even after these years of being available to the public, proper documentation on WPF is still hard to find. Another factor in the adoption delay (or in some cases, refusal) is that the word "UX" (User Experience) is often distorted. The real power of WPF is often buried under the false image of UX.

The following are some of the common myths and the corresponding reality about WPF and UX.

UX is just a fancy word for skinning

WinAMP was one of the earliest applications to champion skinning. Soon after many people created software that skinned your application to look more "cooler", and some that even skinned your entire OS! In many circles, skinning was not considered to be a serious thing. Of course, part of it was the whole Designer vs. Developer thing.

User Experience is much more than how your application looks! UX is just as much about how your application behaves, and how your users interact with it. UX is about lessening the amount of work the end-user has to do (including thinking) to finish a task.

Kai Krause, a pioneer of UX, described UI/UX as: "An interface is about hiding complexity from the user, It's about guiding a process, without cognitive understanding of what goes on beneath. Interface design is the art of enveloping the observer in an enticing, "try this" exploration with ever-new elements and designs as the tools to triumph in new territories."

WPF is only about making your apps look better, or WPF is only about creating UI with tags like ASP.NET

This is only partially correct. While WPF does allow you to customize application interface to the deepest levels, and allows you to create UI using markup, the entire scope of WPF is much larger. For a long time, Windows Forms (and its predecessors) were built on top of the foundation laid out in the era of Windows 1.0 and 3.1. Over the last decade, many of the most basic concepts of UI (mostly the controls) became obsolete or non-productive. Some were updated and some were transitioned out, but most of the common things remain. A good chunk of that (Button, Checkbox, Textbox, List, and so on) is still here because it remains useful.

There have always been ideas for new UI and UX. But more often than not, it has been maddeningly impossible to actually create those as the UI technology had been too strict to allow deep customization and creating them from scratch required superb knowledge of C++ (which is too expensive for most common projects). To customize something as simple as a button you had very few choices. You could build a UserControl. But those weren't always an efficient solution, and often too resource hungry. You could create from scratch or customize with inheritance (or in the case of VB6 and other such old technologies, go subclassing till your nose starts bleeding). But that was too time consuming, limiting, and expensive in every way.

This is where WPF comes in. WPF provides a markup based method of creating UI. It is time saving, flexible, and easy. It takes the best of the web and the best of the desktop and rolls it into a single package. WPF allows you to easily customize just about any control using ControlTemplates (structural customization) and Styles (cosmetic customization) that let you do almost anything to the control without messing with the inherent functionality. A hWnd-less (among other things) model lessens many of the resource requirements that previous frameworks had.

If you've ever had an experience with pre-.NET 3.0 frameworks where you thought that you wanted a very small, simple customization in an existing control but there was no simple way to do it, you should know that you will not have that experience with WPF. Practically anything is doable.

(End of Part 1. Part 2 to be posted shortly.)

.NET | Aesthetics | Articles | Blend | WPF

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

From: http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/

Purely Idiotic Stuff

Comments [5]  |  Trackback

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.

.NET | Aesthetics | Code | Downloads | Geek Stuff | Microsoft | reuxables | WPF

Comments [6]  |  Trackback

ILM (Star Wars, Indian Jones, etc.) has created some of the best graphics in history of film. On the "Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest" ILM chose Vue (v5, I guess) for their natural terrain simulation needs. An amazing piece of software.

Susumo Yukuhiro, the matte artist on the project talks about their experince with Vue on e-on's website. (Vue's creators)

Art | e-on Vue | Star Wars

Comments [7]  |  Trackback

If you've been one of the rare long followers of my blog you might occassionally ask yourself what happend to NukeBall, and all those other WPF apps and tools I've been talking about.

Well, we went over a lot of changes as Microsoft put WPF, Blend, and ORCAS into shape. Finally, we're ready to talk more about it.

We're bring all those things under one roof called REUXABLES (that's pronounced "reusables"). Click this link to find out more. We're going to reveal more over the next few weeks what other stuff we have in production under the reuxables line.

.NET | Blend | NukeBall | Windows Vista | WPF | reuxables

Comments [4]  |  Trackback

I was recently ranting about WPF and Silverlight. Andy expanded and clarified his thoughts on his blog, where he also mentions:

| My fear, though, is that the industry will try to make XAML yet-another utility language

That brings up a point I will be raising with some people at Microsoft. I think XAML can be made more powerful in a few key aspects. I'm not talking about making Andy's fears real. Far from it. I want XAML to take over as much of visual side of things so that developers have to do even less for the UI and concentrate on their code.

One of these is the Triggers architecture. I think it should be expanded out of the Template zone. Right now only ControlTemplates and Styles use Triggers. If you introduce higher level property and event triggers in XAML objects, a lot of visual programming is possible.

Let's take an example of a simple textbox. Our goal is to make the textbox red when a negative value is entered. You can easily inherit the textbox, add two bits of code and voila. It's done. But that's with procedural code. If you have more powerful triggers, a designer can go in, select a control and add the trigger for this like you would a IsMouseOver = True trigger. It would make things easier. A lot.

This was just a simple and stupid example. But a lot of interactivity can be added with this. And lots of functionality can be added by the designer - mostly functionality relating to the UX that he or she would have to depend upon a developer for.

.NET 4.0 will be great. I can't wait.

WPF

Comments [7]  |  Trackback

Okay, so we haven't been able to release a new revolUXions episode in a while (both Andy and I are up to our armpits in XAML, but we'll be back soon), but we haven't forgotten WPF. What's funny is that many people are. Now I'm the last person to criticize Microsoft - that's why if I am critisizing Microsoft you know it has be bad (at least in my eyes). I think Microsoft is playing up Silverlight a bit too much.

Now we can spend eternity sitting here and discussing the market impact of WPF vs Silverlight, or Flash vs. Silverlight, or whatever. But my point is that the marketing is maybe a bit confusing. In fact, I must've heard at least a dozen confused queries in the past two days. I've had clients coming to me for "WPF and .NET 3.0 websites". People are finding it hard to differentiate between WPF and Silverlight. Especially with 1.1 Alpha out now.

Look, I'm really happy with Silverlight. I'll be even more when I get to go deep inside Silverlight. But let's not forget WPF. That's the root technology. A whole lot more (profit and innovation) will come out of WPF than WPF/E (that's what Silverlight used to be called and what potentially confused people - and don't get me started about people confused with 3.0 and 3.5). There's a lot of time, money, knowledge, and infrastructure invested in the Windows platform (software, i.e.) and WPF is the successor to Windows Forms - the biggest UI change since DOS to Windows. You do the math.

Andy and I just had this discussion about Silverlight. His company is really deep into Silverlight and he's just worshipping it like a madman. I'm still iffy about Silverlight. But he and I both agreed on one thing: keep the web and desktop seperate to a point. Now, innovation is not bad - not at all. But it's kinda like those washing machines you can control from the office. Technologically that's awesome, but the actual usability requires a *bit* more thinking.

Nukeation will be doing some Silverlight stuff no doubt, but we're focusing almost 98% on WPF only. In fact, check out our new services at www.nukeation.com - and we'll be creating WPF support tools starting with NukeBall which is being ported to WPF (as well as being compatible with VS2005/WinForms) and Codename Helios.

But back to my original point: I think WPF is being forgotten over Silverlight which is just a fraction of the whole innovation. What do you think?

Comments [4]  |  Trackback

I just heard through the grapevine (what can I do, limited connectivity right now) Carl Franklin just got RD of the Year, and Richard Campbell's company Strangeloop Networks got Best of the Show. Congrats, guys.

All the news I got so far. If someone has more info, please call me. I'm lonely without my net connection being all proper and fast... :(

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

My new article is featured on front page of the newly relaunched angryCoder.com.

But like developers, designers also have healthy egos measured in tons. Stick a single developer in a team of designers and he or she will be chewed to death in a matter of minutes. Black shirts hide bloodstains easily - why do you think designers wear only black?

Read the entire article at angryCoder.com

Articles | Geek Stuff | Philosophy | WPF

Comments [5]  |  Trackback

deviantArt rocks. I'm kicking myself for not using it sooner.

For my fans I present you this ever changing preview of my most popular "deviations"

And for those who'd like to follow my deviations, here's the RSS Feed.

Aesthetics | Art | e-on Vue | Graphics | Photography

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

Aesthetic by *nukeation on deviantART

I've finally found a nice corner on the Internet for my artwork (3D, 2D, traditional) and photography (my flickr is still active though). I'll be posting a lot of art and photo related stuff, as well as keeping an art blog of sorts. Prints of my works are available on deviantArt as well.

Aesthetics | Art | e-on Vue | Graphics | Photography

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

I hate to say it. But I told you so.

Silverlight and WPF just plain rule. And are simply better than any other "similar" solutions out there. That's not bias, thats just plain simple fact.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/silverlight

http:///www.microsoft.com/silverlight

http://www.visitmix.com

http://www.silverlight.net

http://www.microsoft.com/Expression

Blend is now Blend 2.

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

A few months back, Andy convinced me that I should get a Canon EOS camera if I wanted to take my photography to the next level. I almost got the Rebel XT, but then bought the Rebel XTi after remembering some advice from Deepak Gulati.

I got a 70-200mm f/4L USM (telephoto) and will be going for a 100mm f2.8 Macro soon. I also got the standard kit lens (18-55mm F3.5 - F5.6) which I occassionally use for landscapes, but I am definetely in love with the 70-200mm.

Coming from a non-SLR Fujifilm S7000 - which I used for 3 years - this is a BIG BIG improvement for me. I've taken 1000+ photos in the past month.

I've been hanging around the lake (Hamirsar) at the center of my town (Bhuj) where a whole ecosystem of insects, birds and reptiles exists.

I had this amazing encounter with this snake who was stealing a fish a stork had kept in his nest.

I eagerly await the rains when there actually are clouds (these summer sunrises are too clean).

The 200mm is perfect for animal shots. Especially animals that will scratch, bite, or sting you. I've had more than enough of those!

I'm really loving how close I can get to the lizards with this lens!

My encounter with "Bruce" - a baby bat - was unique and wonderful thing! You can see all photos of Bruce here.

Portraits with the 70-200mm is fantastic!!

You can all of my photos on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nukeation

In May/June I will be going to Costa Rica where I will hopefully climb the volcano Arenal and go in a river infested with big crocs! Not to mention run after all those snakes and other reptiles!! I can't wait to see what kind of photo opportunities I'll get there.

Photography

Comments [2]  |  Trackback

This image (see link at the end for the full image) is part of the Troll Twins series I have been creating the past few days (and will continue working on for a few more weeks). I have been posting these images to www.Cornucopia3D.com.

These images were created in e-onsoftware's Vue 6 Infinite (www.e-onsoftware.com). Here's the information on the SSS shader I used for the troll - which IMHO gives a much better result than the standard Poser imported material.

Take a look at the above image - especially the marked areas and you can see the difference in the normal and SSS skin shaders.

And in low-light/backlit scenes, SSS can be much more powerful. However you don't get native support for the "Troll" model in SkinVue. So how do you create it? Simple. First you need SkinVue 6 (http://www.skinvue.net) - an excellent skin shader utility by Dave Burdick.

Here's how I did it. I loaded Victoria 4 from Daz into Vue and swapped materials using SkinVue. I saved the Torso material provided by SkinVue to my personal folder.

I deleted the V4 model and loaded the Troll. I replaced the BODY material (default Poser material) with the V4 Torso material. I opened that material in the Material Editor.

I edited the Color Production function in the Function Editor. While the function (see below) is scary at first, it is quite simple to manipulate. I selected the bitmap source node (highlighted in the capture below) and replaced it with the Troll Body texture that comes with the Troll package.

Hit OK, save the material, and you're done. Almost. You will have to repeat this process for the Head and other materials as needed. Most of the time head and body will be more than enough. But you may wish to edit the other shaders for extra realism.

You can see the full sized render here: TrollHuntBig.jpg (445.51 KB)

Aesthetics | Graphics | e-on Vue

Comments [18]  |  Trackback

Let's start off with the big one: we moved revolUXions to the dasBlog engine. We've had some complaints and suggestions and we decided that dasBlog would be the perfect engine to satisfy everyone's needs. I'm sure the new site will make everyone happy. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any comments.

You will now have solid feeds (and only one feed to follow), no more postbacks so you get direct links to the files, you can comment right in-page, and have all the features of a regular blog.

We have just recorded episodes 7 ("New Controls in WPF - Part 2") and 8 ("Brushes"), and they will be released this weekend and next weekend respectively. Our next recording will be about, of course, Silverlight. We will be doing quite a few shows on the topic as "some things we are waiting for" become available. :)

Please visit http://www.revoluxions.com and subscribe to the new feed. This revolUXions feed (via nukeation.net) will no longer be updated.

revolUXions

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

Episode 6 | 4/11/2007
New Controls in WPF - Part 1

Join us as we take a look at the new controls and containers in WPF in this first part of a two part mini-series.

Running time: 14:12

45MB Windows Media

revolUXions

Comments [2]  |  Trackback

Alongside our regular shows, we're planning on doing one (or more) Q&A shows about WPF.

Here is how it will work:

Send us your WPF, Blend and other related questions to revoluxions [at] nukeation [dot] com before April 7, 2007. We'll pick the most interesting and/or common questions and try to answer them on our special Q&A show.

What are you waiting for? Send your questions now!

revolUXions

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

Last week I had the honor of recording my first .NET Rocks! (as a guest) with Carl and Richard. Goes without saying that it was a lot of fun! I've seen many shows being recorded "behind the scenes" for the past couple of years but its funny how the perspective changes when you are answering questions.

We talked about WPF and UX. (I mean, c'mon, what else would I talk about, right?) We also talked about meeting Steve Ballmer, IndiMIX'06, how Carl and I met back in 2004, how Andy and I met because of DNR, and more.

The show is being published on April 10, 2007 according to the official calendar on www.dotnetrocks.com - don't forget to download it. :)

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

Episode #5 "Designer + Developer Workflow Integration" has been delayed to a Tuesday (March 20) release.

In this episode we'll show you how "ORCAS" tools for Visual Studio 2005 ("CIDER" in particular) and Expression Blend work together for excellent Developer and Designer workflow integration.

revolUXions

Comments [1]  |  Trackback

We were pleasantly surprised to see that revolUXions averages 1.5 downloads per hour since show #2. We'll try to put up more detailed statistics online when we revise the site.

And that's not all ... look at what Ryan Stewart over at ZDNet blogs wrote:

Another pleasant surprise was people of serious stature (for example, Miguel Castro) have also been following the show. And we haven't even done any publicity. So I must thank you all who read my blog and Andy's blog for spreading the word.

revolUXions

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

Episode 4 | 3/5/2007
Animations in WPF

34MB Windows Media

This time we take a look at one of the most innovative features of WPF - animations. We create a custom button and apply mouse hover animation to it.

Running time: 09:42

revolUXions

Comments [4]  |  Trackback

I am an avid user of e-on software's Vue 6 Infinite. This image entitled "Solace" made it as Picture of the Day on Vue's official site.

You can check out my Vue gallery at Cornucopia3D - Vue's official community.

Art | Graphics

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

A round up of happenings around revolUXions:

Like Andy blogged, we had taken a break. We were both sick. But we're back in action. We just recorded Episode #4 - Animations, scheduled for release on Monday, 5th March 2007.

While we haven't mentioned this in the episode, I'd like to say that it important to understand how these animations work in WPF. The animation model for WPF/E is the same as WPF. And animations you create in Blend can easily be ported into WPF/E projects.

We are postponing our WPF/E episode, as we're waiting for certain tools for WPF/E to be released by Microsoft. However, don't be disappointed. We have some major stuff to cover regarding WPF/E that you will not find anywhere else. Trust me. :)

revolUXions | WPF | WPFE

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

Episode 3 | 2/19/2007 DataBinding and DataTemplates
	We revisit the Flickr RSS application and try to enhance it with hyper tooltips. Running time: 14:25

Downloading the show

We had some emails about issues with downloading the show. If Windows Media Player fires up when you click the download link, you can use either of these solutions:

- Go to FILE > SAVE AS...
- Go to FILE > PROPERTIES, copy the URL from there and use your favorite download manager.

revolUXions

Comments [7]  |  Trackback