Well, 45 minutes into the 1 hr video on MSDN’s Channel 9 about Microsoft Sparkle I don’t know what to think. It looks pretty cool, but it looks cool in a way that Flash and Flex have been for a while. The first thing of note is that Manuel Clemment and Samuel Wan are working at Microsoft. I’m probably behind the times on knowing that but that is interesting/troubling/interesting.
I love love love Flash, but there is a lot I still can’t do with it. I can’t make a full desktop application that has full access to the OS, I can’t draw in lots of media or 3d content. I hope Macromedia’s response to this is to go for real desktop solutions.
Flash’s file size and cross-platform capabilities are still compelling to me as are all of the new Flash 8 features.
Anyone know if you can embed Flash or Flex into a sparkle much like 3d?
sorry for the semi-distracted post, but writing it while watching the video
I wonder if MS will provide multi-platform players, or remain Windows only. If that’s the case, Flash/Flex will have some comfort being platform agnostic.
Microsoft announced Windows Presentation Foundation “Everywhere” at PDC, so no, the planning is to go cross-platform with this.
“If that’s the case, Flash/Flex will have some comfort being platform agnostic.”
Not too sure about that when windows is 90% of desktops and will be 30% of phones by 2007.
The quick demo I saw seemed to only indicate Windows. Multi-platform, but Windows – those are their words.
You could always use one of the 3rd party tools to build desktop applications. The better ones give you access to the filesystem, and provide other features Flash doesn’t handle alone. Plus they can usually be customized with plugins or through other methods to give more functionality.
Here’s a semi-distracting comment. From one Justin to another. Hello there!! Crap, you know.. I see you work at Yahoo but I found you using Google BlogSearch. What a linky post. I bid you adieu … For NOW!
Isn’t it a little suspect that they need professional Flash developers working with them on Sparkle? Mano1 and Sam just sold out what made them who they are in this community in the first place. Anyways Sparkle looks like it has some really cool abilities, both in Authoring and Playback, however, I went to the Microsoft site to view the demos, and they don’t sniff shit. You are just left with a page that says, ‘click to start’ – nothing says you need IE, there is no browser detection, pretty lame.
I’m 99.9% sure that Flash is one of many media types one can embed. Avalon will probably support just about any ActiveX control, like in current MS languages, and why shouldn’t they?
J
I am neither a software developer nor an UI designer so I am not a lot in how these sort of things are given birth, but I am just surprised at how much of deal these two guys demoing Sparkle make of having a designer in the development team as a new way of focusing in developing applications.
I everyone stupid in this field and these guys are truely pioneers in that aspect or the other way around?
Looks like Sparkle is outputting xaml = xml, very similar to Flex outputting xml and exporting to .swf.
There have been some posts referencing a 1 meg Sparkle player, which would put the Sparkle system in the Flex zone, seems the relevent point… Macromedia’s strength is the player, the vector player.
Sparkle is designed to compete with and out do Flex/Flash.swf. Micrsoft may even have a .swf export mode for Sparkle… then things would become really interesting.
The authoring tools competition will be good for all.
Not many people asking the major question of what is the point?? Yet another platform..
Still.. vaguely interesting I suppose, but thats just the geek in me.