Nukeation is proud to announce the full release of our Reuxables themes for WPF (and soon - Silverlight!).



From the Official Press Release:

Nukeation Studios, a leader in Windows Presentation Foundation™ (WPF) and User Experience (UX) solutions has released reuxables, a range of designer themes for Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 and Microsoft Expression Blend™.

Reuxables themes are aimed at the fresh new market of WPF applications, and allow software developers to easily implement a new look for their applications with lots of features:

• The reuxables library consists of 6 fully customizable themes, each with their own unique variations that result in a total of 48 different styles.
  
• The themes are designed by some of the top artists in the UX design industry.
  
• Reuxables themes provide a consistent look regardless of the operating system, and therefore provide the same look on both Windows Vista™ and Windows® XP.
  
• Reuxables are completely compatible with both .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5.
  
• All reuxables themes are provided in both Static and Animated versions, both made from native XAML vector objects.
  
• Implementing reuxables is effortless as they automatically theme the entire application as soon as the theme file is added to the project.
  
• Reuxables themes are fully compatible with both Microsoft Expression Blend™ 1.0/1.1 and Visual Studio® 2008.

System requirements include Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 or 3.5 for runtime, and Microsoft Expression Blend 1.0/1.1 or Visual Studio 2008 for development. Individual reuxables themes are available between $19 to $99, with an additional complete collection pack for $299.

A complete demonstration of all themes is available at: http://www.reuxables.com

We are proud to release 0.9 Beta of WPF Transition Framework or WTF.

WTF is a set of simple controls which help you in providing cool animation transitions to your WPF applications and all this can be done without having to write complex code to create timelines.

As mentioned in Dax's blog using WTF is as simple as:

<WTFX:WTF Duration="250" Transition="BlurOut" Quality="Better">
        <!-- Put your stuff here -->
</WTFX:WTF>

This code will add "BlurOut" Transition with Quality set to "Better". It you like to change the animation to be more faster you can simply change the Quality to "Faster", its that simple.

The 0.9 Beta version of WTF can be downloaded at wtf.nukeation.com. A sample application is also provided in the download showing the use of WTF. Microsoft Expression Blend 1.0 or later, and Visual Studio 2008 Beta 1 or later will be required to use WTF.


You can checkout the wishlist of features which we intend to add before the final release. For queries please feel free to contact us.

I am pleased to inform you about "reuxables" which is a whole new range of tools, widgets and resources for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). To find out more click on the image below.

Stay tuned as we would be announcing more stuff in weeks to come.

Generally its said that Developers don't design and Designers do not code. Is this statement true or false its up to you to decide, but one thing is sure that for productive work Developers and Designers have to work in sync and only then a company, big or small can get productive results. Its easier said then done, well now its easier to be implemented also.

Through years Visual Studio has been the tool for developers with which they love to code. Designers have now got a new tool which has made their work so much easier its Microsoft Expression Blend, actually its helpful to both Developers and Designers.

WPF Technology now makes its easier for developers to work in Visual Studio and Designer to use Microsoft Expression Blend while working on the same project without interfering in each others work. How? Thats the topic that is covered in the Episode#5 of Revoluxions which is called "Designer + Developer Integration". Believe me this episode covers a topic which is very important for Developers and Designers to work together.

Total running time of the show is 12:04 and the file size is 45 MB. This show can be downloaded at Revoluxions website.

There is a good news for all those using Microsoft Expression Blend. The Release Candidate (RC) of Blend is now available which means its nearing completion.

The user guide has been updated and it includes some new samples which looks cool. The RC is available on the Microsoft Expression Blend Web Site. So what are you waiting for, download it and checkout it out.

Total File Size of Blend RC is 25.5 MB. If you do not have .Net 3.0 which is a prerequisite for Blend then you need to install that too. The Size of it is upto 50 MB.

If technology is easier to understand and implement and at the same time complex enough to handle heavy tasks it increases it chances of becoming popular. Languages like "C", "C++" are the examples of it. ".Net 2.0" made programming even easier and gave us more control to develop applications which are more complex but easier to design.

.Net 3.0 makes designing of applications even simpler, XAML is the coolest thing to happen in recent times. I wonder its so simple to make a major change in application just by adding a group of simple tags. Microsoft Expression Blend is the tool used to design applications in .NET 3.0. As you design the interface, the XAML is written by the software, though you can also write XAML to make changes.

XAML Code for making a simple button is very simple:

<Button Width="100" Height="40" Content="Button"/>

 

What makes it even cooler is that we can add subtags to this easily, to enhance the control for eg. in the code above if we add subtags <Button.BitmapEffect> as shown in code below we can use the <DropShadowBitmapEffect> to give shadow to the button

<Button Width="100" Height="40" Content="Button">
    <Button.BitmapEffect>
        <DropShadowBitmapEffect Direction="315" ShadowDepth="2" Softness="1"/>
    </Button.BitmapEffect>
</Button>

.Net 3.0 ships with a feature in the built in dictionary wich provides spell-checking on a textbox or RichTextBox control. Also it allows a context menu for the suggestions of alternatives for the replacement of the misspelt word. Following code shows us how. When the propery "SpellCheck.IsEnabled" is set to True TextBox will mark all misspled words with wavy red line like Mircosoft word.

 

<StackPanel Margin="20">
   <TextBlock>TextBox</TextBlock>
   <TextBox SpellCheck.IsEnabled="True">
      Speling is wrong and underlined with wavy line
   </TextBox>
</StackPanel>

When you execute this code you will see Textbox with red way line under "speling" which is spelled incorrectly. Right click on it to see the alternatives.

 

To learn about more cool features and power of XAML and Microsoft Expression Blend watch the screencast Revolutions which is hosted by Dax and Andy.