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 Friday, February 15, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
reuxables released!
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
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Codename Nukeball Tech Preview 1
We at Nukeation have been working on a Visual Studio tool Codename Nukeball which is a Dynamic Rapid UI Development Tool. It helps you create parts (or whole) of UI in Windows Forms with a single click. We have been working on this for more than a year. Nukeball seamlessly converts UI code from one .NET language to another. Dax has posted a live demo of what Codename: Nukeball can do. Have a look at it. More information is also available on this blog post. Keep visiting Dax's Blog for more info on Nukeball.
Monday, July 23, 2007
0.9 Beta released
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.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
reuxables - sneak peek
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.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Microsoft Surface shows the power of WPF
 One of my favorite movies is "Minority Report". I used to be fascinated with the technology shown in the movie where everything was controlled with hands. Well its not too far we would be using such technology. Earlier it was UMPC and some of the smartphones that had touch technology, but with "Surface" Microsoft is going to change the way we work. Microsoft announced that it will ship a new table-based computer called Surface, code-named Milan. Surface has been a result of six years of research.  Surface features a 30-inch tabletop display whose unique abilities allow for several people to work independently or simultaneously. All the work can be done without using a mouse or a keyboard.  With Surface it becomes easier to transfer music to your digital music player like Zune. transferring photos to your cellphone also has become much easier. Just imagine company meetings taking place on "Surface" where everyone can contribute in the discussion which can be recorded and used for future purposes. This way company discussions can be more interactive and will take less time to take decisions as all resources will be available on table itself. Surface will be a big boon for industries where any product can be displayed to the customer using surface where he/she can experience the product before buying it. It would be so cool that the payment can be made by placing the card on the "surface" and authorizing the payment.
As mentioned by Robert Scoble the interface has been designed using WPF. This really shows the power of WPF and what can be done with it.
All the information regarding Microsoft Surface can be found at www.microsoft.com/surface.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Microsoft Unveils Silverlight
 Microsoft unveils Silverlight (previously called Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere ( WPF/E)). It’s a new cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the web. Silverlight offers consistent experiences to both Macintosh and Windows users on a variety of browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Leading media companies and solution providers have announced support for silverlight including Akamai Technologies, Brighcove, Eyeblaster, Limelight Networks, Major League Baseball, NaviSite Inc., Netflix, Pinnacle Systems Inc., Rhozet Corp., Skinkers, Sonic Solutions, Tarari Inc., Telestream Inc. and Winnov. All have indicated plans to deliver Silverlight-based experiences for their viewers and customers.
Microsoft Expands Reach of .NET FrameworkBased on the Microsoft .NET Framework, Silverlight enables developers and designers to easily use existing skills and tools to deliver media experiences and RIAs for the Web with role-specific tools: for designers, Microsoft Expression® Studio, and for developers, Visual Studio®. New tool and server investments for media professionals include the following: • Expression Media Encoder. Microsoft Expression Media Encoder, which will be a feature of Microsoft Expression Media, enables rapid import, compression and Web publishing of digital video imported from a variety of popular formats, including AVI and QuickTime, into WMV. Capable of running on the desktop or Windows Server®, Expression Media Encoder is a template-driven system that integrates seamlessly into existing Web publishing workflows for both live and on-demand content delivery. Expression Media Encoder will be a free download for customers of Expression Media when it is shipped later this year. • Hardware-accelerated video publishing. When paired with a Tarari Encoder Accelerator, Expression Media Encoder reduces encode times by up to 15 times over software alone, a significant capabilities and cost advantage for publishing Web video today. • Even greater scalability with Windows Server, code-named “Longhorn.” Building on the industry-leading streaming and Web server platform, Windows Server “Longhorn” will enable customers to experience up to twice the scalability on the same hardware when compared with Windows Server 2003. Also being announced today is the Internet Information Services 7 (IIS7) Media Pack, which adds new cost-saving features such as bit-rate throttling and other advanced features designed to help further reduce the cost of media distribution. The IIS7 Media Pack will be a free download for customers of Windows Server “Longhorn” when it ships. Tim Sneath in his article shares with us top ten list of reasons why you might want to use Silverlight. .
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
WPF Vs Apollo/Flex
  I have observed that in this IT field many people like to criticise Microsoft. People hate Microsoft, as if its their hobby. They will use Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office Suite and most the the Microsoft products but then also keep criticizing it.
Lets look back at history. Windows has become a standard and majority of people use it. one myth that is common among people is that "Apple OS is good for designers". I do not know whats the reason behind this myth but I find it really wierd when Apple is considered good for designers. Windows platform has much more tools than any other platform for designers. With emerging technologies like WPF Windows is the best platform for designing and development.
 Linux desktop have copied each and every feature of Windows and the open source community keep on copying Microsoft Office Suite in the name of Open Office. Open Office is such a wierd product that most of the time you will use it hoping that it doesn't crash. I am now wondering how open source community will copy Office 2007. But I am sure there are many copy cats who can easily do it.
Now a days people are creating hype about Apollo and Flex. When I had a look at what these two products are, I found that Apollo and Flex is just the replica of .NET Framework. They are talking so loud about Flash and Flex. Guys Flash is just an animation software which was made with the intention of being a preloader. It cannot take place of programming Language. Apollo people are giving counts of Apollo runtime downloads. Dot NET Framework is downloaded four times more than their Apollo runtime.
WPF technology and .NET Framework 3.0 brings in the years of experience of Microsoft in programming field. WPF is really a revolution. The combination of WPF/Expression Suite with the programming capabilities of Visual Studio makes it the best Programming Suite ever available.
One day I was just trying to open a file in Flash, would you believe Actionscript is such a wierd language that simple task like writing/reading file looks almost difficult, infact I don't count any of the Adobe's new product as programming language products, they are only desperate ways of competing with Microsoft.
Let this year of 2007 come to an end then we will see where this Apollo and Flex stand :D
I would like to apologize for my comments. Since I am passionate about some technology doesn't mean I should have written what I have.
I know I have hurt a lot of people and I sincerely apologize for it.
I made a mistake and I wish that I wasn't sober while writing that. I will do my best to learn from it.
Dax is on DotNetRocks
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Dax talks about WPF and UX at DotNetRocks
 Last week Dax recorded .NET Rocks show with Carl and Richard. He talked about WPF and UX. He also talked about IndiMix and the meeting with Steve Ballmer. Read about this on Blogpost by Dax .  This show will be published on April 10,2007 as per the DNR calender (snapshot of the calender is attached at the right for your reference). Download the show, I promise its going to be a great show. I am eagerly waiting for April 10th.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Support for XBAP in Mozilla Firefox
 In today's article Ryan Stewart has mentioned that XBAP support is coming to Mozilla Firefox as part of the .NET Framework 3.5 update that will ship with Visual Studios "Orcas". XBAP applications were up to now supported in IE7 but the news of its availablity with Firefox means more people will be able to access XBAP Browser applications. Web applications created with full WPF functionality can now be viewed in both IE7 and Firefox browsers. as rightly said by Stewart "It makes WPF a very rich browser technology and a viable Rich Internet Appliction solution for Windows users."
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Revoluxions Episode#5 : Designer and Developer Integration
 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.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Microsoft® .NET™ Framework 3.0
 In the pre-release version .NET Framework 3.0 was called WinFX. It is the new managed-code programming model for windows. It combines the power of .NET Framework 2.0 with new technologies for building applications that have a better user experience, seamless communication across technology boundaries and support for a wide range of business processes. It is a integral part of Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" operating systems, it is also available for Windows Xp in the Service Pack2 and in Service Pack1 of Windows Server 2003.
The .NET Framework 3.0 adds new technologies to the .NET Framework 2.0 which makes the .NET Framework 3.0 a superset of the .NET Framework 2.0. This new version of the .NET Framework is designed to provide backward compatiblity with the previous version.
.NET Framework 3.0 consists of these major components:Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) formerly codenamed " Avalon" - It is a new user interface subsystem and API based on XML and vector graphics, which uses 3D graphics hardware and Direct3D technologies. Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) formerly codenamed " Indigo" - It is a service-oriented messaging system which allows programs to interoperate locally or remotely similar to web services. Windows CardSpace formerly codenamed " InfoCard" - It is a software component which securely stores a person's digital identities and provides a unified interface for choosing the identity for a particular transaction for eg. logging in to a website. Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
Installing and Detecting .NET Framework 3.0To install .NET Framework 3.0, you must have one of the following operating systems installed : - Microsoft Windows Xp Home or Xp Home Professional with Service Pack 2 or later.
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family with Service Pack 1 or later.Minimum hardware requirement to install .NET Framework 3.0 is Pentium 400 MHz with 96 MB RAM but recommended is Pentium 1 GHz or higher with 256 MB RAM.
To check if .NET Framework 3.0 is installed you can look for this specific registry key in the Registry
For .NET Framework 3.0"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.0\Setup" the DWORD value of this key would be "1".
Similarly to check if version 2 is installed or not you can check for following registry entry
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v2.0.50727" the DWORD value of this also would be "1".
You can Click Here for detecting .NET Framework 3.0 on your system using internet explorer. You can click here to download .NET Framework 3.0 from MSDN.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Release Candidate of Microsoft Expression Blend is now available
 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.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
XAML is cool
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.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Episode#4 of Revolutions is Live
 Animations in WPFHi Friends, Episode 4 of Revolutions is out now and I am sure you will love it. Dax shows us how WPF can be used to create animations using WPF in Microsoft Expression Blend. He creates a custom button and shows us how the mouse hover animation can be applied to it. This episode really shows us the real animation power of WPF, which you can surely start experiemnting with, once you are aware of the wonderful features of Micrsoft Expression blend after watching this show. This is a must download show.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
IndiMix06 update
IndiMix06 is one of the biggest events of this year in India. I am already excited to watch it live in Mumbai on Nov 09. Excitment increases as the speakers for the event are announced. This event is truely said as "The online extravaganza of the year" on msnspecials at following link http://www.msnspecials.in/indimix/index.asp. Mandira Bedi one of the best anchors of India will anchor this online show.
All the Details about the event can be found out at www.indiamix06.com
Friday, November 03, 2006
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