Is Xamlon Changing Course To Survive?

[Gerald Bauer]

Hello,

It looks like Xamlon is changing course to survive. I guess the "Use
Avalon XAML today" story no longer sells when you can get a free
download that is far superior from Microsoft itself.

To find out what to do next Xamlon has launched an online survey
titled "Xamlon Windows Forms Survey":

The Xamlon dream team writes:

We want to learn about your interest in building cross-platform
applications using markup. There are a variety of products that seek
to provide this functionality: Flex from Macromedia, XAML from
Microsoft, XUL and others. We're interested in your thoughts on a
low-cost, lightweight, simple solution for tag-based applications that
can be published to Windows Forms, to Flash and to the Web.

Questions include:

* What aspects of Windows Forms development would you like to see
aided or encapsulated by markup, and why? (Examples include data
binding, owner-drawn controls, styling controls, end-user forms
customization, layout/docking of window controls)

* What problem(s) do you want to solve with a tag-based approach to
application development? What features of markup languages or markup
development particularly interest you?

* Are you ready to purchase a product that enables you to create
applications in markup and run them on multiple platforms? Why or why
not?

More @ http://www.xamlon.com/company/surveys/winforms

What's your take? Is there any future in cloning the Avalon API?
Will anyone use XAML for non-Avalon APIs?

- Gerald

-----------------------
Gerald Bauer
Rich Client Conference (RichCon) 2005 - http://richcon.com
XUL News Wire - http://xulnews.com
XUL Alliance - http://xulalliance.org
United XAML - http://unitedxaml.org





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[marc_clifton2000]

Interesting. It's too bad the survey results are internal.

Also, "XAML from Microsoft" is not intended to be "cross-platform",
AFAIK.

Also it's odd that not once is the phrase "declarative programming"
used. Instead, "aided or encapsulated by markup", and like
Microsoft, unable to see beyond markup as just a UI specification
format.

As to "are you ready to purchase a product that enables you to
create applications in markup and run them on multiple platforms",
there are such complexities to this that such a question is
completely oversimplifying the issue.

It really is too bad that the people that are writing GTK# and QT#
aren't writing the C# interface in a XAML compliant manner. Doing
so would effectively make the whole client-based cross-platform
issue moot.

Marc






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[frankhileman]

Maybe we should call it "declarative serialization compliant" --
actually any declarative format based on public properties, would
need that type of compliance. But my term is not good, I agree :)

I still don't see why anyone would want to do create graphics with
xml. Storage in xml, ok, i understand, but creation? It seems like
an ok format for things that have a tree structure, but even there,
a nice graphical designer can definitely help.

- Frank

Post by marc_clifton2000
Interesting. It's too bad the survey results are internal.
Also, "XAML from Microsoft" is not intended to be "cross-

platform",

Post by marc_clifton2000
AFAIK.
Also it's odd that not once is the phrase "declarative

programming"

Post by marc_clifton2000
used. Instead, "aided or encapsulated by markup", and like
Microsoft, unable to see beyond markup as just a UI specification
format.
As to "are you ready to purchase a product that enables you to
create applications in markup and run them on multiple platforms",
there are such complexities to this that such a question is
completely oversimplifying the issue.
It really is too bad that the people that are writing GTK# and QT#
aren't writing the C# interface in a XAML compliant manner. Doing
so would effectively make the whole client-based cross-platform
issue moot.
Marc

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[Gerald Bauer]

Hello,

Post by frankhileman
Maybe we should call it "declarative serialization compliant" --
actually any declarative format based on public properties, would
need that type of compliance. But my term is not good, I agree :)

Well, it's a start. Marc Clifton has coined the term "XAML-friendly"
and if you don't want to focus exclusively on XAML but all kinds of
markup formats may I suggest "markup-friendly" or "markup-compliant".

Post by frankhileman
I still don't see why anyone would want to do create graphics with
xml. Storage in xml, ok, i understand, but creation? It seems like
an ok format for things that have a tree structure, but even there,
a nice graphical designer can definitely help.

Well, one usage scenario is to create dynamic graphics that use
templates. For more, see my SVG talk slide titled "Why SVG? Isn't
Flash, .Net GDI+ or Java2D enough?" online
http://luxor-xul.sourceforge.net/talk/jug-nov-2002/slides.html#svg-43

- Gerald

-----------------------
Gerald Bauer
Rich Client Conference (RichCon) 2005 - http://richcon.com
XUL News Wire - http://xulnews.com
XUL Alliance - http://xulalliance.org
United XAML - http://unitedxaml.org





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[frankhileman]

Really it has nothing to do with markup. We have the same problem
with any generic serializer, whether text or binary, or code
generation.

Regarding dynamically generated content: Dynamic graphics
using "templates" could be done with any retained mode system?
Unless you are restricting yourself to xml for the templates?

It seems that xml is preferred when people want to use things like
xslt. At the same time, xml is an inefficient way to represent
graphical data, and xlst is not a wildly popular method for many
developers (many see it as clumsy). So I see the point, but I wonder
about the popularity of this technique, especially for efficient
content creation. It seems best suited when the "templates" are
created in a graphical designer, and only the variable part is
generated on the fly.






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