This is the first of a series of short blogs documenting some of the little features and improvements that have been making me smile since starting our latest Silverlight project at Synetrix, using Microsoft Expression Blend 3.
On the whole it’s been a good first couple of weeks getting to know version 3. I would have got stuck in sooner but we still had Silverlight 2 development and bug fixing to do, and i didn’t have a spare machine… or the time!
First impressions overall are that it’s a much better tool for the job. There are fewer hiccups in the workflow, and everything just seems more robust and fit for purpose. Another tell-tale sign of its maturity is the number of choices now available in the Options menu. It seems a much more malleable application, easier to fit to the users’ needs and preferences.
As part of this improved user experience I’ve been compelled to document some of the neat features I’ve come across – partly by way of record, partly to share, and partly to get me back into the blogging habit I’ve fallen out of.
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Had an enjoyable afternoon out at Birmingham University yesterday. Was there to give a talk on our ‘Real World Experience’ at Synetrix over the last 12 months. The theme was to follow our progress along the Learning curve of our journey in adopting Silverlight – from first principles, to our current level of expertise; titled “The Learning Curve in Action”.
Was a small crowd of academics and educators who had spent the day getting (for the most part) a first look at Silverlight. The day was intended to describe what Silverlight is, what it isn’t, and via a couple of hands-on workshops – give an experience of how one might go about developing for it.
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I received this email from a good friend and former colleague yesterday; a very experienced senior web designer who’s been away travelling for the last 8 months or so.
My old boss sent me this as way to get working again when I get back but it looks a bit like you do loads of graft to submit treatments for free along with lots of other hopefuls, then the project originator takes the one he likes best and pays for it and can then incorporate the best of the rest for free.
http://www.crowdspring.com/
Am i being overly cynical?
I wouldn’t say cynical – I’d tend to agree. Spec work is the bane (…well ok, one of many banes) of an experienced designer’s life… You don’t get 15 plumbers round to do the work in various different ways, and you don’t ask for 25 developers to write 25 different pieces of code before you choose the one that you think works best.
You pick one, based on their quote, experience, portfolio and any number of other variables - and you work together with them, rather than picking them like one of many lobsters from a grubby fish tank. (No, I’m not sure this metaphor works - but I’m sticking with it because I like the photo…)
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After a pretty crazy few days of sensory and information overload in Vegas, it’s time to look back and take stock of what has come out of the conference. I’m writing this from by the Pool at the Venetian – it’s nice to have time to myself again, and no obligations save making sure i don’t miss my flight in a few hours time.
Microsoft have done a great job in putting this conference together; keeping it relatively small and focussed made for a far better return on investment for those attending, as the real value in actually being here in Vegas was not in the sessions themselves, but in being able to connect with people. Having the keynotes streamed online (alongside a #MIX09 twitter feed on the same page), and making high quality videos of the presentations (with embedded slides) available soon after, meant that the conference content was as accessible (if not more so) to those tuning in from around the world, as it was to those here in Vegas.
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After a great couple of days spent chilling out in and around Boulder City, NV - I headed to Vegas, dumping the rental car and ‘enjoying’ a high-speed taxi ride to the Venetian. I think the driver may have had too much coffee, as he also drove off as soon as i had paid and got out of the back… before i had time to retrieve my bags. Cue much shouting and hollering from the Venetian doormen.
Over the last couple of days there’s been quite a buzz emerging around some big announcements to be made this week. It’s known what most of them are, just the details are a little vague still. There has also clearly been many long hours worked by those putting the event and sessions together. It’s all really rather exciting – the buzz from both those attending, and from those in the know – when combined with the crazy environment of Vegas – all adds up to that feeling you get as a child on Christmas eve. You kind of know what’s coming, and hope you get what you want… lets just say there’s quite an air of anticipation, and the potential for some tantrums if people don’t get what they want :)
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Having spent the last 9 months working with Silverlight on a daily basis, I’ve grown to love it and hate it – on a roughly 80% - 20% split. The love is down to its power and potential, the things that are possible – and (having gained expertise throughout our team) the speed with which we can now create something really cool (request in the morning scrum, prototype for lunch, integrated design and code by 5.30). The pain is found in Expression Blend’s ‘quirks’, the development process, and the struggle to allow a view led approach with our complex application architecture.
Regardless, having invested so much in a new technology – we’re very keen to see where Microsoft intends taking Silverlight, and us with it. So, it is with not inconsiderable anticipation that I look forward to MIX sessions like the following:
“What’s New in Microsoft Silverlight 3”
Take a tour of the new features in Silverlight 3 including a dive into some of the new experience oriented features like pixel shaders, perspective 3D, animation enhancements, bitmap APIs and improvements to the media stack. Also hear about new Silverlight base framework additions including updates to the style model, data binding improvements, improved resource handling and improvements to the web services stack.
It’s all understandably vague – ‘enhancements’ and ‘improvements’ are fairly subjective words, so I guess we’ll have to be the judges. It all sounds very positive though, and I’d guess that some of those improvements have been borne out of the feedback provided by the community.
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During the course of our current project we have been through a few iterations of our development process, with one goal being to find the best way for us Designers to work in Expression Blend on data driven controls. There has been a bit of pain involved along the way and we’re yet to find an ideal solution. As a result, I’ve been interested in the discussion taking place on blogs and Twitter on the subject of ‘Blendability’ and the proposal of the Model-View-ViewModel pattern as a route to this goal.
This post began as a review of a great video from Tim Heuer and Craig Shoemaker on the title’s subject of Implementing Model-View-View Model in Silverlight. On the whole it’s a great hands-on example of how to implement a simple Silverlight project following the MVVM pattern. I recommend checking it out - not least because the rest of this article will make more sense, but it’s also a great overview of some neat and efficient data binding techniques. However, it was the process followed which made me take particular notice, and a couple of quotes which prompted me to write this article.
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A very insightful, forward thinking set of talks in a great location, with informal and interactive atmosphere.
Or “A great day geeking out”.
This was the first of a more formal series of events put on by the Multipack community of web professionals in Birmingham, and my first time attending, having only recently discovered them via the medium of Twitter.
The subject of “Emerging Standards” is inevitably going to have a forward looking bias, and that’s what we got. All of the talks had a common theme around how existing open standard web technologies are having to evolve to provide the tools required to keep pace with the development of rich internet apps.
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Awesome… I’ve finally got a new look for space-scape.
The theme you’re looking at is something of an evolutionary leap from my old site; last updated over 5 years ago and still visible for the moment at www.space-scape.co.uk to give you some context. In fact, as a special treat - take a look at my first proper portfolio site from back in 2001: http://www.space-scape.co.uk/archive/mk1/ !
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I’ve recently spent some time looking around for information on reducing the size of the compiled XAP file for our Silverlight web app. We have a fairly hefty solution which compiles into a XAP of around 2.5meg. Given the size and complexity of the app – that’s not a bad starting point, and I’m still aware that there is a lot we can do to reduce its size pre-compilation.
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