Microsoft Expression and Silverlight. (Conference in San Francisco)
Today in San Francisco at the InterContinental Hotel there was a Microsoft presentation on Silverlight 3 and the Expression 3 product line. I think it would not hurt to explain what each of these products represents. In fact, Silverlight is a plugin for your browser, cross-platform and cross-browser, as well as the majority of devices. This “flash killer” from Microsoft has great multimedia capabilities, which Scott Guthrie, Vice President of Microsoft Product Development Division, told about the presentation. Listing the advantages of Silverlight, it is worth noting such as:
1. Smooth Streaming - a function that allows you to improve the quality of video viewing in the browser, though not in all cases. If you have a good communication channel, then the HD version of the video will be immediately available for you, and if not, Silverlight will perform the calculations and after the server and client communicate, depending on the speed of the Internet and the CPU, the required video viewing quality will be selected independently. so as not to skip viewing video upload. This technology was used to broadcast the funeral of Michael Jackson on NBC, as well as to broadcast the Wimbeldon tennis tournament "live" on the NBC Sports website.
2. Opportunities for websites, such as the possibility of zoom (Deep zoom), which allows you to zoom in and view details in high quality. Used on the Hard Rock Cafe and Star Gate (Metro Golden Mayer production) sites, as well as on the DeepZoomPix site.
3. Ability to work off-line. You can install the application on your computer, which allows you to implant HD video and many others while offline. As soon as this application is launched, it automatically downloads all the necessary content to its directory. Of course, it should be noted that this function will be good only for those who have a quick connection to the network.
In conclusion, we can say that Microsoft Silverlight 3 is an excellent multimedia platform that can compete with the Adobe Flash Player in the future.
We now turn to examining the products of the Microsoft Expression family. If Silverlight was a product for the user, then Expression products for the developer are created here, what Silverlight will show. What I liked was the fact that the Expression product line accompanies the developer at all stages of creating something new. This cycle runs from prototype to design and programming. And so we start from the beginning, we create a prototype of the future product, for this we use SketchFlow. To tell you the truth, it was this product of the Microsoft Expression line that I liked the most. The program will allow you to create a working prototype, that is, a working schematic version of your product. As you create, you will have not only a map, for example, a bank interface (with this conference example, SketchFlow’s capabilities were shown), but also a visual implementation of this interface, of course, without design frills, but this is enough to correct errors that probably appeared in the first stages of development for example, in the convenience of a product or something else, because correcting errors at this stage will cost less and take less time. But the moment always comes when the prototype needs to be shown to the customer. To do this, you need to write documentation, send a prototype file to the customer, make sure that he has the necessary software installed ... All this is in the past. SketchFlow will create the documentation itself and export it to MS Word with the click of a button. The customer does not need any additional software to view the prototype, which will already be exported for viewing in a regular browser. And what is most interesting is the method of feedback from the developer. The customer can simply cross out, in the literal sense of the word, an element that is not needed or write something “by hand” directly on the prototype in the browser window. After that, send it back to you and all these corrections with the “red paste” will be displayed in your SkechFlow. With the help of SketchFlow you can really make high-quality and convenient product prototypes and then demonstrate them to the customer. In my opinion, this is actually a good tool that most developers will take to develop.
Now that we have finished the prototype, we are transferring it to Expression Blend, in which we have a complete set of tools for creating the design and functionality of our future product. There is support for photoshop files, 3D and many others. At this stage, we do not need to redraw the prototype, for example, in Photoshop and create a design there, in Blend we simply customize it and add the necessary functionality, because why do the same work twice. It is clear that now I can’t describe the full functionality of Blend and the demonstration I saw, which has just been held at the conference. I didn’t remember anything beyond the outstanding one, perhaps because there wasn’t such a thing, to the level of the Blend flush is still far away.
Another representative of this seymeystva - Expression Web. As for me, this is nothing special, the support of the majority of the formats used, the preparation of scripts (support for twitter in PHP), but the only thing that really liked is the ability to compare what the page looks like in different browsers. To do this, the monitor is divided into two parts. In both parts you choose “from under what” the page is displayed, you can choose PSD, IE6, IE7, IE8 ... Now it’s really easy to compare pages, it’s a really good function to fix bugs. I don’t know about you, but for this I’ll install Expression Web.
While I have nothing more to say about Microsoft Expression, I think it will take its niche, especially considering that Microsoft is going to actively promote it to the masses.
It is also worth mentioning that Microsoft gave pens to all the conference participants, all they wrote on special paper appeared on the screen of the computer, though there is no poppy podderzhka, so I could not check :)
1. Smooth Streaming - a function that allows you to improve the quality of video viewing in the browser, though not in all cases. If you have a good communication channel, then the HD version of the video will be immediately available for you, and if not, Silverlight will perform the calculations and after the server and client communicate, depending on the speed of the Internet and the CPU, the required video viewing quality will be selected independently. so as not to skip viewing video upload. This technology was used to broadcast the funeral of Michael Jackson on NBC, as well as to broadcast the Wimbeldon tennis tournament "live" on the NBC Sports website.
2. Opportunities for websites, such as the possibility of zoom (Deep zoom), which allows you to zoom in and view details in high quality. Used on the Hard Rock Cafe and Star Gate (Metro Golden Mayer production) sites, as well as on the DeepZoomPix site.
3. Ability to work off-line. You can install the application on your computer, which allows you to implant HD video and many others while offline. As soon as this application is launched, it automatically downloads all the necessary content to its directory. Of course, it should be noted that this function will be good only for those who have a quick connection to the network.
In conclusion, we can say that Microsoft Silverlight 3 is an excellent multimedia platform that can compete with the Adobe Flash Player in the future.
We now turn to examining the products of the Microsoft Expression family. If Silverlight was a product for the user, then Expression products for the developer are created here, what Silverlight will show. What I liked was the fact that the Expression product line accompanies the developer at all stages of creating something new. This cycle runs from prototype to design and programming. And so we start from the beginning, we create a prototype of the future product, for this we use SketchFlow. To tell you the truth, it was this product of the Microsoft Expression line that I liked the most. The program will allow you to create a working prototype, that is, a working schematic version of your product. As you create, you will have not only a map, for example, a bank interface (with this conference example, SketchFlow’s capabilities were shown), but also a visual implementation of this interface, of course, without design frills, but this is enough to correct errors that probably appeared in the first stages of development for example, in the convenience of a product or something else, because correcting errors at this stage will cost less and take less time. But the moment always comes when the prototype needs to be shown to the customer. To do this, you need to write documentation, send a prototype file to the customer, make sure that he has the necessary software installed ... All this is in the past. SketchFlow will create the documentation itself and export it to MS Word with the click of a button. The customer does not need any additional software to view the prototype, which will already be exported for viewing in a regular browser. And what is most interesting is the method of feedback from the developer. The customer can simply cross out, in the literal sense of the word, an element that is not needed or write something “by hand” directly on the prototype in the browser window. After that, send it back to you and all these corrections with the “red paste” will be displayed in your SkechFlow. With the help of SketchFlow you can really make high-quality and convenient product prototypes and then demonstrate them to the customer. In my opinion, this is actually a good tool that most developers will take to develop.
Now that we have finished the prototype, we are transferring it to Expression Blend, in which we have a complete set of tools for creating the design and functionality of our future product. There is support for photoshop files, 3D and many others. At this stage, we do not need to redraw the prototype, for example, in Photoshop and create a design there, in Blend we simply customize it and add the necessary functionality, because why do the same work twice. It is clear that now I can’t describe the full functionality of Blend and the demonstration I saw, which has just been held at the conference. I didn’t remember anything beyond the outstanding one, perhaps because there wasn’t such a thing, to the level of the Blend flush is still far away.
Another representative of this seymeystva - Expression Web. As for me, this is nothing special, the support of the majority of the formats used, the preparation of scripts (support for twitter in PHP), but the only thing that really liked is the ability to compare what the page looks like in different browsers. To do this, the monitor is divided into two parts. In both parts you choose “from under what” the page is displayed, you can choose PSD, IE6, IE7, IE8 ... Now it’s really easy to compare pages, it’s a really good function to fix bugs. I don’t know about you, but for this I’ll install Expression Web.
While I have nothing more to say about Microsoft Expression, I think it will take its niche, especially considering that Microsoft is going to actively promote it to the masses.
It is also worth mentioning that Microsoft gave pens to all the conference participants, all they wrote on special paper appeared on the screen of the computer, though there is no poppy podderzhka, so I could not check :)
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/64124/
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