British Library's Turning The Pages project now in Silverlight

The British Library's Turning The Pages project is currently featuring 5 treasures from across the United Kingdom. In addition to the Windows Vista version (specifically a WPF browser app a.k.a. XBAP) of the app, there's now a new Silverlight version for broader browser and platform reach.

I love this app and often use it as an example to explain what I do in Microsoft to lay persons. A tip for the authors of the Silverlight 1.0 flavor of the app: it'd be cool to see mousewheel support for the Zoom function. Here's a post from Pete that explains the approach.

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Joel Spolsky's brush with Vista's SuperFetch

In a scathing post on the new Safari 3 for Windows, Joel remarks how slow the browser is while starting up. He likens Apple's performance claims as reality distortion, but later makes an update saying:

The more I run Safari on Vista, the faster it launches. Am I hallucinating? Is there a cosmic force that means just when I complain about Safari taking 57 seconds to launch, as soon as that complaint is made public, it launches much more quickly? Am I going insane? Or is someone playing a clever prank on me?

Well Joel, you're not going insane. Ironically this is Microsoft's Windows Vista coming to Safari's rescue. You see, Windows Vista has a little known feature called SuperFetch, which

enables programs and files to load much faster than they would on Windows XP–based PCs.

When you're not actively using your computer, background tasks—including automatic backup programs and antivirus scans—run when they will least disturb you. These background tasks can take up system memory space that your programs had been using. On Windows XP–based PCs, this can slow progress to a crawl when you attempt to resume work.

SuperFetch monitors which applications you use the most and preloads these into your system memory so they'll be ready when you need them. Windows Vista also runs background programs, like disk defragmenting and Windows Defender, at low priority so that they can do their job but your work always comes first.

The Windows team has figured out that the more you use something, the more you must like it and the easier and faster it should be to load. But you won't see that in a Microsoft ad.

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Microsoft Surface: What WPF Can Do For You

Today Microsoft announced the Surface, a new line of consumer products that turn "an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, dynamic surface that provides effortless interaction with all forms of digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects. Beginning at the end of this year, consumers will be able to interact with Surface in hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues." If the videos on the Surface website seem impressive, you haven't even scratched the surface yet. Using the real product is way cooler!

The Surface team has thus far been operating under the radar. I'm proud to say that the device runs a variant of Windows Vista and uses Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) for its user experience. It shows how WPF can be a game changer when you exploit its power. It is understandable that the first generation of the product - shipping in the second half of 2007 - is out of reach of the average consumer, and is focused on businesses. I expect that in a couple iterations, component prices, usage scenarios and its economic network will work their way to the mainstream. We've seen that story before. These are good tidings for designers and developers; as Rob points out, this is a "nice device to leverage some of your WPF programming skills on!". This is a great time to pick up and hone those WPF, Silverlight and Expression tools skills.

Congratulations to our friends in the Surface team on the public unveiling of a fantastic product.

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Software Branding

I was pleased to see the updated Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines introduce a section on Software Branding. I firmly believe the secret sauce behind every successful software application is the emotional chord it strikes in the end user. Too often we, the sausage makers, focus too much on the technical aspects and too little on the emotional aspect of the software we build.

For something that is frequently overlooked or gotten wrong, this article on software branding is chock full of common sense. Although the examples use Windows artifacts, the guidelines apply very broadly to software we all create.

On another note, I am happy to see this idea dawn on folks across Microsoft. Now if we can strike the right balance between the whole technical v/s visceral v/s behavioral v/s reflective aspects, it'll portend good things to come. The innovations in the Shell in Windows Vista, and platforms such as WPF and WPF/E will surely help.

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Times Reader Goes Subscription

The New York Times announced that the Times Reader application's Beta period ends soon and it will be be converted to a $14.95 / month subscription service that will include Times Select and Premium Crosswords, which were previously paid content anyway. Also apparently home delivery customers of the paper will now get the Times Reader for free. Rob gives his perspective on the pricing. I suspect the Times is just testing the waters here. Of course they're in the subscription business to stay, but I wouldn't be surprised if they factor in usage data and tweak the model to accommodate the potentially diverse user base. Let me tell you, there's more method than madness behind SKU differentiation.

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Windows Vista in a browser using WPF/E

From the Microsoft Slovenia team with assistance from local agency Renderspace, here's a Windows Vista demo using WPF/E. Very cool! Requires Feb 2007 CTP of WPF/E which went live yesterday.

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Great apps powered by ClickOnce

I've posted previously about XBAPs, but here are a couple links to standalone Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications that use the ClickOnce deployment model.

ITN has a cool new news -video application called ITN Hub Player, accompanied by a Windows Vista sidebar gadget. See http://www.itn.co.uk/vista/

OTTO, the 2nd largest online retailer in the world, just went live with a very impressive ClickOnce-deployed WPF application which completely changes the online store as you know it. See http://www.otto.de/vista

This app also uses Windows CardSpace and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), both .NET Framework 3.0 components and part of Windows Vista.

I love seeing ClickOnce being used in mainstream consumer oriented applications, and will be posting about these more often. And that's not just 'cause my team owns WPF Deployment and works closely with the ClickOnce team. Having had my share of munging around with MSIs, I think ClickOnce is by far the most superior application deployment technology out there for rich client apps on Windows. It provides a sophistocated update mechanism for your apps, taking the pain out of that process. If you haven't heard of it before, or aren't using it in your .NET apps, I think the apps above will make you reconsider.

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Windows Vista: Now In A Store Near You

After "the biggest product launch in Microsoft's history", Windows Vista is now available in a store near you and via fine merchants online. This is a culmination of years of work done by my teams and countless others in Microsoft, hardware & software partners and OEMs. In the WPF team, as elsewhere, we've fervently believed: "if you build it, they will come". So although I don't claim to speak for Microsoft on this blog, above all, a big shout out to all of the developers and creative professionals who patiently evaluated our CTPs, Betas and the like and gave us great feedback; and to the people who continue to bet their businesses on our platforms, frameworks and APIs. Thank you for your support. Please keep telling us what we're doing wrong, and what we're getting right. Here's to building applications we've dreamed of!

Tags: Windows Vista, WPF, WinFX, NetFX3, Microsoft

Windows Presentation Foundation, is the next generation presentation sub-system and managed code framework for Windows. It is a .NET Framework 3.0 component, present on Windows Vista and a free download for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003.

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Dominoken

KF sent us a link to this beautiful XAML Browser Application (XBAP) created by Bascule for the Windows Vista launch in Japan:

DOMINOKEN

Requires .NET Framework 3.0 or Windows Vista. I've seen it several times, changing the camera angle and zoom settings. Never gets old!

Tags: WinFX, NetFX3, WPF, XBAP, 3D, Windows Vista

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The new Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista

It has been tough to keep this one under wraps but I can finally talk now. Yahoo! is shifting the communication and instant messaging landscape. The new Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista is one of those seminal applications that demonstrate what good user experience really is. See the video and decide for yourself. This application is built on Windows Presentation Foundation (a .NET Framework 3.0 component and part of Windows Vista).

This isn’t just a re-skinned version of the existing messenger app... this was built by Eric and his ace team from the ground up. A tip o’ the hat to Karsten for tirelessly making sure all of Yahoo!’s questions and concerns were responded to promptly; whether he was hunting us down via discussion lists or on the phone or even setting up face to face meetings, Karsten was a bull-dog you couldn't get away from. Props to the good folk from frog for the kickass design.

This app is a powerful showcase for WPF and Windows Vista features and a testament to how designers and developers can work together on building great applications.

Tags: Yahoo, Yahoo Messenger, WinFX, WPF, Windows Vista

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