the web's a-buzz with microsoft's september 14, 2005 announcement of "expression," the new suite of tools for creating rich applications and content for vista, the next version of windows. of specific interest to flash users is "sparkle interactive designer", a tool for creating rich application interfaces. if you're a flash designer or developer you really should take a look at this video:
and this mini-site:
>> expression home on microsoft.com
much of the current online discussion seems to be consumed with determining whether sparkle will "kill flash" or whether the two are even competitors, but i'm not personally very interested in that debate. what interests me more is that another company is finally contributing to the exploration of rich application design and development. from the video above you can already see a couple of very interesting ideas: stretchy layout locks for graphical elements and transitions with a fixed end point but a relative start point. i'm really excited to see new metaphors for solving age-old rich content problems.
whether you love or hate microsoft, if you have any interest in rich content or application development, sparkle is definitely worth looking at.
Posted by moock at September 21, 2005 05:05 AM