Quick hits on WPF/E (Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere) Jim Allchin announced this in his keynote. Apologies for any inaccuracies; they were running through some cool stuff very quickly:
- The goal: to work everywhere. Macs, FireFox, everywhere.
- WPF/E is a subset runtime of WPF that's small, fast and will run everywhere.
- It's a subset of the JavaScript implementation and we're seeking comment from the developer community..
- It will support vector, video, controls and some animations.
Components are expected to be hosted and plug-in. Once hosted in an application, you will be able to write code against it (where COM is available) and "flat" API access where COM is not available.
We also had a nice view of Atlas interoperability in MSN HotMail and Virtual Earth demos.
WPF/E Demo (this is an early runtime)
On a MacIntosh.
- We saw the standard XAML file; coded to a subset of WPF.
- Fire up Safari, and we see the vector image of a trombone player.
- Change the size of the window and the image resizes.
- He shows some other images, included an animated PDC logo, complete with fly-in.
On Windows Vista with IE7:
This is an immersive experience of a training video from 3M on fire prevention. This is impressive; full animation, loaded and running in a web browser application on Windows Vista. Stepping through the training:
- Manipulating animation objects which have an effect on the way a simulated fire spreads. The more virtual objects he loads, the less the fire spreads.
- Embedded video keyed to hot spots on the animation.
- A list of products linked to external web links is next. All of this is loading into the application with content from the web. Application state was preserved all the way out and back in.
- He then takes a test, dragging objects from a side bar to an animation, getting feedback from the training module when correct (and scolded when incorrect).
On a device:
- Tremendous view of the above experience in on a handheld device.
Want more information? I sure do. Check out the WPF home page.