Tell us more about Iris UI Framework “UIX” behind Zune software eye-candy! | The Coffeehouse

Did you read iStartedSomething.com yesterday?

Long Zheng post about his findings on a UI Framework previously undisclosed by Microsoft that is at the heart of the iTune beating Zune software.

So now 'the cat is out of the bag' on this would someone from Microsoft like to comment? Is this something that we can get our hand on anytime soon? Or just for the Zune?

DigitalDud

Sabot wrote:

Did you read iStartedSomething.com yesterday?

Long Zheng post about his findings on a UI Framework previously undisclosed by Microsoft that is at the heart of the iTune beating Zune software.

So now 'the cat is out of the bag' on this would someone from Microsoft like to comment? Is this something that we can get our hand on anytime soon? Or just for the Zune?

So it would seem it just uses the same UI engine as Media Center, or at least a slightly newer version.

Bas

Charlie Owen confirmed that it's a variation of the Media Center UI Framework in this thread.

longzheng

Bas wrote:

Charlie Owen confirmed that it's a variation of the Media Center UI Framework in this thread.

But will it be a public framework?

Tom Servo

They couldn't just have used WPF, could they? It's not like it was made exactly for this.

Minh

Tom Servo wrote:

They couldn't just have used WPF, could they? It's not like it was made exactly for this.

So all they have to do is to include those oh-tiny downloads of WPF & .Net 3.0 for XP users? Wink

DigitalDud

Plus WPF is 1.0 and the memory footprint is huge.

GEN3RIC

DigitalDud wrote:

Plus WPF is 1.0 and the memory footprint is huge.

The memory footprint of Zune.exe is 57,000kb at startup with absolutely nothing having executed or clicked on. A WPF version wouldn't be much more, if at all. Our massive WPF project only takes up 80,000kb of memory and it's quite easy to say that our program has a much higher complexity - based on data throughput and visual flare. We are still optimizing it, as well. A good WPF programmer (there ought to be plenty at Microsoft) shouldn't have any problems creating an efficient and visually exciting WPF product that showcases the framework they spent so much time on.

Massif

Tom Servo wrote:

They couldn't just have used WPF, could they? It's not like it was made exactly for this.

They probably used the team from Media Centre to design and develop it, and they:

Went with what they knew.
Decided to use it as a testbed for dogfooding the technology.

Minh

The problem is that you have to have pretty big balls to even suggest WPF for XP. Because I don't know if there are actually many projects doing that currently (and that configuration is fully tested). And if Zune did fail because of your WPF-on-XP suggestion, you may be sent to the basement.

I think Iris is perfectly capable as a UI for Zune. Right tool, right job.

GEN3RIC

Minh wrote:

The problem is that you have to have pretty big balls to even suggest WPF for XP. Because I don't know if there are actually many projects doing that currently (and that configuration is fully tested). And if Zune did fail because of your WPF-on-XP suggestion, you may be sent to the basement.

I think Iris is perfectly capable as a UI for Zune. Right tool, right job.

Our WPF program has NO issues on Win XP. Installing .NET 3.0 or even 3.5 is a snap and unless you haven't connected your WinXP box to the internet in a few years, you've got SP2 and are immediately capable of a .NET 3.0 upgrade. That certainly isn't the issue holding them back from WPF.

I think it is quite obvious they wanted a reason to make Windows Media Center relevant.. the 360 Media Extender probably needs a reason to be used. It's a fine looking program, but this platform certainly has it's limits. Its not nearly as customizable or as 'familiar' as WMP11. Many people, myself included, are scoffing at the obvious flaws. (Helloo? Can I edit my song details easier? Sort by Genre? Where is genre in the program at all!?) Those things wouldn't be an issue if they would have started with a better base than Media Center.[C]

Minh

GEN3RIC wrote:

Our WPF program has NO issues on Win XP. Installing .NET 3.0 or even 3.5 is a snap and unless you haven't connected your WinXP box to the internet in a few years

And .Net is still an optional upgrade, and that is as good as not having it installed because people don't venture into that part of Windows very often.

GEN3RIC wrote:

I think it is quite obvious they wanted a reason to make Windows Media Center relevant..

I don't think that hurts, but the driving force must be that Zune depends on large downloaded components that most likely are not there vs. a UI framework that can be included as part of Zune download (ie Iris is small). The decision is simple, really.

GEN3RIC wrote:
(Helloo? Can I edit my song details easier? Sort by Genre? Where is genre in the program at all!?) Those things wouldn't be an issue if they would have started with a better base than Media Center.

I would hope that it's an oversight/to-do-later rather than a limitation of Iris. What I think would be cool is in the "Now Playing" view (during play shuffle mode), I should be able to click on an album art I recognize and play songs I choose... then go back to shuffle mode.

brian.shapiro

minh

either way theres going to be a time where microsoft is going to have to decide to build programs for the WPF framework. when do you think enough people will not be using XP for this to be viable?

Minh

brian.shapiro wrote:

minh

either way theres going to be a time where microsoft is going to have to decide to build programs for the WPF framework. when do you think enough people will not be using XP for this to be viable?

Currently Vista market share sits at 8%. And XP at 80%.

I'm not saying that the WPF experience isn't compelling, only that it's only viable for people who will download WPF-XP & .Net 3 on their own. Which makes WPF good only for demo apps & apps that don't have to come out 3 years from now & internal apps.

I will bet you that Silverlight apps will out-number WPF apps in the not to far-out future.

You just can't ignore the fact that Iris is an independant component that can be included as part of the distributable. For widely distributed apps, that is a very important consideration.

PaoloM

GEN3RIC wrote:

I think it is quite obvious they wanted a reason to make Windows Media Center relevant.. the 360 Media Extender probably needs a reason to be used.

I don't understand how Zune written with Iris has anything to do with the Media Center extenders...

GEN3RIC wrote:
It's a fine looking program, but this platform certainly has it's limits.

Such as?

GEN3RIC wrote:
Its not nearly as customizable or as 'familiar' as WMP11.

Not a problem of the platform.

GEN3RIC wrote:
Many people, myself included, are scoffing at the obvious flaws. (Helloo? Can I edit my song details easier? Sort by Genre? Where is genre in the program at all!?)

GEN3RIC wrote:
Those things wouldn't be an issue if they would have started with a better base than Media Center.

Why? Let's say they used WPF to write EXACTLY the same program. What would be the advantage?

AndyC

PaoloM wrote:

Why? Let's say they used WPF to write EXACTLY the same program. What would be the advantage?

It would demonstrate some confidence in the framework they've been selling as "The future." Put it like this, did it really take this long for Microsoft to start releasing MFC apps?

GEN3RIC

PaoloM wrote:

I don't understand how Zune written with Iris has anything to do with the Media Center extenders...

Perhaps my wording is incorrect. Media Center has a strong connection to the 360. Severing that would be fine as long as their demographics didn't include 90% 360 owners.. which it does. Leaving an MFC platform would imply they'd have to do more work to get that easy connectivity to the 360 that MFC already has.

PaoloM wrote:

GEN3RIC wrote: It's a fine looking program, but this platform certainly has it's limits.

Such as?

Looks like I implied the platform wasn't capable of making good media software, what I meant is that apparently it's going to take a lot longer to ascertain the most basic features people want in a media player and sync softare. There are so many features completely nonexistent in the Zune 2.0 software. The first generation at least had 90% of the features we wanted in it. A lot of people are reverting to 1.0.

PaoloM wrote:

Not a problem of the platform.

Then fix it. Don't release unfinished product.

PaoloM wrote:

And it doesn't bother you whatsoever that 0.01% of the users can't seem to find this? Look at Zune.net forums. Many threads looking for it. I couldn't find it, much less find an intuitive way to use it. Face it, MFC isn't suited for this type of app without a lot of restructuring and redesigning of how things are done. That just didn't get done..

PaoloM wrote:
Why? Let's say they used WPF to write EXACTLY the same program. What would be the advantage?

What's so good about the aging, boring, featureless MFC platform? At least WPF would promote exactly what Microsoft has been touting as a next-gen presentation platform. And isn't Zune all about presentation? Dazzle us.

PaoloM

Where is all this MFC talk coming from?!

PaoloM

GEN3RIC wrote:

PaoloM wrote:
I don't understand how Zune written with Iris has anything to do with the Media Center extenders...

Perhaps my wording is incorrect. Media Center has a strong connection to the 360. Severing that would be fine as long as their demographics didn't include 90% 360 owners.. which it does. Leaving an MFC platform would imply they'd have to do more work to get that easy connectivity to the 360 that MFC already has.
I still have no idea what you're talking about. What exactly (besides the fact that the Zune streams to the Xbox 360) has the framework used to write the desktop Zune software to do with extenders and MFC?

GEN3RIC wrote:

PaoloM wrote:

GEN3RIC wrote: It's a fine looking program, but this platform certainly has it's limits.

Such as?

Looks like I implied the platform wasn't capable of making good media software,

Yeah, that's what I got...

GEN3RIC wrote:
what I meant is that apparently it's going to take a lot longer to ascertain the most basic features people want in a media player and sync softare. There are so many features completely nonexistent in the Zune 2.0 software.

I know. The current lack of smart playlists is making me and baby Jesus cry, but considering the number of people that used that feature, compared to the number of people requesting podcast support, a choice had to be made in order to prioritize the release.

GEN3RIC wrote:
The first generation at least had 90% of the features we wanted in it.

And the new generation has a lot more features that the user actually asked for (such as audio and video podcasts, high resolution TV out, H.264 support, etc)

GEN3RIC wrote:
A lot of people are reverting to 1.0.

I'm afraid I'll have to ask for some backing evidence on this...

GEN3RIC wrote:
And it doesn't bother you whatsoever that 0.01% of the users can't seem to find this?

If that was true, the Zune team would be dancing in the streets Smiley

GEN3RIC wrote:
Face it, MFC isn't suited for this type of app without a lot of restructuring and redesigning of how things are done. That just didn't get done..

Why are you talking about MFC? The Zune software is not written in MFC.

blowdart

PaoloM wrote:

GEN3RIC wrote:what I meant is that apparently it's going to take a lot longer to ascertain the most basic features people want in a media player and sync softare. There are so many features completely nonexistent in the Zune 2.0 software.

I know. The current lack of smart playlists is making me and baby Jesus cry, but considering the number of people that used that feature, compared to the number of people requesting podcast support, a choice had to be made in order to prioritize the release.

Oh but there are more glaring errors than that. Try editing your meta data. Oh. So they removed a commonly used feature from the v1 software. I really would love to know the reason why I can't, for example, edit the artist of an album, or edit the track order.

Considering the zune itself is horribly sensitive to matching artist details (and gets it wrong a lot, 3 Yo-Yo Ma CDs, but apparently to the zune the artist varies in each one) this was a retarded move.

Jaz

I downloaded the Zune software to see what all the fuss is about.

I have a meticulous mp3 collection, all my id3 (v2) data is correct and full, the file structure is beautifully crafted and every single other player (barring WMP) can read my id3 tags. The Zune software tells me i have a tonne of unknown albums and artists, i mean over half of my tracks are unknown and theres no way for me to edit the data inside the software.

well that was a fast install and uninstall.

Massif

blowdart wrote:

Oh but there are more glaring errors than that. Try editing your meta data. Oh. So they removed a commonly used feature from the v1 software. I really would love to know the reason why I can't, for example, edit the artist of an album, or edit the track order.

Considering the zune itself is horribly sensitive to matching artist details (and gets it wrong a lot, 3 Yo-Yo Ma CDs, but apparently to the zune the artist varies in each one) this was a retarded move.

Is this such a bad thing? (genuine question)

Mis-matching artists and album problems are symptoms of problems with the source of the music. And given that most of the music will probably be coming from the Zune shop, surely it'd be a better idea to ensure the metadata coming from the shop is perfect, than giving users the ability to fix a problem with the source.

It's kinda like selling a car with known faults and giving away a toolbox with the car, I'd rather they fixed the faults.

Now, if you're ripping the music yourself, then the responsibility in getting the metadata right lies with the ripping software. (and if they zune software does this, then I want it correct all the time.)

To be honest, I'd prefer they managed to fix the need to ever touch the metadata, than made it easy to edit. (Even though the first job is the harder one.)