Steve Friesen - Macintosh Business Unit Tour

I was originally looking forward to Avalon, now, after seeing this, I'm not so impressed and am not looking forward to the new MFC nightmarish hell that Avalon is going to be.
Avalon also looks to me to be very limiting; you can do what it says on the 'box' but no more. If it isn't supported in this version either hack it or wait for the next release and cross your fingers...
His blog's address, which we all should be visiting (?) was never shown in the video.
Manip wrote:His blog's address, which we all should be visiting (?) was never shown in the video.
rhm wrote:Avalon 3D looks cool, but like games developers, you all want to work on the engine and noone wants to work on the supporting tools. I'm amazed to hear that there isn't even an importer strategy yet. That's like 5% of the work you've got to do before people will use this. Where's the 3D equivalent of the windows forms designer? I know some people love XML and sure, it's quicker to write XAML than write the code that the XAML compiler generates, but most people's eyes glaze over at an editor screen full of XML.
OK, short of licencing something from Autodesk, Microsoft isn't going to come up with a 3D editor for Avalon 3D developers, but I've yet to see a visual designer for 2D XAML forms. In fact I've yet to see anyone type XAML code in an editor that provides help with tag and attribute names. Now I see why Microsoft keeps delaying all these products - the demos all look cool, but there's so much more work to be done before they're useful. Meanwhile all the talk about XAML and Avalon puts people off developing Windows Forms code.
Thanks Kosher, the Interviewer was Longhorn Evangelist Karsten Januszewski, by the way.
The programming seems easy enough that they could make an easy WYSIWYG program for it. It would save some code writing time, and make it easy to import graphics from the graphics person I use to import her graphics.
danlehen wrote:Hi Minh - In Xaml...
roughly translates to:
Viewport3D vp = new Viewport3D();
PerspectiveCamera camera = new PerspectiveCamera();
vp.Camera = camera;
Minh wrote:Another question: Is there a XAML parser that consumes XAML source & execute statements on the fly, or is there a XAML compiler that converts XAML source to a .NET assembly? If the latter, couldn't you use reflection to check for the "Camera" property, so you wouldn't have to specify <Viewport3D.Camera> ? But perhaps the syntax is there for consistency & simplicity.
danlehen wrote:On one hand, we want to be open and transparent with developers about the exciting new things in Avalon. On the other, windows Forms is a great platform for writing client apps with a long life ahead of it.
Rossj wrote:Sorry if this question is well documented somewhere. Is there a migration plan from Windows Forms to Avalon for those of us that want it? i.e. Is there someway we can add say an Avalon 3D ViewPort to an existing Winforms app? I would love to be able to replace my flowchart control with a nicely rendered Avalon 3D version later on.
dmarsh wrote:As for using reflection to find the Camera property how would they know to look for a property named "Camera" if you didn't specify it???
I think the main benefits to a vectorized interface won't be an eye-popping 3D buttons & menus. But varrying resolution displays will benefit by minimal UI change. Also, the "silkiness" factor is anothing thing I like.Halcyon wrote:The code looks a lot like Povray (which is nice), but other than that the demos don't look like anything that couldn't have already been done with Direct3D, and it probably hasn't been because there isn't an overwhelming reason to do so. While they demonstrate a few programs that use 3D, the interface the developer uses remains 2D and 3D isn't used anywhere to enhance functionality, and doesn't show how this would increase productivity. But it's a nice intro to Avalon.
Minh wrote:I think the main benefits to a vectorized interface won't be an eye-popping 3D buttons & menus.
Minh wrote:But varrying resolution displays will benefit by minimal UI change. Also, the "silkiness" factor is anothing thing I like.
Minh wrote:Thanks Dan, for the explaination. Another question: Is there a XAML parser that consumes XAML source & execute statements on the fly, or is there a XAML compiler that converts XAML source to a .NET assembly? If the latter, couldn't you use reflection to check for the "Camera" property, so you wouldn't have to specify <Viewport3D.Camera> ? But perhaps the syntax is there for consistency & simplicity.
Halcyon wrote:What will it be? Let's take a look at advances made with 3D interfaces today:
Microsoft TaskGallery - Project Looking Glass - Browse3D - 3D Navigator
Halcyon wrote:These are interesting, but do not seem to bring any advancements that 2D equivilants cannot compare with. For example, Browse3D introduces a useful Exposé-like method of looking at the browser history, but it is still represented in a 2D format, like its OS X counterpart. The concepts for implementing 3D used in these applications do not seem to be gaining popularity or enhance productivity.
Halcyon wrote:
That's a nice change, but overall it's evolutionary and not revolutionary. This will increase the attractiveness of the interface, but will not directly increase productivity. There is no overwhelming reason to begin writing applications that have a 3D interface.
Minh wrote:And if you ask me, I think this is what the brain trust at MS is asking themselves also. How to make Avalon a must have. I don't know. Maybe just to accept Longhorn as the next Windows & go with that.
Halcyon wrote:If that was the case it would be a shame to concentrate on Avalon instead of WinFS which already has a killer app: to provide a unified way of sharing information between applications.
aToast wrote:I noticed that the demos were run in a windows xp environment - how do you I get started on coding avalon xaml? I've got the vs2005 beta but there doesn't seem to be a namespace called avalon or xaml. Please help I really want to get some hands on experience with Avalon.
dcw wrote:I'm assuming that at some point we are going to see a set of standardised 3d form controls (textboxes, list boxes, etc) for use within Avalon.
This video was great for showing a rather low level way to plot 3d primitives point by point, but most app developers will want to use much more abstract commands to set the interface.
I think xaml will really shine when we can see how easy it is to build slick, 3d styled interfaces with a minimum of camera plotting needed.
Halcyon wrote:Avalon on the other hand is a solution looking for a problem. Perhaps Microsoft have something up their sleeves here but if that's the case, nobody is in on Microsoft's vision, and we can't make that happen.
Mark Newell wrote:I'm another XAML & XML newbie but could you make XAML understand the following syntax?
<Viewport3D>
<.Camera>
<PerspectiveCamera ... />
</.Camera>
</Viewport3D>
The . implies it's a property of Viewport3D (or the first matching object in the hierarchy that has the Camera property> and not a new object.
Depth-of-field is inherent to camera models with lens of finite aperture, in computer graphics the most commonly used camera model is the pinhole camera,
where the lens is supposed to be infinitely small.
The pinhole camera model produces images that are in sharp focus in any distance from the viewer. This can be a desired feature (e.g. for technical visualizations), but often a more realistic 3D image including depth-of-field is required.
jBuelna wrote:
The best way to garner interest in a product is to give your target audience something really good to look at.
danlehen wrote:
Avalon is not attempting to be a paradigm shift in the fundamental ways that humans interact with computers, although it does enable some very cool opportunities for developers to experiment with altenative UI systems.
danlehen wrote:
However it is important not to confuse Avalon with the next generation Windows user experience (Aero).
danlehen wrote:
There are other scenarios as well, such as a parts catalog where the user can freely rotate the parts to attempt to find a match with the component they are physically holding in their hand.
Minh wrote:Just curious why it is necessary to have a <Viewport3D.Camera> element within the <Viewport3D> element. Why not just <Camera> ?
nemisys wrote:
you guys new a new Operating System.
jBuelna wrote:WinFS isn't taking a backseat to Avalon (neither is Indigo.)
Shannon wrote:
jBuelna wrote: WinFS isn't taking a backseat to Avalon (neither is Indigo.)
I guess you could say that WinFS isn't taking a backseat to Avalon because WinFS isn't even allowed to get in the car and was sent back to it's room for another couple years.
I'm looking forward to Indigo but WinFS was the "pillar" of Longhorn I was looking forward to most.
I keep seeing interesting Avalon samples displayed in demos, but no corresponding source. Is the 3D app showing Xbox titles available and if not, why?
sschaem wrote:From the video I get the impression that this is overcomplicated for small task, and too limited for very large project...
Horshu wrote:<ViewPort3D>
<Camera .../>
<Controls>
<Panel .../>
<Button .../>
</Controls>
</ViewPort3D>
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So I am curious about the databinding capabilities of 3D controls. Will I be able to databind information to a 3D object. Let me be more specific. Let's say I build a 3d Object in Avalon. Let's say its an engineering application. I would love to be
able to have a 3D model of my part and bind information to different 3d objects within my control that could say, identify which areas break, have stress, etc... without having to save multiple iterations of the drawing to the database.
Does that make sense? |
Yes, you definitely can do databinding to properties of 3D elements in Avalon. The databinding structure in Avalon has been designed to work with any Avalon control or visual. For example, check out this article, which maps a 3D column to CPU usage: https://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/avalon2d-3d.asp
dotnetjunkie wrote:It's obvious that you're not a developer, otherwise you would never choose the linux development and config hell over the powerful, user-friendly and well-integrated windows development experience!
dotnetjunkie wrote:Just face it, 99% of open source / linux projects never get completed to a point where you would use the application on a day-to-day basis and can depend on.
dotnetjunkie wrote:And btw, Microsoft has very high-quality products!
svarukala wrote:The demo makes me say that its Yet another Macromedia Flash MX.
aToast wrote:I noticed that the demos were run in a windows xp environment - how do you I get started on coding avalon xaml? I've got the vs2005 beta but there doesn't seem to be a namespace called avalon or xaml. Please help I really want to get some hands on experience with Avalon.
I'm currently busy with a 4th year project at the university of the freestate - south Africa. The project involves implementing avalon CTP with visual studio 2005 C#. I watched the video where Daniel Lehenbauer gave a presentation of some code that produces a 3d rectangle using <Viewport3D>. You've also probably seen the video.
My problem is that I type in the exact same code presented in the video and all i get is a blank white screen. My windows xp style is blue, so that won't affect it. There are no errors. The project compiles properly. Could it perhaps be my graphics card (Geforce 2 MX 200 OEM)?
One more thing. The problem above occurs when I don't animate the rectangle. However when I type the code word for word to animate the rectangle (as presented in the video) I get some strange error saying: "Unexpected PropertyComplexStart record in BAML stream. Baml stream may be corrupt." I've installed all the software in the right order and formatted my pc about a million times.
Could someone lpease help me on this one, as i'm really excited about what features Avalon CTP could bring to my application.
Fedor wrote:i believe that its a very handy tool......but i wonder there is a designer who help me to avoid all those lines of code?????