Chris Jones - 10 things devs need to know to build a great Windows Vista application

The Discussion

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  No downloads? What about poor Mac users who have to use a crippled WMP. Any chance of a download for these Robert?
  

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  I'm promising next week, but it might be sooner. I'm working as fast as I can and getting downloads up from a remote location with a network that isn't all that hot is a real hard thing. Sorry.

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  Okay. Forgot you weren't actually at your desk
  
  
  

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  Yea Scoble, you really dropped the ball on this one...

  jk, I guess I am still bummed I ain't going to the PDC

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  Downloads are coming! Should be up soon.

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  Alright -- Someone tell Chris Jones to go talk to the Office 12 team about following Windows guidelines   The new Office UI (while looking great from a user-workflow-perspective, go completely against the Vista/Aero guidelines from an aesthetic/consistency perspective.
  
  For example, from the new "Aero User Experience Guidelines":
  - "Use the Aero Theme ... Use theme painting APIs to owner-draw any elements that look like standard system elements."
  - "Use the standard window frame ... Use the standard window frame. The new “Aero Glass”, as seen in Windows Vista translucent window frames, is an important part of the new aesthetic, aiming to be both attractive and lightweight. By running on Windows Vista, this aspect of Aero design is integrated with every application. ... Don’t create your own nonstandard window frame by drawing in the non-client window region."
  
  Let's get Office 12 to be the great example of a Windows app at its best!

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  Is Office 12 going to be a Vista-only release though?  It makes sense to have Office 12 be Vista-compliant when running on Vista, but if they are going to release Office 12 for XP too, it should follow the XP user interface guidelines.

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  JChung2006 wrote:

  Is Office 12 going to be a Vista-only release though?  It makes sehttp://pdc.xbetas.com/images/word12.pngnse to have Office 12 be Vista-compliant when running on Vista, but if they are going to release Office 12 for XP too, it should follow the XP user interface guidelines.

  
  
  AFAIK, it will be released for Vista as well as XP/2003.  Unfortunately it doesn't fit in, visually, with either.
  
  The screenshot at http://pdc.xbetas.com/images/word12.png shows Word 12 running in front of an IE window.  The difference between the two is remarkable.  How hard would it be for Office 12 to use the standard title bar?  And use the appearance of an XP rebar (toolbar) as the background color for the ribbon?

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  Comment removed at user's request.

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  Can someone help me figure out why I cannot get the WinFX components/samples to execute?
  
  Here is a post I made to a news group:
  http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windows.developer.winfx.avalon/browse_frm/thread/19b2e017543198f4/09c6e849bf5229ea#09c6e849bf5229ea
  
  
  I am getting the exceptions:
  
  Culture name 'cn' is not supported
  
  and  a XAMLPAD NullReferenceException
  Thank you,
  Josh