[MIX06] WPF for the designer session
First session of today is the "WPF for the designer" session. Sat at the back as normal, found a chair and a plug socket this time :)
- Using left/right of your brain enriches the design experince.
- XAML, gettiing everyone speaking the same language.
- Designers can express them selfs to the developer using the same language, same format etc. That makes the designer more creative, more productive and more popular :)
- Support for a wide range of designer tools, Maya, blender, Illustrator.
- Some nice free tools, splitpad, XAMLPad etc.
- Markup can be a pain to code by hand but useful to do, designer can take developer created custom tags for custom interactions. Nicer to think of that as a plugin style nature to your designs, letting the developer create new interactions etc.
- Data templates allow you to design a base template for an application and then let the developer bind data to that template.
- Premier designer tool for WPF is EID, you can take your hand coded XAML and see it rendered and start working with it in a visual fashion.
- Lots of handy controls for text layout, flow layout etc.
- XAML gives you complete control over styles, styling controls, elements by name, by type etc.
- Complete font control, lets you import and apply custom fonts (appluse during the demo for this).
- Event model for styles, lets you create rollover effects etc.
- Support animations and 3D that let you push your design and experince.
On a related note I see that Mix has some serious design company, Flash main men Pete Bar-Watson and Brandon Hall (I do wonder if Chrissy Rey is here). Not sure if they know me from my Generator days but I know them so 'Hi' guys.