Tales from the Smart Client

2021-08-06

John Gossman's observations on Avalon development

More on XAML mini-languages

Another problem with the gradient and transform mini-languages is that they are redundant. Anything...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 10/08/2005

XAML is for tools

There is quite a bit of discussion internally and externally about the role of XAML in WinFX...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 10/08/2005

Sparkle Timeline Performance

I mentioned last week I was expecting a checkin that would transform the performance of Sparkle's...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 10/03/2005

ChuckJ talks XAML

I pounded my head against the XAML spec for a couple of years before Chuck came in a "fixed" it....

Author: JohnGossman Date: 10/03/2005

Another colleague joins the Sparkle blog fray

Pete Blois joined the team just this year, but has tons of experience in the space. His blog is...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 09/29/2005

Sparkle and Performance

In my history of Sparkle I mentioned I had worked on ToolBook. That solicited this comment:...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 09/28/2005

Comments on Designers and Developers working together

I turned on "comment approval" a while back and used to get e-mails telling me comments were...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 09/26/2005

The All-Avalon, All-the-time Application

Expression Interactive Designer (aka Sparkle) is a 100% .NET, managed code application. The source...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 09/26/2005

The History of Sparkle: Year One

The name of the product I work on is Microsoft Expression Code Named "Interactive Designer/Sparkle"....

Author: JohnGossman Date: 09/24/2005

Sparkle

Now it can be told...I am a developer on Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer aka "Sparkle". We...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 09/20/2005

Speaking at PDC -- Building an large application with WinFX

I'm speaking at a lunch session on the 16th about how we built a large client application using...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 09/04/2005

New blogger

My colleague and friend ChuckJ has started blogging. Chuck has been key in defining the latest XAML...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 08/05/2005

Counting all the Visuals in an Avalon tree

Here's an example of using the VisualTreeWalker from the last post: public class TreeStatistics {...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 08/04/2005

Avalon Performance: What is your Visual count?

The Avalon compositional UI model encourages you to create Styles and Templates (VisualTree in the...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 08/04/2005

Walking the Visual Tree in Avalon

Sometimes you just need to walk the tree of Visuals in Avalon. It's easy to do, but it is even...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 08/04/2005

DataControls in ASP.NET

I've been reading Nikhil's series on data bound controls in ASP.NET. It is an interesting compare...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 07/20/2005

XML templates

I'd forgotten this until someone pointed it out to me, but many moons and jobs ago, I was already...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 07/05/2005

Avalon Grid effects

My colleague Amir Khella is experimenting with the Avalon Grid control, using it to provide FishEye...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 07/05/2005

Acrylic Beta

We just posted a beta of Acrylic, a vector illustration product coming soon from Microsoft....

Author: JohnGossman Date: 06/10/2005

Seductive Programming

On the topic of the previous post, we had long debates at Asymetrix about C++ versus OpenScript, and...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/19/2005

On Programming Languages

I know Chris isn't implying dynamic languages are only for hobbyists, but any discussion of...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/19/2005

IronPython architecture

Chris and I met with Jim Hugunin this morning and got an overview of the IronPython architecture....

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/18/2005

CodeBehind and Python

Rather than push on embedding Python in XAML, which Chris has made fine progress on anyway, I...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/15/2005

Attached Properties and Python script

While I'm trying to work around the xml:space issue from my last post, it is worthwhile to see how...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/13/2005

Embedding Python into Xaml

I took a slightly different tack than Chris on embedding Python into Script. I created an attached...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/13/2005

Dive Into Python

The book I used to learn Python is also available online: https://diveintopython.org/ I recommend...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/10/2005

Python Love from Dr. Anderson

Python in AvPad

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/10/2005

Pythalon Screen Shot

https://www.johngossman.net/PythalonSample.html

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/08/2005

Why Pythalon?

Looking at the last point on its own grounds, you may think: "Okay, you can program Avalon in...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/08/2005

Pythalon

This weekend I continued my experiments with Python and Avalon. Before I was hosting Python in an...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 05/08/2005

Boxely

I really enjoyed reading Mr. Hewitt's notes on Boxely, the new UI toolkit being used for AIM. The...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 04/30/2005

XAML comments by Mr. Clifton

https://myxaml.com/marcclifton/archive/2005/04/25/1938.aspx His comments are right on, a sensible end...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 04/30/2005

Automating the hosting application using IronPython

With the code below I could host an Avalon TextBox in my application, type Python expressions and...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 04/30/2005

Further fun hosting IronPython

When I first got my Python host working, I could type expressions and they would run...but I...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 04/30/2005

Hosting Python in an Avalon TextBox

The PythonProcessor class from my last post is designed to be hosted in an GUI text editor. I used...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 04/30/2005

Python fun

I've been home sick for a few days. Between sleeps, generally pinned down by a cat, I've been fairly...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 04/30/2005

Adobe buys Macromedia!

Adobe's investor site isn't responding, but Macromedia has the news too.

Author: JohnGossman Date: 04/18/2005

Avalon Text samples

Fil Fortes has been running a nice series on Avalon Text. Don't try this in your father's browser:...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 04/13/2005

A copy of good links on Ajax-type toolkits from a Commenter

https://demo.nextapp.com/echopointdemo/demo https://www.isomorphic.com/technology/testdrive.jsp Both...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 03/27/2005

Powerful words on Ajax from Dare

For what it's worth, I use Outlook Web Access from home and it is a pretty incredible example of...

Author: JohnGossman Date: 03/24/2005