Biz: Expressions Blend & Design , ZAM

[DrYSG]

Excuse my chutzpah, But can I suggest what I see as a very exciting business for XARA, Ltd.

I have spent the last 3 days working through the samples and tutorials associated with Microsoft Expressions Blend, Expressions Desgin, and the 3D WPF tool from Erain: ZAM.

My reaction is: WPF and XAML are going to be extremely middleware for building 3D, 2D, and animated 2D scenes (look out Adobe Flex/Flash - I have 10 years experience as a Flash designer, and this is the biggest threat yet).

But Microsoft is still clueless as to how a designer thinks about making these apps. Expressions Studio spits out XAML for WPF. But the ideas that XARA does well (non-destructive design, instant feedback, head-up on-Canvas manipulation, few menus, artist focus on the drawing tablet, etc). They are CLUELESS.

I think XARA Ltd. has a great opportunity to create an integrated Artist/Designer-Centric interace that can spit out XAML (or Adobe MXML) or whatever, but to own the creative design space.

Best would be something that seemlessly handled 2D static, 2D animated, and 3D static/animated in one well integrated workflow (not necessarily one interface, but smooth movement of content).


What do you think?

[Soquili]

I'm not a Xara Group Ltd employee and so I cannot speak for them.

Who knows what work is being done in addition to the release of Xara Xtreme Pro. I would be very surprised if Xara is not looking into XAML and WPF, etc. Tipping ones hand so the entire industry would know isn't something that would be beneficial, in my opinion.

[StevenWWinters]

WPF and XAML are going to be extremely middleware...

I think XARA Ltd. has a great opportunity...

See this:

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showpost...6&postcount=32

In this thread:

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...highlight=xaml

[Albacore]

I have not voted on this topic because the questions don't suit my views. i have stood back and tried to take an open opion on the matter reading content downloading Net 3 newest ver. and seeing the improvements over the original which I had on my hard drive. I have also been visiting other sites which are related to this topic trying to see the quality of the work produced. At this the moment the quality of the work is poor and it is hard to see certainly in web graphics how this format can compete with the strengths that Adobe has now.

However that does not mean that I will not keep up with the develoments and try out the Tutorials trying to keep up to date with the coding while still using XML and looking at the developments from Adobe. It is very hard for designers, and I use the word in the arty farty context, of web content at the moment trying to keep up CSS, java script, action script, and XML as they are told that these are the tools for designers and not programmers. I think I will wait and see what happens in this contest but still keep an active interest.