Through Tim Sneath (who, at long last, I had the pleasure of meeting at Dublin’s IMTC) comes the most impressive Silverlight 1.1 Alpha demo I have seen since MIX07.
A company called NetikaTech has recreated a vast amount of the Windows Forms controls using Silverlight. And perhaps most impressively, there’s a mock-up of a Windows Forms Design Surface (of the sort you get in Visual Studio to build WinForms apps) which you can use to build the UI for applications – and then run the app you’ve built! No codebehind support yet — but it is very easy to see how Silverlight will ultimately facilitate rich development experiences in a browser.
To me, this also speaks to the fact that many of Microsoft’s next wave of apps – from Office to Visual Studio – are begging to be implemented in Silverlight. Because if Microsoft don’t give us all the richness of Word, Excel and Outlook’s user interfaces in a browser soon, someone else will!!
Truly impressive, Netika and Microsoft; I am dazzled by Silverlight once again. And to think this is just the Alpha!
On diluted messages and inert platforms →← A Wii Flock of Boids: Integrating the Nintendo Wii Controller with XNA
Floroskop says
Hello!
March 19, 2008I think this try.
Jason Spafford says
You said… Because if Microsoft don’t give us all the richness of Word, Excel and Outlook’s user interfaces in a browser soon, someone else will!!
But it’s already been done since the time this article was made. Google docs already solved that problem. docs.google.com. Google does what everyone else doesn’t.
October 21, 2008Rob Burke says
Jason – a long while back I’d looked at Google Docs, and thought the most insightful comment I’d heard about it is that when you try to use it for anything serious, all it does is make you appreciate the richness of a suite like Microsoft Office.
But it has been over 2 years since I visited (my last document edit in Docs is from 2006!). It looks like it has progressed a long way since then. I also am intrigued by the Offline mode, which I would consider essential. I will definitely try it again. I also am curious to see what we get out of the PDC next week from Microsoft…
October 21, 2008