Fundamentally, a XAML page describes the classes that the runtime should create, the property values and event handlers for the instances of the classes, and an object model hierarchy—that is, which instance is the parent of another instance. Read the development article here.
Longhorn for Developers: Controls and XAML
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Eugenia Loli
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Sorry, had to be said…
Has any article on XUL ever made it to OSNews? Why is everyone estatic about XAML? XUL is here, delivering *now* what microsoft says it will do *tomorrow*. Their aproach is different on some points (ie integration with .Net), yet the aim is basically the same.
Which makes me wonder why is XUL so blatantly ignored. If xml UI descriptions are such a cool idea, if they ease the deployment and development of applications, if we all agree this is A Good Thing ™… what are people waiting for? It’s here already! If it was something so groundbreaking and needed, people would already be using it as of now. But they are not, because they are lazy, and don’t want to mess with new things that they don’t know unless microsoft pushes them strongly enough.
The fact Microsoft got a patent for the subject recently is just another insult to the Mozilla developers.
“(…) you can do it all declaratively using XAML. This sure as heck beats writing a WM_PAINT message handler!”
Wow, that sure is an improvement over anything Microsoft had done before…
And looking at all those butt ugly examples… talk about UI integration and cohesion!! Now we’ll see a zillion different UI designs flooding Windows, each with their own “skin” and wildly different design. You can’t back up this and also bash the Linux Desktop for the same thing. Neil Daekin (XUL developer) had some very interesting comments on the subject on his weblog: http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/archive/2003/11/14/
I’d recommend everyone giving XUL a try. The tutorial at http://www.xulplanet.com is very comprehensive and well written, and takes you from basic HTML/CSS knowledge to XUL mastery (well, sort of
) in an afternoon.
Gasp… I already can see myself writting apps in XAML at my job. :S
Yeah, I can’t recall a single article about XUL here on OSNews either, but I could be mistaken. I’ve been poking around the free online book on XUL http://books.mozdev.org/chapters/index.html and must say I’m quite excited about it.
The fact Microsoft got a patent for the subject recently is just another insult to the Mozilla developers
Couldn’t Mozilla claim prior art?
…or better yet, wait for 5 years for this stuff to become standard, THEN declare prior art? Not so funny when it happens to you, is it Bill?
Glade (the framework rather than the designer) does this already doesnt it? With gtk-sharp and glade-sharp isnt this sort of gui/code seperation already available to mono developers?
Yes, with libglade you can import user interfaces from a file written in glade’s custom xml format. So definetely, the whole idea isn’t new.
“Couldn’t Mozilla claim prior art?”
Microsof twas doing somthing very similar when IE 4.0 was released so I don’t think Mozilla could claim prior art. XAML and the recent patent covers specifically this type of thing though HTA’s beat it out by a number of years.
The fact is there is little use of this so called “available now” thingy – to end users, it is almost useless
“The fact is there is little use of this so called “available now” thingy – to end users, it is almost useless”
Go to mozdev.org. Admire the mountains of active projects that use XUL. Go home. Feel like idiot for talking about something you know nothing about.
-Erwos
You’re assuming that this mountain of projects includes things most end-users would actually need. Quantity does not mean quality and without quality there is a lack of usefulness.
Yes, M$IE4 had something similiar, it was called Chrome, although it was more of a plugin for M$IE4…Universal’s horror monster web site used Chrome heavily at the time; but now you cannot find any info on Chrome — the original — on M$’s web site. Therefore I believe Mozilla can claim prior art!
Michael Lauzon, Founder
The Quill Society
http://www.quillsociety.org/
[email protected]
“Therefore I believe Mozilla can claim prior art!”
Huh?!? Just because Microsoft has removed information about Chrome from their website does not mean their claim to prior art is null and void. However, I was simply talking about HTAs and I don’t believe this was the same thing. In any case, HTAs are still around to this day and XAML will extend this functionlaity even further. For a couple examples of HTAs look at the Add/Remove contorl panel app and the organize favorites option in IE. I think things like Help and Support and the new Control Panel layout in XP are also HTAs but I’m not as sure.
>>If xml UI descriptions are such a cool idea, if they ease the deployment and development of applications, if we all agree this is A Good Thing ™… what are people waiting for?
People are waiting for it to be integrated into Visual Studio before they’ll start using it. Sad but true. Microsoft maintains its desktop monopoly through its focus on winning developers with top-notch development tools, and many, many programmers won’t use anything but Visual Studio because frankly (and sadly), nothing else comes close.
People are waiting for it to be integrated into Visual Studio before they’ll start using it. Sad but true. Microsoft maintains its desktop monopoly through its focus on winning developers with top-notch development tools, and many, many programmers won’t use anything but Visual Studio because frankly (and sadly), nothing else comes close.
I would say that isn’t the only thing. Sure, the IDE is “nice” but the real benefits come when you hook up with Microsoft. My old mans friend who owns a small software company, although he doesn’t like writing software for win32, he does admit that Microsoft is very generous with their software line.
SUN for example demands that once your subscription to their development service expires, you can’t use their software any more. What kind of message does that send to developers, “we don’t give a toss if you want to develop for us, just keep forwarding that cash”. SUN has a habit of bitting off the hand that feeds it, it is almost as bad as SGI who charge $20000 for compilers and they wonder why they have a next to no third party ISV’s. It finally took them until now to realise that no one in the right mind is going to pay $20000 for a compiler to develop software for a niche market.
SGI finally pulled their head out of their ass and finally have started giving away their development tools for free to those who develop or are interested in developing software. SUN needs to do the same to get that “mind share” back to developing software for the SPARC architecture.
And I was not mentioning HTAs at all…the original Chrome as I said was basically a plugin — M$’s version of Flash — and only one site seems to have used it; but it had nothing to do with GUIs!
Michael Lauzon, Founder
The Quill Society
http://www.quillsociety.org/
[email protected]
the only 2 things i appreciate about microsoft:
.net and visual studio ($ aside)
The original plan was to eventually integrate Chrome (aka Chromeffects) with the OS. It started as a technology to make rich web apps with 3D UI and television-like graphics, but was also being integrated into the OS GUI. There were plans to add the technology to Windows 98, but it was then pushed to Windows 2000 and called GDI2k. it’s said that MS held off Chrome because of fear that Netscape would attack it during the antitrust case as anticompetitive technology used to take over the browser market. Also, ISVs gave MS feedback saying they should improve the XML syntax to make it easier. And, there were some complaints that it required a 4MB GPU and P2-400 for great performance. So MS put it back into incubation and improved the performance, implementation, added capabilities as technologies like Direct3D improved, etc., and it has now resurfaced as Avalon/XAML for inclusion in Longhorn.
Links to Chrome/Chromeffects/GDI2k info/screenshots
http://ascii24.com/news/i/net/article/1998/09/07/612498-000.html
http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=navclient-menuext&hl…
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:oeg5s-mRCEAJ:planetrocke.com/p…
http://www.wave-report.com/1998%20Wave%20issues/wave915.htm…
“Microsoft has announced that the schedule for Chromeffects has been pushed out to an undefined date. The reasons give, based on the SDK feedback, inlcuded the following:
· Tighter integration with the document object model
· Better support for data visualization technologies
· Better synchronization with proposed standards like HTML + Time
· Improved quality and performance of 3D device drivers that are available today”
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/archive/video/GDInext.mspx
I am one of the authors of “Creating Applications with Mozilla” and have been working with Mozilla and XUL since 2000. It took probably 2 years before XUL became “solid”, and after much cursing back then of XUL, it has really proven itself. The Mozilla project took a HUGE risk in developing XUL (and a lot of baggage had to come along with that). Performance was the primary concern, and the developers did an incredible job in making XUL fast.
XAML is definitely inspired from XUL, no doubt about it. I am glad Microsoft is going this route because it makes Mozilla’s XUL more respectable. Also, competition is good.
More projects that use XUL in some form can be seen here:
http://xul.sourceforge.net/
It would really be kick ass if XUL caught on with Java developers, and integrated them together into one GUI development model.
An interesting project could be developing a XUL Eclipse plugin. Some ideas:
* visual UI editor.
* package manager (something like XPI Maker).
* css editor.
* integrated help/object reference.
* syntax highlighting and code completion.
* a mozilla view to quickly test your projects.
This and the release of the GRE would really rock. Heck, if I had the skill I’d start right away.
Btw, I heard the KHTML guys are working on implementing XUL? Is there any truth to that, or is it just a rumour? It would be very nice if they did (same for Opera).
XAML came from Chrome. Chrome almost RTMed back in 1998. If XUL came in 2000, how could MS be inspired by it 2 years before XUL was available (plus the dev time before 98)?
Following Chrome, XAML became simply a declarative mapping to .NET’s object model.
Besides this, there have been plenty of UI markup languages predating XAML and XUL. XUL wasn’t the first of its kind.
Someone please tell me how either XUL or XAML are fundamentally different from creating UI’s from text based resource files? In fact, I’d argue that XAML is at least more innovative in that you’re compiling down into .Net code when you get right down to it. Still, whether it’s an “unstructured” text file or XML (i.e. a more structured but still TEXT file), what’s all the hoopla about?
One more thing, XUL is not and has never been a standard of any sort. Therefore nobody can pull the embrace and extend stunt on this one.
compiled before use?
meaning that it is not loaded as a xml file at runtime. But is ‘compiled’ to c#/(or) IL code.
If you compare that to glade wich loads it *.glade file at runtime… Wich makes it possible to change the gui after the binaries installation.
Or is it possible to do both?
It is possible to change the GUI after installation with XAML as well. Here’s a couple of links.
Yes Sam, it is dynamic…
http://www.simplegeek.com/PermaLink.aspx/9ab86f9a-bec0-46e1-a5c5-7e…
Dynamic UI
http://www.simplegeek.com/PermaLink.aspx/7283be10-2652-466c-a7d7-34…
http://longhornblogs.com/ndunlap/posts/1862.aspx
Have you noticed that Sun’s Java Desktop is basically a ripoff of Chrome? Look at the demo that Sun gave recently. It’s virtually indistinguishable from what Microsoft was demoing back in 1998.
>>>Someone please tell me how either XUL or XAML are fundamentally different from creating UI’s from text based resource files?
XAML can contain embedded code that can be executed. You create a XAML file (XML text file), run it through a XAML compiler, and it generates an executable program. No need to run the XAML .EXE in the browser — it’s standalone. Also, since it runs in the .NET CLR, it’s automatically sandboxed so it can’t do anything malicious to your machine.
I think I spent most of my time staring at the huge Sta… uh, Launch button. 😉
Seriously though, it was very similar.
It is really too bad MS had to hold back in 98. It’s especially bad that the website was taken down as there are few references to Chrome still on the web, and many people have forgotten about it (or didn’t know). At least the end result (Longhorn) will be more powerful than Chrome. Largely thanks to .NET, and DX’s evolution, and there’ll be a lot more to enjoy than just GUI.
Hello,
On the issue of prior art I was doing this back in 1994, with a company known as ACD (Applied Computing Devices) out of Terre Haute, IN. Their metavision(c) system did all of this on Motif. They wrote the original version pre 1990. So the idea of this is not new, And M$ dosen’t even look that well done.
I love it when the same technology ideas keep comming around.
Leslie Donaldson