Official Release

We would like to announce the official release of our web application prototype, Sprout! For the past twenty weeks we, the Xamlhouse team, have been hard at work exploring Microsoft Expression Studio software and the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in. Sprout, does not mark the end of our journey as interactive designers and developers, but rather the beginning to our careers.

Today we begin our real exploration, but we leave behind our knowledge via our blog, in hopes that it may help others who are designing for, developing for, or just enthusiastic about Silverlight.

Launch Sprout
Learn About Sprout

Please keep in touch.

Regards,

Xamlhouse Team

We would like to thank Tim Wood and EffectiveUI for giving us gifts of software and books on Silverlight.





Thanks!


-Jim

As per a comment from Dan Irwin of Microsoft on our blog on 2/1/2008 I will be answering the following three questions about the Sprout project being developed by Xamlhouse over the next few posts:

1) What are our plans for the Sprout project post-graduation?

2) How do you like Basecamp as a project management tool? How does it compare to Microsoft’s Codeplex, a free web application that is similar to Basecamp?

3) What is our real motivation for picking Silverlight as students?

Today, I will focus primarily on our post-graduation plans of our team and the project:

We have been meeting roughly three times a week to plan and refine elements of Sprout, our Silverlight application prototype. The scope we have set for this project, for a lack of better words, is to create a prototype application. This prototype will showcase the concept and the features we have developed in Silverlight, but will not allow public registration or personal use. We have defined our scope this way because we believe this to be an achievable goal by this May.

Following the completion of our prototype we will be faced with the reality that it is time to advance our professional careers. I believe it may be too early to determine whether or not we will continue designing/developing post-graduation. I think most of the team realizes that we will probably not have the time to continue working on the project ourselves, therefore we hope to have this prototype to a state where it will generate enough interest from other developers/designers in the community, a corporate company, or even fall into the hands of an R.I.T. team project to come. Regardless of where the actual application creation ends, the long-lasting value appears to rest entirely in our Xamlhouse blog.

Our experiences using Microsoft technology will carry over for years to come, so long as Microsoft continues to push the Silverlight technology. There are always going to be developers/designers organically searching for solutions to their Silverlight projects. We want Xamlhouse to pop up in their searches and to be a resource where they can come to learn more, post questions, or even post blogs themselves.

By the end of our exploration we want to have answered as many questions as possible for designers and developers alike. As well as we want to answer as many questions for Microsoft, Effective UI (www.effectiveui.com), and any other corporate companies interested in our project.

What it all comes down to is: What kind of interest can we generate for our project?

If a company was sincerely interested in the Xamlhouse team and the Sprout project and wanted to fund this project to the end, would we as designers and developers consider the possibility of completing and launching it? Sure we would.

If a company said “Hey I saw what you guys worked on your last year of college and we are trying to create something similar, would you consider coming to work for us?” Sure we would.

If a company said “We love it. We want it. Give it to us and let us take it to the next level.” Would we consider that? Sure we would.

I think the answers to these questions will come by May. By then, we will know what our options are, and where we want to take ourselves.

-Ed

We have picked a name for our Silverlight application prototype. We would like to introduce “Sprout” to our web audience. We felt this name best fit our project as we were looking for a name that could be used for both family, as well as close groups.

We will post more on the project as we can. Stay tuned.

-Ed

I had a conversation with Richard Pasqua of Siegel and Gale earlier this week. One of the topics we were discussing was the legacy issue Microsoft is facing by bringing Silverlight and Expressions Studio software into the interactive realm.


“There are a legacy of developers and designers that all use fla’s and swf’s.” –RP


Even the developers who dabble in design use Adobe software or use open-source programs like Gimp. This raises a major set of questions that I have had since I started working on senior project. Why is Expression Studio being developed? I firmly believe that all research, development, and budget should be allocated to developing a superior Silverlight plug-in with more innovative features, real-time 3D, better compression systems, and top-notch importing capabilities.


The big sell for Silverlight should be its ability to import both vector and raster designs into a pliable and powerful environment powered by more robust programming languages. Pasqua suggested that Microsoft not close it’s doors on Adobe technology, but allow their users to open their .fla seamlessly. An emphasis was made on seamlessly. Granted this is going to require the development of a powerful engine to convert the new AS3 files, but it all seems worth it when you take a look at things like Silverlight’s video quality vs. Adobe’s .flv video. I don’t think it would be long after a powerful converting engine was developed that Microsoft would see firms switching to gain deeper control of their multimedia environments.


Another point Pasqua raised with Silverlight is that if he was to make a switch from Adobe to Microsoft he would need to convert thousands of client files so that the new technology could be utilized without massive amounts of man-hours being wasted converting.


“Get the software into the hands of University students for free through your academic alliance program so when they graduate and jump into industry their bosses and co-workers know about it and have someone who has explored it. Don’t expect the transition to happen over-night. This is going to take years.”

-Ed

This past week I had the pleasure of speaking with Dan Irwin and Dennis Dietrich from Microsoft’s Redmond, VA facility. Dan is working on the Silverlight 2.0 release and is an R.I.T. 2007 Alumni. Dennis is an SDET who joined in on our phone conversation who has worked on several projects with Dan.

Dan has offered his technical support to the Xamlhouse project. We all would like to say thank you to him and all those at Microsoft who have willingly stepped forward to help us with our project and exploration.

Thank you to: Chad, Paul, Don, Dan, and Dennis.

We hope to provide valuable feedback to Microsoft during our development to help improve the Silverlight plug-in and Expressions Studio software. Above and beyond that, by the end of our project we would like to answer some major questions in regards to the plug-in and software, such as:

“What will it take to convince you to switch to Silverlight?”

Stay tuned for interviews from industry professionals, guest bloggers, and answers to important Silverlight related questions.

-Ed

The Xamlhouse team had to make a presentation our project proposal to the powers at be on Tuesday the 22nd, and we figured we should make the documentation of our project plan public. For all those who are interested, our project document can be found at:

xamlhouse_plan.pdf

In other exciting news, I’ve been developing the Xamlhouse identity profile, and come up with some tweaks to the aesthetics.

As a springboard into an extension and exploration of the Xamlhouse identity, I created a wallpaper to demonstrate the desired aesthetic, which is available in several sizes for your enjoyment:

800 x 600

1024 x 768

1152 x 864

1280 x 1024

1440 x 900

1600 x 1200

Please feel free to download and use it.  Expect a design overhaul of that banner soon…

-Kevin

Together we represent the future of interactive media. We are the next generation of new media designers, new media developers, animators, 3D modelers, conceptualists, and directors. We are nine seniors from Rochester Institute of Technology who are looking for the next best thing.

For twenty-weeks we will be researching and experimenting with the Microsoft Expression Studio and the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in. You are invited to follow us, guide us, and interact with us, as interactivity is what we have grown to love.

Our goals are:

1) To explore and showcase the power, advantages, and disadvantages of Microsoft Expression Studio and the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in. We have been bred to be Adobe enthusiasts, but we realize there is more to life than CS3.How does Silverlight interact with Adobe products? How does Expression Studio compare to Adobe products? What can Silverlight do? Where are the boundaries? What rocks? What stinks?

2) To create an interactive application that rocks so hard that Microsoft welcomes us with open arms to their online gallery at www.Silverlight.net.

3) To document every step of our exploration, challenges and failures, successes and innovations via our blog. To craft this blog in such a way that it becomes not only our story, but also a resource for developers and designers alike.

So how can you help us on our voyage? E-mail us ideas. Help us through our problems. Critique us. Make comments and suggestions. Tell us how your experience with Expression Studio and Silverlight has been or how you hope it will be. Send us a project sample and show us what you are doing. Recommend our blog to a co-worker or friend. Or just drop us an e-mail with a “Hello.” 

Welcome.

Regards,

Xamlhouse Team