Flash, Meet Sparkle

Robert writes "Microsoft finally released more information about their Sparkle product on a Channel 9 MSDN video. Sparkle is vector based XAML system for doing applications that may have traditionaly been done in flash. Ars Technica's Josh Meier has a few things to say about it, too."

I'm disrespectful to dirt!

[by Anonymous Coward]

Can you see I am serious!

Get out of my way, all of you!

This is no place for loafers.

Join me or die.

Can you do any less?

For lucky best wash, use Mr. Sparkle.

Oh, great.

[tomhudson (43916)]

Now I'm gonna need SparkleBlock as well as FlashBlock. More browser plugin bloat.

Re:Oh, great.

[CyricZ (887944)]

But will browsers such as Firefox even support this technology? I mean, there's no need to block it if the browser itself just plain doesn't support it.

How can you vouche for the security of this?

[CyricZ (887944)]

No offense, sir, but you seem quite convinced that this will become a major security flaw in Windows Vista.

Does your opinion have any technical merit? Have you inspected the source code to the implementation of this technology? Can you provide clear examples of malicious uses?

Or is your opinion based solely upon the past actions of Microsoft, with regards to similar technology?

Re:How can you vouche for the security of this?

[Lehk228 (705449)]

historical performance is a reasonable basis for prediction.

Re:How can you vouche for the security of this?

[NanoGator (522640)]

"historical performance is a reasonable basis for prediction."

Ah, this is an interesting rule. Well, in that case, I'd like to point out that next year will not be the year for Linux on the desktop.

Re:How can you vouche for the security of this?

[tomhudson (43916)]

Like it or not, Microsoft has started to take security very seriously. Their new products are built far better than their previous ones

No, Microsoft does not take security any more seriously than in the past. They have to be kicked and dragged into continuing to provide security fixes for NT, claiming "sorry, its 5 years old - we don't support it any more". Would you take that from any other manufacturer of any other product? Like, say, your car? Or your fridge? Or your toilet?

Microsoft pays lip service

Re:How can you vouche for the security of this?

[Alioth (221270)]

Software does not double in power every 18 months. Hardware is no longer doubling in power every 18 months either - clock speed hasn't been increasing, and the rate of integration is not increasing like it once was. Also, computers are remaining useful for longer - and Microsoft will have to deal with this. In 1995, a new PC was so vastly more useful than a PC made in 1990 in every respect. However, today, a 700MHz P3 made in 1999 is still a very useful computer for the typical things most users do (surf the web, write letters, email - that kind of thing).

Microsoft are going to have to get used to the fact that people will start routinely keeping computers as long as they do cars - for ten years or more. So are the hardware manufacturers, for that matter. Even though I personally like having the latest, fastest new hardware - normally upgrading every 2 years, this time around, I feel absolutely no need to upgrade and probably won't for at least the next couple of years.

Re:How can you vouche for the security of this?

[tomhudson (43916)]

It's going to have to have access to the local filesystem (it's not just a web thing - its for scripting/describing the user interface) to read any local xaml files. It'll also have access to the registry to be able to do such things as save screen positions/layout, etc.

Now, do you really want anyone to be able to read and write to your fs through an x(a)ml file? So, if it can do that, and since it is designed to "script" the native UI, what is to keep someone from cloning critical parts of the Vista interface, and fooling you into entering, say, your user name and password into their app? Or tricking you into installing other malware? Or getting you to agree to deleting your root partition when you think you're clicking on "save"?

Like I said, it opens up new Vistas, literally.

Re:the C. P. Snow Divide of Sciences and Humanitie

[tomhudson (43916)]

If people really think that Microsoft makes crappy products,

reality check time:

I've spent the last 2 days on the road talking with people at 53 companies. Dragged along an engineer as part of his training. I'll be out there again tomorrow, and I'm sure that it'll be the same.

Not one person said they liked using Windows. Not one! They hate Windows. They hate Microsofts Client Access Licensing schemes. They hate the viruses, the downtime, the forced upgrades, the patch hell, the crappy products - everything. And they also hate it when they go home. They want OUT!

This is not a slashdot "talking-out-of-my-ass" opinion - this is the reality in the corporate world today. Pissed off doesn't begin to describe it. They feel they've been raped.

Like I said, I've expended the shoe leather, gotten the face time, and this is the reality. Microsoft makes crap. Everyone knows it. Nobody likes it.

There's no need for a "coming together." The world and Microsoft are heading for a divorce.

Re:the C. P. Snow Divide of Sciences and Humanitie

[spoco2 (322835)]

"They feel they've been raped."

So they
a) either have no f*cking idea what that's like
b) are prone to serious exaggeration
or
c)You're making it up and are one of those people that think 'George Lucas raped your childhood'.

Come on, calm down a tad... I use Windows and MS products as well as a lot of OS (Eclipse, Laszlo, PHP etc. etc. ) products every day and really.. I'm not fuming, I'm not frothing... I really am quite happily getting along with my work... and so are all my colleages... and those in the companies we do work in... and everyone else I know.

I agree with the licensing schemes, they are a load of absolute confusing and archaic crud... but the software (which is what we're talking about) is working fine for us all here thanks very much.

Re:Oh, great.

[red_dragon (1761)]

You know, I'm beginning to doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Re:Oh, great.

[jmv (93421)]

Nah, running Linux is the best way to avoid Sparkle. With a bit of luck, MS will prevent you from disabling it while (of course) not releasing it for Linux, so switching to Linux will be the only way to avoid some spam/malware!

Re:Oh, great.

[chabotc (22496)]

Oh i'm not worried, MS will never release "Sparkle" for Linux, and probably never for FireFox either! Think it'll be years and years before i see a sparkle movie :-)

Re:Oh, great.

[tomhudson (43916)]

It gets worse:

Designers tend to get a bit out of hand and design things that are next to impossible to implement with current development platforms. Sparkle allows a designer to design the actual application by giving them direct access to the same objects the developers work with. The designer has complete control of the appearance and behavior of the controls without writing a single piece of code.

Riiiight ... the same morons who make impractical designs in the first place and don't know shit about coding, design, etc., are going to have even more fun foisting their crap on us. Fuck, why doesn't someone just declare Microsoft a terrorist organisation and be done with it?

Often programmers know very little...

[CyricZ (887944)]

... about designing a quality, usable GUI. That's most likely because, like programming, designing a good GUI takes a lot of skill, experience and effort. So this may actually be quite beneficial, as it lets everyone specialize. Programmers write the complex algorithms necessary to power these applications, while the GUI designers can manipulate and form the GUI without needing much effort on behalf of the programmers. Everyone is more efficient this way.

Re:Often programmers know very little...

[tomhudson (43916)]

I really hate that term "GUI designer." GUI designers are no better at listening to end users than coders are.

The best way to get a decent gui design is to force the coders to talk to the end users. Have the coders develop their skills at shutting their pie-holes and listening to the people who are the most pissed off with what they're using currently.

Replacing that process with "gui designers" is a pure waste of time. A "gui designer" is no more likely to have better listening or people skills than any

Re:Often programmers know very little...

[CyricZ (887944)]

You fail to grasp the concept of specialization. The only way for a firm to become truly effective is for individuals to focus on one task, and to do that one task extremely well. You know, like UNIX. A bunch of small, specialized tools (or individuals) are very powerful. They get the job done.

That is why there are developers who develop the code, GUI designers who develop the GUIs, intermediaries between the GUI designers and the coders, and analysts between all of them and the clients.

A properly functioni

XAML?

[ggvaidya (747058)]

XAML [wikipedia.org].

"the user interface markup language for Windows Vista, the next version of Microsoft Windows." ... "XAML is a declarative XML-based language optimized for describing graphically rich visual user interfaces, such as those created by Macromedia Flash" ... "This Microsoft Windows article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it."

Re:XAML?

[iluvcapra (782887)]

If it's based on XML, it had better specify a compression standard. Declarative prgramming a graphical object can make for some absolutely huge files.

On OS X, there was this program floating around on Versiontracker [versiontracker.com] that would convert any picture into an html document by converting each pixel into a table-cell that was styled 1px by 1px and colored. This prevened easy downloading of the image, but caused what might have been a 100k image to take up 4 megs in an html file.

Of course, XAML is vector-based, but knowing the kinds of schemas [microsoft.com] MS likes to promulgate, the possiblity of bandwidth-chewing "rich web content" is quite real.

Re:XAML?

[killjoe (766577)]

"XAML" Microsoft for "XUL".

Instead of taking an open spec like XUl and joining it, bettering it, and implementing it they chose to go their own way. Nothing to see here, runalong now and leave the evil people to their own devices.

Re:XAML?

[A Dafa Disciple (876967)]

For those interested in seeing a demo of this impressive family of products click here [microsoft.com]. The link on the article seemed to be /.ed.

In any case, I don't think this is a "flash killer."

There will always be designers who prefer what they grew up on or somehow prefer what Macromedia has to offer. That doesn't mean, however, that this future product of M$ isn't pretty useful and a bit impressive.

Nevertheless, they had to go and do something similar to what they've done with Vista [slashdot.org] and hopefully won't do with

Re:XAML?

[amliebsch (724858)]

You can try these, from Channel 9:

Demo of the Sparkle dev tool:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=1153 87 [msdn.com]

Demo of an Avalon app:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=1163 27 [msdn.com]

Re:XAML?

[gmuslera (3436)]

So again Microsoft is blending the "safe" desktop with the wild internet?

I remember when was a practical joke saying that reading a mail could hurt your computer, remember when there was no way to affect your computer just watching web pages, when all the efforts around java was to separate as much as possible what is from internet from what is the viewer's computer. And of course, Microsoft gived us Outlook, Internet Explorer, and ActiveX to change those obsolete ideas with really trivial examples.

I re

Flash competitor...

[jmcmunn (307798)]

Does this mean that we are going to see a huge rise in crappy Sparkle menus and animations on every web site?

Or maybe some sweet pop-over Sparkle ads? Microsoft just created their next enemy. Will the IE popup blocker block Sparkle ads? Or will that be a selling point?

The best thing that can possibly come of this is new games. That's the one thing I still enjoy about Flash on occasion.

I'm disrespectful to dirt!

[MiKM (752717)]

Mr. Sparkle: A joint venture of Matsumura Fishworks and Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern

Re:I'm disrespectful to dirt!

[The Hobo (783784)]

Mr. Sparkle: [uwaterloo.ca] Can you see I am serious?

Firefox Users: If the WMV doesn't work, try going tools, options, downloads, and on the bottom right click plugins, uncheck wmv, and if you don't want pdfs opening in firefox (meaning download first THEN open, I prefer this method, always faster and more stable) then uncheck pdf and anything else you don't want opening in firefox

Open source and alternative browser support?

[CyricZ (887944)]

Are there any plans to include support for this technology into Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, Safari, etc.?

Revolt

[maelstrom (638)]

When are the application makers going to start realizing that anything they develop on Microsoft's platform is eventually going to be copied and forced into the collective? Seriously, is there any piece of software running on Windows that Microsoft isn't in the process of making thier own version of?

Product Demonstration

[Frogbert (589961)]

Product Demonstration here [actionfig.com]

Not flash killer.

[steelfood (895457)]

Yet, here it is, with a name that sounds exactly like it's directly competing with Flash. Along those lines, why Sparkle? Flash sounds cool, but Sparkle sounds...girly.

Otherwise, the concept actually sounds really cool, like the visual component of Visual Studio on steroids. Replacing the windowing interface with purely vector graphics sounds promising, though it also sounds a little too abuseable. Still, this might herald the beginning of an actually innovative M$, seeing that they now have Google and FOSS knocking on its doors.

I wonder if it'll make use of the GPU to do the rendering.

Re:Not flash killer.

[Beryllium Sphere(tm) (193358)]

>Sparkle sounds...girly.

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!

Long Road

[Saeed al-Sahaf (665390)]

If "Sparkle" isn't significantly more attractive as a creative tool than Flash, there really will not be any advantage for web developers and advertisers alike to use it. It just means another plug-in that people may or may not have, and advertisers and web developers can't aford this risk, given that IIS is not the dominant web server, and not everyone has IE. It's not going to be an easy road for MS.

Sparkle is not a flash killer

[by Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people have tried to label Sparkle as a Flash killer but it is not. Sparkle is a new way to deal with winforms that allows custom UI design without coders running into the traditional limitations of development platforms. Think of it as a flash front-end to a full Win32 API and data-access. The fear I have is that Windows programs have always had a "consistant" look at feel. However, programs like Winamp back in the day changed the rules. These days more and more applications are starting to forego Microsoft UI guidelines for their own 3l33t designs which can be a pain to learn and a pain to script to. I hope it doesn't happen here but I would certainly, for example, expect a lot of Apple OSX-look knock off apps showing up once Sparkle gets out there.

Anyway, check out the picture gallery [ranaventures.com] if you can't RTFA.

Re:Sparkle is not a flash killer

[BitwizeGHC (145393)]

"programs like winamp"?

How about "programs like MS Office" which since God knows when has come with its own separate widgetset? You see, those UI guidelines, those are for *other* programmers to follow.

On a related note... (GPL-Flash)

[Spy der Mann (805235)]

Remember there's an open source Flash player, called GplFlash [sourceforge.net],. It appeared a few months ago in another slashdot article [slashdot.org]. However, it's only available via CVS (yet).

GPL-Flash v.1

[Noksagt (69097)]

Version 2 is only in CVS, but releases of version 1 can be downloaded [sourceforge.net]

Microsoft Naming Department

[Nikkos (544004)]

Flash, Sparkle, what's next, Twinkle? [twinkleglitter.com]

and then convert it back to Flash

[Jotham (89116)]

And then you can use this tool to convert the web based C#/XAML app back to Flash. http://www.xamlon.com/ [xamlon.com]

Hopefully Macrobe will take this as a challenge and drop in some 3d support and copy a few other features into their next version.

Main differences here is Flash is focused on the web - while you can output an .exe it has its limitations (disk access, etc -- which requires workarounds like embedding it inside another layer (ie. C# app) and passing messages back and forth).

Sparkle is for Desktop apps - and you can output for the web (but will limit your potential audience)

WTFV

[mr_gerbik (122036)]

Watch the fscking video.

You kids all want to bash on a new Microsoft product without having any idea what it is, what it can do, who it is for, etc.

Sparkle != Flash

Completely built on top of .NET for Avalon, Sparkle is a (even more than a) UI development tool for creating vector based interfaces. The beautiful thing is, everything you create is just a .NET object that can be manipulated by the developer.

What does this mean?

It means an artist can use an artist's toolset to create a beautiful fully functional front end, then pass it off to the developer to do the backend. No more mockups that can't be translated into a real application front end.

Re:WTFV

[Coryoth (254751)]

It means an artist can use an artist's toolset to create a beautiful fully functional front end, then pass it off to the developer to do the backend. No more mockups that can't be translated into a real application front end.

That's right folks, no more of that annoying consistency between GUI applications, now anything that the guy down in marketing can draw is a workable GUI - just think of the possibilities. Microsoft is not a believer in consistent elegant or intuitive GUIs, Micorosoft is all about empowering developers, and graphic designers, and wackjobs with no aesthetic sense. You too can finally design and implement that stunning piece of GUI genius you always imagined.

Have you ever noticed how everybody is a GUI design expert and always know better than everyone else how a GUI should look and function? Well maybe we'll finally find out what the world would be like if all those self taught HCI geniuses could simply create whatever they could draw. I'm sure it will be wonderful.

(I can see that the Sparkle concept is both quite interesting and has some potential for good application, I just don't think having random arrogant artists all designing their own GUIs is one of those good applications Sparkle.)

Jedidiah.

This is baaaaaad news.

[IGnatius T Foobar (4328)]

Seriously folks, let's hope the world's web developers steer clear of this. Flash is cross-platform and it's one of the key tools that make the non-Microsoft desktop useful. I know, I know, as a techie you probably hate all those "punch the monkey!" ads, but think of that Linux box you may have set up for your Mom or something. Would she be happy with it if she couldn't play all of those silly cartoons that your aunt emailed to her? These things seem trite to us, but normal users demand them.

XAML is a Windows-only technology, designed to make the Web one step more proprietary to Microsoft. Don't let them do it. Keep the web based on cross-platform tools. Steer cleer of XAML.

Flash sucks

[autopr0n (534291)]

I've been working on flash apps for work. God the networking library sucks ass. Creating a connection returns true or false. True if it succeeds, false if it doesn't. There's absolutely no way to figure out why it didn't work!

Insane. I set policies first with my XMLSocket server, and then with an HTTP server. Doesn't seem to be it and it's driving me nuts. Every other networking library will tell you exactly why it failed. Not Actionscript!.

Fuck macromedia. And fuck Microsoft for killing client-side java!!!

Nice going Slashdot

[DigitlDud (443365)]

"Flash, Meet Sparkle" and then linking to an article explaining how it has nothing to do with Flash at all.

Will this benefit interactive designers?

[Aqua OS X (458522)]

I'm a grad student studying interactive design, and I'm fairly intrigued about a software package seemingly being marketed toward "interactive designers."

Currently, interactive designers are few and far between. It's difficult to find a -good- graphic designer who understands human behavior and software development.

I know a ton of good developers who can produce ok interfaces (ok as in "ehh", not ok as in "good"); I know a slew of good designers who don't know a string from an array; and I know several HCI gurus who don't understand graphic design / visual communication from a hole in the ground.

So, here are my questions... is Sparkle evidence of Microsoft's foresight? Does Microsoft realize "interactive design" is an emerging discipline? Are they going to cater to new designers who are capable of communicating with developers and contributing toward in initial development. Or, is Sparkle just another attempt at offering staggered babelfish communication between designers and developers who really don't understand each other's jobs?

If it's the latter, I don't know how successful this product is going to be.

This sounds fairly rad, but I'm somewhat pessimistic. After seeing the UIs for Windows Vista(TM) and Word 12, I doubt Microsoft really understands interactive design. How can they understand interactive design if they're not hiring real interactive designers, or at the very least, not incorporating them properly into the development process? My complaints about OS X's Finder pale in comparison to my complaints about those gift wrapped turds.

Man... what I would give for one day in Redmond with executive management.

Personally, I think the next big wave in software development is going to come from interactivity

To Clear Up A Few Misconceptions

[by Anonymous Coward]

1) Sparkle is not a technology. Sparkle is the codename for an application. Get it right.

2) The technology is Windows Presentation Foundation (formally codenamed Avalon).

3) It is not a flash killer. It is true that you can host Avalon applications in a web browser, and they will interact with the back and forward buttons of a web browser. It is true that Microsoft is touting this as a high-end replacement for HTML (as far as I can tell).

4) Although details are sketchy, Microsoft has announced a royalty free OPEN technology called Windows Presentation Foundation / Everywhere. This means that you can run these applications in ANY web browser on ANY platform.

Re:What sort of security vulnerabilities..

[KillShill (877105)]

yes.

Re:Anyone against SVG?

[Lehk228 (705449)]

<sparkle value="AfdsdfT$#^fY$36RGRD^YT$YSdrg457jfcknvgdrkjt h4ete4j5e4ltudvg,mxcge84509345739 4354eit4e5098475ueougt398 45857e4otu45tu98et7eojt9d8gcxvgdrt34e6#$^$%Y&&45" />

  is still technically XML

Re:Anyone against SVG?

[forkazoo (138186)]

I think you may need to add something like <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> at the start, but yeah, that sounds a lot like what they did with MS Office.

Re:compatibility

[Jessta (666101)]

Seems microsoft is trying to tie web services to windows.
ie. Google threatens microsoft because many google applications run in a web browser that could be running on any platform.
Now if microsoft can get everyone using what is basically Windows GUI in all there web apps then those web apps will be tied to windows.

Yay for microsofts World Domination Department. good job guys, thanks for making life difficult.