New Project: Microsoft Expression Feature Browser
The Microsoft Expression Feature Browser is a Silverlight-based RIA that provides a simple way for users to compare the highlights of the tools in the Microsoft Expression Suite.
This is our first Silverlight 1.0 project in the wild, executed in conjunction with the Step Change Group in Portland, OR. The app is completely data-driven, allowing Microsoft to use the same Silverlight application across all four product pages in the Expression Studio. The app parses runtime configuration variables passed in on the query string, and pulls from the very same XML data source used to build the non-Silverlight version of the page. In this way, the site can downgrade gracefully for platforms that don’t have an available plugin. All assets are shared with the HTML version as well, further lessening maintenance overhead.
We were particularly impressed with the butter-smooth framerates in the native Silverlight animation engine. Turns out it’s pretty straightforward to execute programmatic animations without a lot of code. It was also really quite simple to implement a full-featured, reskinnable, inline video player. No complaints with Silverlight, though it’s definitely taken some serious gear-grinding to switch from C# to JavaScript!
| Trackback3 Comments so far
Leave a reply
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe Microsoft Expression Feature Browser is a Silverlight-based RIA that provides a simple way for users to compare the highlights of the tools in the Microsoft Expression Suite. Expression Feature Browser screenshot … [...]
[...] marc wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe Microsoft Expression Feature Browser is a Silverlight-based RIA that provides a simple way for users to compare the highlights of the tools in the Microsoft Expression Suite. Expression Feature Browser screenshot … [...]
[...] You can check it out (you’ll need the Silverlight browser plug-in) on the Microsoft Expression website. Also, if you get a chance, Darren David (Founder of Look or Feel), wrote about some of the technical bits as well on his blog. [...]