Tentang Microsoft Expression Blend

Apa itu Blend?
Apakah lebih bagus dari Flash?
Bisakah kita membuat web site dengan blend?
Tiga pertanyaan ini mungkin pertanyaan yang paling umum yang seringkali ditanya oleh mereka yang baru mengenal Microsoft Expression Blend. Saya akan mencoba memberi beberapa jawaban dan juga, akan mencoba mengajak Anda menggunakannya; Anda tidak pernah tahu, ini mungkin saja merupakan tool yang Anda tunggu!.

Apa itu Blend?
Microsoft, “Blend adalah suatu alat desain”. Bagi saya, istilah “desainer” terlalu umum. Dilihat dari tingkatan dan tipe desainer yang berbeda, maka pengertian Blend akan memiliki tujuan yang berbeda dan Blend sendiri tidak mungkin bisa sesuai digunakan oleh setiap orang, kecuali jika Anda menginginkan atau membutuhkannya.

Blend menyediakan alat untuk menciptakan dan memanipulasi vektor dan raster format untuk para perancang grafis, tetapi lebih penting lagi Blend menyediakan proses untuk perancangan animasi, penggunaan UI (User Interface) 2D atau 3D untuk perancangan interaktif. Jika kata-kata dari pengertian di atas masih dirasa terlalu rumit, coba saya terangkan lagi bahwa dengan Blend, ketika Anda menyerap konsep dasar dari fungsional framework .NET serta hubungan antara object dan XAML (XML based declarative mark-up), Anda akan dapat menciptakan User Interface yang menarik dan mulai untuk menerima suatu peran baru dari kegunaan arsitektur XAML.

Desain yang interaktif dapat menciptakan fungsional prototip yang kemudian menjadi bagian dari alur produksi, mengurangi waktu pengembangan dan memastikan bahwa hasil akhir terlihat dan berfungsi sebagaimana mestinya. Sebagai arsitek XAML, Anda dapat mengambil alih kepemilikan suatu project untuk memastikan User Interface yang berkualitas yang akan dikirimkan memiliki hasil akhir yang menakjubkan. Anda bisa mengatur bagaimana, apa, kapan dan mengapa object bisa saling berhubungan dan mengikat, dengan mengabaikan kebutuhan yang logis; Anda mungkin saja bisa meninggalkannya kepada tim pengembang agar object-object yang mereka buat nantinya akan sesuai dan bisa digunakan dalam desain Anda.
Apakah Blend lebih baik dari Flash?
Kekeliruan yang sering dilakukan oleh tiap orang ketika berhadapan dengan Blend, adalah mencoba membandingkannya dengan Flash. Terlepas dari adanya timeline untuk animasi, keduanya memiliki perbedaan seperti mobil Ford dan Ferrari. Mungkin merupakan suatu pemikiran yang kurang wajar, saya menyukai Flash yang pastinya bukanlah mobil Ford, tetapi pernyataan tersebut dibuat untuk mencerminkan potensi Blend untuk menjadi suatu Ferrari. Aplikasi Blend ini akan menjadi tool pilihan untuk mendesain aplikasi UI dan UE di atas Windows.

“WPF/E”, dukungan akan segera datang, dan dengan itu akan ada potensi untuk merubah pandangan dalam proses penyampaian aplikasi web. Dengan mengetahui 'apa itu blend?' lebih awal, akan memastikan Anda mempunyai pengetahuan dasar agar dapat bekerja dengan teknologi baru ini sehingga dapat diterapkan secara lebih efisien.

Bisakah kita membuat web site dengan Blend?
Tidak seperti Flash dan tool-tool sejenisnya, Blend lebih tentang kemampuan yang memungkinkan kita mengatur dan memodifikasi elemen yang berdasarkan XAML. Penggunaan Visual Studio dalam menciptakan suatu project dan kemudian menggunakan Blend sebagai pengatur untuk komponen UI-nya, merupakan cara yang lebih baik dalam memahami tool ini.
Benar adanya, bahwa .NET Framework 3.0 menyediakan teknologi web yang berbeda yang dinamakan XBAP, lebih baik dari “WPF/E”, tetapi Blend juga datang dengan  keterbatasan dalam hal keamanan. Akan tetapi, dengan menggunakan Blend selain kita bisa bekerja secara full 3D kita juga akan mendapatkan keuntungan akan fungsi-fungsi barunya. Dalam pandangan saya, XBAP hampir hanya merupakan suatu mekanisme penyampaian web yang valid bila kita memiliki kontrol terhadap keamanan user sehingga dapat menentukan mana yang aman untuk dijalankan dan mana yang tidak aman.

Penutup...
Secara keseluruhan, Blend adalah suatu aplikasi yang sangat berharga, Blend berharga sebagai teknologi yang baru. Berikan tim Microsoft feedback Anda dan mereka akan bekerja demi permintaan Anda untuk menciptakan aplikasi yang lebih baik. Sekarang adalah saatnya untuk mempelajari Blend, jangan menunggu sampai rilis-rilis berikutnya ketika tutorial berikut yang akan ditampilkan malahan akan lebih bagus dari tutorial sekarang.

Using Microsoft Expression Blend, why not?

Technorati Tags: Expression Blend,Presentation,XAML

| Continue Reading..

What XML Isn’t

The previous section spells out what XML is — an extensible markup language that allows you to create your own tags to develop XML applications. Now it’s time to clarify what XML is not.

It’s not just for Web pages anymore
Although the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed XML, it’s not specifically designed only for Web pages. In fact, if you display an XML document on the Web in its raw form (without adding styles to format the display), all you’ll see is the XML markup itself. So banish this Web-only idea from your thoughts. XML is a markup language that allows you to organize information by creating tags to construct a specific document structure. XML documents can be viewed on the Web, but unlike HTML documents, they’re not limited to the Web.
Browser support for XML is limited and variable. Hopefully this will change in the next generation of browsers, but for now XML works well in Web pages only when combined with another language (CSS) or XML technology (XSLT) to format the display of the XML information.

It’s not a database
Whether XML “is” a database depends on your definition of database. If you’re defining a database as a collection of data, then yes, XML qualifies as a database. If you’re defining a database as a Database Management System (DBMS) program, such as Microsoft Access, XML has some DBMS features (storage, queries, programming interfaces) but doesn’t have others (queries across multiple documents, security, indexes). So, okay, you could use XML as a database for a small amount of data — but it wouldn’t be efficient to use XML as a database for large amounts of data. (Why would you want to, when DBMS programs are designed to do exactly that?) That’s not to say XML is in any way database unfriendly. XML documents work well for both input and output, going to an from a database — and you can also use them to display database information in print or on the Web.

It’s not a programming language
One of the most common misconceptions about XML is that it’s a programming language. Although XML can be used with programming languages for certain types of application development, it’s a markup language, not a programming language. A markup language is essentially descriptive; a programming language is for issuing logical commands. Programming languages include (for example) variables, datatypes, operators, loops, functions, and
conditional statements. XML doesn’t include any of these features, so it’s no programming language.

Part of the confusion here is that some XML document types do include some features found in programming languages. For example, XML Schemas (which are themselves XML documents) include several built-in datatypes and also allow user-defined datatypes. But wait a minute: Although XML Schema documents can include datatypes — one feature of programming languages — that doesn’t make them full-fledged programming languages with all the features just listed here. They remain XML documents — with an XML document structure, created with a markup language (XML). You can get XML to describe how a document will look; you can’t get it to dim your house lights or start your car — at least, not without some help from an actual programming language.
| Continue Reading..

What Is XML?

Have you ever needed a document format that you could use to exchange data — either across the Internet or across an intranet? Well, eXtensible Markup Language (XML) may be just the solution. In fact, many different industries have discovered the wonders of XML — and use it extensively to help organize and classify their data... XML is a markup language — it uses tags to label, categorize, and organize information in a specific way. Markup describes document or data structure and organization. Content, such as text, images, and data, is that part of the code that the markup tags contain; it’s also what’s of greatest interest to most everyday humans who read or interact with data or documents. XML isn’t limited to a particular set of markup — you create your own markup to suit your data and document needs. The flexibility of XML has led to its widespread use for exchanging data in a multitude of forms. And that’s not all! With XML, you can send the same information to various locations — say, to a person using a mobile phone and a person using a Web browser — at the same time. In addition, you can customize the information sent out so it’s displayed appropriately on the various devices. Getting started with XML isn’t difficult.
If you take a close look at the use of XML in today’s business world, you soon recognize that pinning down a single, definitive use for XML is nearly impossible. In fact, it is precisely the open-ended nature of XML that makes it so useful for many different things — and so difficult to put into a single, small box.
You may be familiar with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the markup language used to display information on Web pages. Both XML and HTML are derived from the “mother of all markup languages,” Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) — but any similarity ends there. HTML includes a set of predefined tags that format information for display on the Web. XML has no predefined tags — instead, you can create your own XML tags to structure your XML document so its content is in a form that meets your needs. Basically, you design your own custom markup language (actually an XML application) to do data exchange in a way that works for you. Although XML doesn’t include predefined tags, it does include very specific rules about the syntax of an XML document.
XHTML is yet another markup language — designed as a transition language between HTML and XML. In a nutshell, XHTML is a version of HTML that follows the strict syntax rules of XML. After you’ve used it for a while, you’re well prepared to use XML. Separating data and context Among the many benefits of using XML is that it automatically separates data from context (presentation). An XML document by itself includes no instructions about how to display the content contained in the document — it only defines the structure of the document. You can then add styles — formatting instructions for displaying the content — in a separate document called a stylesheet. This separation is actually pretty handy; you can change the display instructions without having to make any changes to your XML document. If the same style sheet is used with more than one document, you can make uniform style changes in all those documents simply by making changes in the stylesheet. All the associated XML documents follow the stylesheet’s orders.
XML can be combined with both two different types of stylesheets — Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and/or Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) — for extra versatility. This makes it possible to view XML documents on the Web as more than just raw document markup — and you can change this display easily to accommodate different output devices. For example, you can use one stylesheet for display on a PDA and a separate one for printout.
XML is all about managing your data — using the best possible format available to you. To talk about how XML can handle your data as discrete bits of information, what better format is there to use than a bulleted list? Check out the following items:
• XML enables you to collect information once and reuse it in a variety of ways.
• XML data is not limited to one application format. You can design an XML document that allows you to collect data online for use in other documents, databases, and spreadsheets.
For example, suppose your business collects sales information on a group of products by using an XML document to contain the data. The same XML data could be used to create customer purchase records, commission reports, and product-sales graphs.
• Making information portable does require planning and design before the information is collected.
So, thats all information about XML i can share... There is more ‘bout XML you can learn, just googling it. Next time i’ll try to explain how to create a simple XML document to view and read some data.
| Continue Reading..