DonXML Blog

Onto Erik’s topic, serializing UIs. We already know that HTML does this, but it is limited to a few UI controls. You can reuse these controls to produce aggregate controls with technologies like Internet Explorer’s Element Behaviors, but you are still limited to a limited set of possibilities. You can build controls on the server, and then serialize them as HTML, a la ASP.Net Server Controls, but that only solves the server side coding issues. Well, if you know the client is IE 5.5+ you can kick Element Behaviors to the client, but in the end it is all just HTML. What if you wanted to create brand new controls that were nothing like the other controls (like maybe a Bar Graph, or a Bar Label). You need to get at the graphics level, and HTML doesn’t let you do that. You can use Flash, but then you are self contained box, and can’t interact with the other elements on the page. Now you decided that you need to get to the graphics level and you need to interact with the other elements on your page as an equal. You need another XML dialect to represent your control, so that it can be easily serialized on the server, and sent to the “browser”.

Software Legends Night
May 28th - Barnes and Noble - Morris Plains, NJ
6:30pm - 8:30pm

This question was recently brought up on the Win_Tech_OffTopic Yahoo Group, but never really answered, so I was hoping someone might enlighten the DotNetWeblogs. 

One of the skeletons in my closet is that at one time I actually wrote code for the mainframe. COBOL, Assembly, CICS, DB2, JCL (that still brings back nightmares), I've done them all, and survived. I've have been reformed mainframe programmer for a long time now, and haven't touched code for that platform in over 5 years. But still I get calls from recruiters, trying to tempt me back into the fold. I was very young when I got started (it definitely wasn't something others my age were doing), and did it for about seven years. I tried to quit for a number of years, but my manager's would never let me. I'd get a taste of freedom, by worked with VB (starting with VB 3), but I wasn't able to quit the habit until 1998. While everyone else was busy doing Y2K work, I escaped to a Microsoft DNA project, and never looked back.

Have you ever wanted to create your own UI widgets, but didn't know the low level APIs for your platform's graphics engine? Or, what if you wanted to create your widget but needed to be cross platform, or even rendered in a browser. Well Scalable Vector Graphics can be your salvation. This session will show you how to create your own graphic mark up languages, and render them as SVG, thus eliminating the need to learn the low level graphics APIs. The examples will include interactive bar graphs, gauges, and a label generating web service that uses the SharpVectorGraphics SVG to GDI+ rendering engine.

Niklas Gustavsson (one of the key SharpVectors volunteers) has a new article covering basic drawing with GDI+.  Niklas has been a godsend to the SharpVectors team, and does a great job with an intro to the System.Drawing namespace.

2:45PM - 3:30PM Intro to SharpVectorGraphics Project

Simon Jessey turned me onto Jeffrey Zeldman, and his new book Designing with Web Standards.  Zeldman has a really good blog on creating Web pages using a Rules-Based Design approach with CSS2.  If you like his ideas in this entry, you’ll want to go out and buy the book.