Microsoft has launched Sparkle Interactive
Designer to compete with existing high-end graphics design tools
such as those marketed by Adobe and Macromedia.
Sparkle is a vector-based user interface designer that can
deliver 2D and 3D objects, which can be used for tasks ranging from
Flash-type presentations to designing user interfaces for Windows
applications.
Sparkle - which forms part of the Microsoft Expression
suite - was unveiled in a pre-release version at Microsoft's recent
Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
The Expression suite, which is currently available to
developers as a community technology preview, along with
Microsoft's .net framework and Windows Presentation Foundation
graphical subsystem, represents Microsoft's efforts towards
achieving Rich Internet Applications.
Rich Internet Applications create a desktop-like
application but through a web browser. They do this with a
rendering engine that sits on the client side with asynchronous
messaging to the server instead of having messages go back and
forth constantly between the two to refresh the screen.
Michael Azoff, senior research analyst with Butler Group,
said, "Sparkle provides an end-user studio tool that gives rich
graphics at the high end and will be a competitor with Macromedia's
Flex. It is a catch up for Microsoft in this field, but where Flex
runs on a browser, Sparkle can be run on a browser or desktop, so
it goes a little further."
Sparkle allows the designer access to the same objects
that developers work with, giving them control of the appearance
and behaviour in the user interface without having to write code.
Once design work is complete it can be saved and handed over to the
developer and a C# project generated for the developer to work
with.