If you want to know how software in the future is going to be created, you may want to take a close look at DesktopX.  This is speaking as a developer not as an end user.

One of the themes at this week's PDC has been about giving tools to developers that allow them to split work amongst team members based on their proficiency.  This is how DesktopX works today. And it means that there is a lot of room for DesktopX to grow as Vista gets closer.

Sparkle, Microsoft's new design environment for application development is vastly more rich than what DesktopX offers.  We're in love with it already!  And it provides us with a pathway for leveraging Sparkle to help take DesktopX to the next level.

For application developers, DesktopX allows graphics designers to create their own user interfaces visually with their own graphics using Photoshop or whatever.  Then, they hand over their work as a package (.dxpack) to the developer to connect it to code.  Whether that be a user interface or some visually interactive app.

Green Reaper is working on a virtual pet.  Or more specifically, the coding part.  Our game animators create the creature, his animations, etc. and send it over to GR as a .dxpack in which he connects it to script.

Now in the next generation DesktopX (which won't be out until Vista), .dxpacks will have XAML and C# / VB Script inside of them.  DesktopX's job will be to provide additional functionality and short-cuts for creating the kinds of things that people currently use DesktopX for (gadgets, widgets, and desktops). 

Sparkle, as cool as it is, is a very generalized app.  But the goal is the same -- creating content that is interoperable. Our upcoming challenge will be to see if we can use VSTA to get the visual studio editor and .NET languages into DesktopX.

Visual Studio for Applications is scheduled to debut in SDK form with Office 12.  It looks - to me - as the equivalent of Windows Scripting Host for previous versions of Windows. That is, developers will be able to make use of Microsoft's .NET languages in their apps.  This looks very nice as we use this sort of thing heavily.

Unfortunatley, it won't be available until late next year.

Any long time skinner knows the pain -- they can create great graphics but the coding/scripting is just too much.  Or on the flip side, the developer can make the skin but can't draw or design to save his or her life.  And hence we have the wonderful balance of ugly skins and pretty buggy skins.

The way most interfaces are designed these days is by a professional graphics designer creating cool looking stuff as a mockup and then the developer trying to recreate it as best they can.  

It's a problem that has plagued Windows for years.  Lots of ugly looking programs with bizarre interfaces that only a developer could love.  It's one reason why MacOS apps tend to look so much better -- designers and developers are able to work together much more seamlesly.

But Microsoft is hoping to put an end to that with the announcement of Microsoft Expression Suite. It's a suite of 3 programs -- Sparkle, Quartz, and Acrylic.  Acrylic allows the designer to create the visual content. Sparkle allows the designer to create interfaces visually without writing any code and Quartz does much the same thing for web pages (based on what I could tell -- mind you I never saw Quartz until today).

Sparkle reminds me a lot of the popular widget enabler, Samurize. It has an environment where designers can visually create their interfaces without having to write any code.  The two are very similar in concept.

The significance of being able to have designers create their interfaces directly as part of the project can't be discounted.  Stardock first began using DesktopX to enable its graphics designers to create the interfaces in its games with 2004's The Political Machine.  It is currently being used in Galactic Civilizations II.  Both games read in DesktopX packages (.dxpacks) and then uses them in the game (powered by Direct3D).  This way, if a designer wants to make a tweak, they can without having to write code or talk to a developer.

Sparkle does this on a much wider scale of course. Now all developers will be able to make use of this kind of thing which should translate into much nicer looking programs with interfaces and graphics done by designers rather than just developers.

Now pause here for a second and consider the ramifications for Windows customization / skinning.  If skinning software developers (ala Stardock) can develop programs that make use of these new technologies, it could bring in a whole new era of skinners.  Imagine having galleries that are designed for collaboration between developers and designers. 

Pretty exciting stuff!

Microsoft sprung a bit of a surprise to many of us today.  I knew a bit about Sparkle and and Acrylic. But today Microsoft announced the Expression Suite of development tools and from what I can see, they're killer.

Expression Suite is made up of three main applications:

Scoble mentioned to me that he thought Sparkle could be a Visual Studio killer.  I don't think he means it literally but what is special about Sparkle is that it takes a lot of the development effort away from Visual Studio and puts it into Sparkle in the form of the actual look and feel portions of the app (and apparently it can handle coding as well though I haven't played with it yet).

Microsoft says that Expression is designed to let designers and developers better work together. Designers can do their visual design of an application using tools of their choice and then developers, using Sparkle or Visual Studio, can work with those designs without spending hours cutting up bitmaps or trying to recreate a "mockup". 

This is actually very similar to how we use DesktopX at Stardock.  DesktopX creates .dxpacks (DX packages are just ZIP files with the XML and scripting in them - sound familiar?) that we then use in Visual Studio.net to create the interfaces in Galactic Civilizations II.   Sparkle, from what I could see, reminds me quite a bit of Samurize (one of the widget enabling programs).  It lets people dreate widgets in a design tool.  DesktopX doesn't have a devleopment app environment but rather turns the desktop into the app environment so it is quite different from Sparkle.

I was incredibly impressed with Sparkle along with where Microsoft seems to be going with it.  Microsoft is looking to turn XAML into a universal format for applications (or at least, that's how I took it).  I think that's a terrific idea and lets developers concentrate on making good content development tools.

The night life of PDC is quite enjoyable. Picture a bunch of tech nerds being able to get together and talk shop without any spouse or significant other around to give them the "Would you QUIT talking about that stuff?" look.  I have pictures which I'll put up on the photo album soon enough.

Nate & Ed from Betanews, Mary Jo Foley from Microsoft-Watch, Robert Scoble, Scott from Tom's hardware, myself, and a few others had a good time talking shop at the press party.  I missed the PDC Underground party and while I did finally snag an invite to the very posh "Influencer's" party, I was too tired after the press party to get over there.

According to Scoble, tomorrow morning something very interesting about Virtual Earth will be announced.  Something very "newsworthy".  My prediction: Virtual Earth will be able to pinpoint where all my lost socks are (or the socks of whoever is logged in on it).  We'll see.

Microsoft has announced its intention to support gadgets in Windows Vista.  Windows Vista gadgets will be able to be incorporated into the Windows Vista side-bar (much as DesktopX gadgets can be incorporated into ObjectBar).

I've written an article that outlines the possible implications of Microsoft embracing gadgets (see below).

One of the things that has made Object Desktop so popular over the years is that users knew, with certainty that many of the concepts found in it would likely one day end up in the OS.  That's why its tag-line is "It's like running the next version of Windows -- today."  Whether that be ObjectZIP which preceded Microsoft's Compressed folders to the much better known example of WindowBlinds in which Windows XP came with a similar, though more basic, implementation.

Today at PDC, Microsoft announced "Microsoft Gadgets" on the same day Stardock opened DesktopGadgets.com for the public (the official announcement isn't until September 20th).  People had asked us what was DesktopX's future with Yahoo buying Konfabulator. Now people have their answer.  Like gadgets created by DesktopX Pro, Microsoft's gadgets can be put into a bar.  DesktopX's gadgets can sit on the desktop or be placed into an ObjectBar bar.  Microsoft's gadgets go into the Microsoft SideBar on Windows Vista.  DesktopX gadgets will also be able to go into Microsoft's sidebar too in the final version.

From reading the flame war over on Microsoft's Gadget blog, Mac zealots claim that Microsoft stole the whole thing from Apple.  They apparently forget that Apple was almost certainly "inspired" by Konfabulator.  And DesktopX has had user-created mini apps on the desktop since late 1999.  Of course, Mac zealots will point towards desktop accessories as some sort of "see, Apple did it first".  But desktop accessories are so divorced from the modern widget/gadget concept as to be nonsensical.  What makes widgets (and gadgets) interesting is that they can be created by end users who have little to know programming knowledge.  My 8 year old son has a DesktopX widget he made on his home page.  It's pretty unlikely that 8 year olds were cranking out desktop accessories.

Of course, the real question isn't whether Microsoft "stole" the idea from Apple or whether they were inspired by DesktopX (they certainly know about both). The question is what is Microsoft's plans with it and how will it affect Stardock's gadget strategy?

The short answer is - not much.  Gadgets can't -by definition- compete against one another because they are stand-alone entities. They don't require the user to download some sort of run-time (ala Konfabulator, DesktopX standard, Kapsules, etc.). Dashboard widgets are still widgets in that the key code is not in the widget but resides as part of the OS (i.e. they bundled the run-time) but that's really just a semantically difference.  The point being, few end users care whether their program was compiled with a Microsoft compiler or a Borland one.  Similarly, they won't likely care whether their gadget was made with DesktopX Pro or Visual Studio 2005.  When Windows Vista ships, there will simply be gadgets and DesktopX Pro will be, we plan, the best way to create them.

The real winner in the announcement will be DesktopGadgets.com since it can be expanded to support Microsoft gadgets as well.  With Microsoft supporting the gadget concept, it really opens the door for more developers to get into gadget making.  How Microsoft's embrace of gadgets will affect Yahoo who recently acquired Konfabulator remains unknown.

The Monad demo was just incredible. When most people think of command prompts, they think of navigating file systems and the like.  But Monad is more abstract than that.

During the demo, the Microsoft presenter was able to navigate through the registry as if it were a common directory.  He was able to do the same with databases.  Combine that with its scripting abilities and you are able to prototype all kinds of useful functionality.

Monad is the name for Microsoft's next generation command shell.  Microsoft is creating it to help tie in various islands of scripting available in Microsoft's products.  The Monad team says they were inspired by Unix shells, AS400 and VMS, TCL/WSH, and BASH & PERL.

Command line utilities, COM, and .NET scripting all put together.  So while Microsoft is trying to beautify the Windows graphical experience, Monad is designed to ensure that power users aren't left out in the cold.

Developers can write .NET interfaces and thin Cmdlets that can be accessed from the command line.  Cmdlets become command line tools.  It provides both an interactive shell along with support for any type of scripting style (command line, COM, .NET).

It's looking very impressive.  It should (in theory) have the same kinds of strengths that Linux/Unix users have had for years but with access to Microsoft's latest techs (.NET) right from a command line.