Microsoft XAML:
http://www.xaml.net/
“XAML is a declarative XML-based language that defines objects and their properties in XML. XAML syntax focuses upon defining the UI (user interface) for the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and is therefore separate from the application code behind it.”
http://www.mikeswanson.com/xamlexport/
“Most professional designers are very familiar with Adobe’s venerable suite of tools, and a large percentage of them use Illustrator. So, I decided to spend some time investigating what it would take to build a plug-in for Adobe Illustrator that exports to XAML.”
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/default01.aspx
“Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of Microsoft .NET–based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.”
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Adobe MXML:
MXML
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/paradigm.html
&
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MXML
“MXML is used mainly to declaratively lay-out the interface of applications, and can also be used to implement complex business logic and rich internet application behaviors. Common practices are employed in the language syntax, such as the use of curly braces ({) to force the computer to evaluate an expression, and dot notation to ‘drill-down’ through an object.”
A desktop RI:
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo
“Apollo is a cross-OS runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop RIA’s.”
Adobe announces Open Source Flex:
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex:Open_Source
“Adobe is announcing plans to open source Flex under the Mozilla Public License (MPL). This includes not only the source to the ActionScript components from the Flex SDK, which have been available in source code form with the SDK since Flex 2 was released, but also includes the Java source code for the ActionScript and MXML compilers, the ActionScript debugger and the core ActionScript libraries from the SDK. The Flex SDK includes all of the components needed to create Flex applications that run in any browser – on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux and on now on the desktop using “Apollo”.”
Other than FlexBuilder ($~600) tool:
Flex on Mac with TextMate
http://blog.danielparnell.com/?p=22
“I’ve been having a bit of a play with Adobe’s Flex 2 command line compiler. After doing a quick search around the net I found a couple of hints for using it with TextMate. Unfortunately none of them did quite what I wanted, so I built my own. Hopefully it will be useful for others ”
“FLEXible is a lightweight Open Source Flex 2 MXML design studio. It is not a replacement for Adobe’s Flex Builder 2 Flash Application Studio, but instead is a lightweight tool that allows easy development of Flex 2 application and allows you to dive into Flex at a affordable price. Once you are sold on Flex 2 and consider yourself a “Flex Guru” we suggest you look at the Adobe Flex Builder 2. We have, FLEXible is built using Adobe Flex Builder 2.0.”
