Flash (SWF) to WPF (XAML) converter

Micheal Swanson, Microsoft Technical Evangelist has put out a very useful tool which can convert Adobe Flash SWF files to XAML, the declarative UI language for WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). I belive that this tool will definitely ease and aid in adoption of WPF and also help developers understand XAML programming semantics and paradigm.

SWF File Format can be found here, in case you're interested.

ePaper

"The Hindu" - India's National Newspaper has released its ePaper, an online edition of its printed daily. I'm impressed by the simplicity and elegance of ePaper. Its infact a very innovative use of a simple technology -- map on image which brings to the user the feeling of reading "real" newspaper.


In my opinion from an implementation prespective, the scanned images of the printed paper (Digital Assets) must have been annotated with appropriate text links as metadata. The publishing system would have to pull and these together and publish them on the web. The PDF/Text option allows the user to choose his format of choice for viewing.

I installed Times Reader bulit on Windows Presentation Foundation (.NET 3.0) as a standalone application. There is no doubt that this also brings a user experience of reading the real newspaper. I would assume that this will be the future web version of NY Times as WPF-E (Everywhere) becomes available.

Update: Recently I stumbled upon provider of ePaper technology - PressMart