Saturday, December 16, 2006 - Posts
If you build DirectX applications or serious games using DirectX and want to use the benefits of the .NET Framework, then XNA is the way to go.
The XNA Framework is a class library built upon the .NET Framework 2.0. Right now only the Express Edition of the Developer IDE is available. XNA can target Windows as well as XBox.
(Note: the previous Managed DirectX class library was depricated by Microsoft.)
- Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express 1.0
XNA Game Studio Express enables hobbyists, academics, and small, independent game developers to easily create video games for Windows and the Xbox 360 console. Requires an Express Edition of Visual Studio. - Microsoft XNA Framework Redistributable 1.0
The XNA Framework Redistributable provides game developers with the XNA Framework runtime libraries that they can include with their product for redistribution on Windows XP.
As Tim Sneath puts it [1], the WPF team made a very special announcement in their WPF3D Team Blog [2] and released the 3D Tools for the Windows Presentation Foundation [3] as a free, open-source download on CodePlex.
These tools allow you to create WPF applications with 3D user interfaces - where you can use the well-known controls like sliders, text boxes, etc. and hit testing, hovering etc. just works!
Hopefully people we will not get the same effect which appeared after the first version of Visual Basic where all buttons got pink just because all of a sudden it was extremly easy to specifiy a color for it...
So use the new feature set wisely and in a decent manner!
[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2006/12/13/new-in-wpf-build-a-true-3d-application.aspx
[2] http://blogs.msdn.com/wpf3d/archive/2006/12/12/interacting-with-2d-on-3d-in-wpf.aspx
[3] http://www.codeplex.com/3DTools
Noah Coad [1] posted some new Vista keyboard shortcuts [2]:
New Vista Commands
- ALT + Up Arrow
Move up a folder (to the parent folder) - ALT + Left Arrow
Move back in history - ALT + Right Arrow
Move forward in history - Backspace
Move back in history
(was move up a folder in WinXP) - CTRL+N
Open new explorer (a file must be selected) - ALT+Drag&Drop
Link to item (creates a shortcut)
More Vista-specific shortcuts can also be found at [3].
[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/noahc/default.aspx
[2] http://blogs.msdn.com/noahc/archive/2006/11/14/vista-keyboard-shortcuts-for-windows-explorer.aspx
[3] http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/2503b91d-d780-4c80-8f08-2f48878dc5661033.mspx
Well, I guess we all knew it somehow that we waste time when working on more than one project. Jeff Atwood has the proove and some interesting figures on his blog [1].
[1] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000691.html