Microsoft’s Silverlight is a technology sorta kinda like a cross between Adobe’s AIR and Flash technologies. (Please excuse this very rough analogy — I invite the techno-experts in the crowd to correct me if they can.)
Anyway, two project leaders from Quark’s Emerging Technologies group sat down with Microsoft’s ISV Architect Evangelist for a video interview. (In Microsoft-speak, ISV stands for Independent Software Vendor.)
This very interesting 13-minute video interview with Kapil Tundwal and Mohan Dhandapani is full of programmer terminology, and I didn’t fully understand it, but it seems to indicate that Quark is experimenting with Silverlight as a possible way to deliver high fidelity, cross-platform, interactive something-or-other. They use the term “pixel pages”. Perhaps someone can fill me in on what that means…
(I found this patent related to pixel pages, but I still don’t understand what it is.)
For more info on Silverlight see Microsoft’s page here, www.silverlight.net.
This is their definition:
“Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows.”
On another page, www.microsoft.com/silverlight/default_ns.aspx, Microsoft defines it as this:
“Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.”
Whatever it is, Quark’s looking into it.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:46 am
Well, we know that QuarkXPress can make html’s (through export) since version 5 is released; in version 7 we can see already some Java, maybe in the future version 8 or 9 we’ll see also some Web 2.0 facilities for web designers who like to use Quark.
February 1st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Amen! Heck, I’d like to see more people use the existing XML and Flash capabilities in QuarkXPress and in Quark Interactive Designer (which is now included with QuarkXPress).
March 7th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Guys,
I was waiting for this to get released to lab. Check it out here: http://labs.quark.com/projectdetail.aspx?did=20
QuarkViewer is an XTensions module for QuarkXPress 7.3.x that allows users to export QuarkXPress layout pages for viewing in Microsoft Silverlight player. QuarkViewer may run as a pure desktop application or a Web application.
Our approach has been 1 click export. Behavior and user interface are pre-packaged and only relevant data (previews, vector info) is collected during export. Thus this is not meant for production workflow but another way to distrubute your artwork in a rich reading experience environment.
will be posting some samples very soon. Meanwhile please download the XTension software and provide feedback here: http://www.quark.com/service/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22264