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Six Microsoft Web Developer Tools You Might Not Know About
by Darryl Taft
Gestalt is a library released by
MIX Online Labs that allows you to write Ruby, Python & XAML code in your (X)HTML pages. According to the site, "It enables you to build richer and more powerful Web applications by marrying the benefits of expressive languages, modern compilers, AJAX & RIAs with the write-save-refresh development model of the Web." This is one of a set of samples that loads 100K-to-3MB XAML illustrations that were exported from Illustrator.
http://visitmix.com/labs/gestalt/samples/big.xaml/big.xaml.crystal.html
"Glimmer enables users to easily create interactive elements on their Web pages by harnessing the power of the
jQuery library," according to Microsoft. Without having to handcraft your JavaScript code, you can use Glimmer’s wizards to generate jQuery scripts for common interactive scenarios. Glimmer also has an advanced mode, providing a design surface for creating jQuery effects based on your existing HTML and CSS.
This is an example of a rotating banner/image sequence wizard from Glimmer.
http://visitmix.com/labs/glimmer/samples/sequence.html
The Archivist is a Windows application that runs on your local system and allows you to archive Twitter tweets for later data mining and analysis for a given search. The Archivist allows you to start a search and will get as many results as it can on the initial search. If you leave The Archivist open, it will update with the latest results every 10 minutes.
http://www.flotzam.com/archivist/
Oxite is an open-source, standards-compliant and highly extensible content management platform that can run anything from blogs to big Websites. It runs MIX Online.
http://visitmix.com/Lab/oxite
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Microsoft's MIX Online is a community for Web designers and developers who build and believe in the innovative Web. The stated goal of the MIX Online Website is to offer insightful articles that are relevant to the scenarios you want to design and develop for the Web; provide freely downloadable, open-source and immediately usable prototypes with no strings attached; encourage user contribution and ongoing dialogue; share ideas; and think about scenarios and users first, technology second. The MIX Online community came out of Microsoft's Mix Web developer/designer conference, where Microsoft has showcased technologies such as its Silverlight and Expression platforms. Microsoft held its fourth Mix conference in Las Vegas in March.