Flash and WPF – My thoughts so far
So as you probably know from my earlier posts, I am learning WPF since we are using it on some projects. I’ve been playing with it for about 3 weeks now and have come to some thoughts about its potential and whether it has the potential to “kill” Flash. Bear in mind that I’m very new to WPF, so I’m sure that there are a lot of pieces that I am still missing or confused on. The easiest way to do it is to just go through some common features and talk about how they stack up with each other.
Video Capabilities
Well on this one, Adobe has nothing to worry about. With Flash 8 and the new On2 codec, Flash has obliterated the competition when it comes to web video. Not only is the quality superb, but it’s now easy for anyone to add video to webpages and online applications. That coupled with the excellent Netstream API, which allows for 100% customization over the video experience, makes Flash the clear winner. WPF has some great potential when it comes to things like mapping video onto 3D surfaces, but that is going to get really old, really soon. The MediaElement class is pretty bare in comparison to the Actionscript video classes. There are probably other classes in the massive .NET library that allow for more control over video, but Microsoft needs to make them more accessible.
Audio Capabilities
Here is another area that Flash dominates. This is domination is only going to strengthen once the
1 | <a href="http://livedocs.macromedia.com/labs/1/flex20beta3/langref/flash/media/SoundMixer.html#computeSpectrum()">SoundMixer.computeSpectrum() </a> |
method hits the streets with Actionscript 3. Playing music is pretty much the same thing as playing video in WPF. The MediaElement class is very weak when it comes to audio control and doesn’t let you get access to any spectrum information to create audio-driven animations. I have found out that there are some DirectX APIs that allow you to do this kind of stuff, but it’s pretty heavy stuff that will keep it out of the hands of most interactive designers who only have intermediate programming skills. Again, props to Adobe on the new audio support. We’ve all been waiting for this! No more AE to Flash manual workflows.
3D Support
Here is another one-sided affair, but this one is owned by Microsoft. WPF has some truly amazing 3D capabilities, as seen in this North Face demo put together by Fluid. The 3D engine takes advantage of the graphics card through OpenGL. Whether these capabilities can be realized cross-platform is the real question here. But 3D support shouldn’t be shrugged off as eye candy because there are all kinds of applications for using 3D on the web. 3D data plotting and bar charts that update dynamically have a big impact compared to their 2D counterparts. The 3D support in WPF is excellent, and even better, it’s easy to use. Look for online 3D games in WPF to be a huge area. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Flash needs some level of 3D support in the future to stay on top. Just look at how many developers fake 3D in Flash everyday.
The Programming Environment
Well the good news for Flash developers is that C#, which is the language of choice for coding WPF, is very similar to Actionscript 2, and is even more similar to Actionscript 3. C# requires you to adhere to a more strict style of programming, but this will actually help you to become a better AS programmer. One major difference between the two apps is that WPF is actually closer to Flex than to Flash. WPF applications are created using XAML, which is an XML-based markup language similar to the MXML that’s inside Flex. You then use C# as your code-behind language to handle events or to create custom interactions. You can build your whole app entirely in C# without touching XAML, which leads to some confusion about what should be done with what. Coming from Actionscript, I have felt much more comfortable coding in C# and not touching XAML unless I absolutely have to. I guess this comes from the fact that there is a lot of stuff in Flash that we have to code from scratch. Basically, if you are a competent AS programmer, then you’ll have no problems programming WPF.
Data Binding
This is one are where WPF and the Expression IDE are clearly on the right track. You can choose any property on any object and bind it to another property, all without any code. There’s no need for onEnterFrames or intervals to update the value of something. Integrating XML and other outside data sources is ridiculously easy in WPF. You can build an RSS reader in a couple of minutes. Again this is similar to the Flex environment in a lot of ways. But I would love to see Flash get this type of stuff in the future. No more having to publish the SWF to see my data! So to sum up this area, WPF clobbers Flash but is about even with Flex.
Team Workflows
One of things that Microsoft has been bragging about is how the UI, visual design, and developers on a project can all work on the same file and pass it back and forth. This sounds nice in theory, but I have to question if it’s such a good idea or not. If you have a team of wizards who are good at both design and coding, then I think it would be great. But it’s been my experience that it is hard to teach designers how to code, and equally as hard to teach geeks to design. So I think this one really depends on the situation. It could be an amazing experience or a logistical nightmare. Code is very fragile in the wrong hands and this has firedrill written all over it.
Developer Tools
So it’s not really fair to judge this are yet since WPF and the Expression IDE are still in beta. But I will say that Flash 8 made HUGE improvements to the IDE, fixing lots of little annoyances that we’ve been living with for years. The Expression IDE is pretty bad in my opinion. Microsoft makes a big deal that the IDE was actually built in WPF, the whole “we built the tool with the tool” thing. In my opinion, this is exactly what is wrong with it. Personally I’d never want the Flash IDE to be made in Flash. I want the crisp fonts and the consistent interface that I am used to when using Windows. Leave the anti-aliased text for Mac users. Microsoft needs to do some MAJOR work to this tool and I’m sure they are doing so as we speak. You know it’s bad when the Flash IDE is far superior to it! As for coding I would recommend doing it all in Visual Studio C#, which is available for free. This is an awesome code editor that has many advanced features.
Cross-Platform Support
This is the biggie! Can Microsoft make WPF a cross-platform reality? If they do then Adobe could be in for a war. If they don’t, then WPF will be left for application development and won’t ever take off on the web. Microsoft already has a Firefox plugin that they have shown at demos so this is definitely their goal. Also since XAML is XML-based, there should be a slew of tools that come out for Mac users. But this is all still speculation at this point. This is the single biggest factor that will determine the future of the interactive web. Expect some major wars in the future!
Communities and Support
I know of no other community that is as open and cool as the Flash community. It just has something that no other community has and I can’t even put my finger on what it is. We openly exchange code and help each other out without asking for anything in return. Above all that, I think that the Flash community is home to the brightest group of people I have ever seen. The originality and style that I see everyday when I look at MXNA or FWA is something that never ceases to amaze me. Microsoft has a long way to go if they want to foster this kind of community. But I have to say that I am really impressed with the WPF team and the way they are dealing with developers. Basically there are cool people at both companies whose only goal is to make really great software for us. I for one never subscribed to the “Microsoft is evil” way of thinking. When I worked at Stanford I was working on international health stuff and was amazed at how much the Gates Foundation is doing throughout the world. They are literally saving millions of lives and are changing the world through their efforts. And this is way beyond what they have to do for PR purposes. So I just look at the technologies with blinders on, as best I can that is. What can I say, I love Adobe 
These are just my thoughts after 3 weeks on WPF. I love working with it and it has been great to learn a new programming language. It’s still way too early to know how, if, or when it will compete with Flash down the road. But if you are an interactive designer, you will very likely have to use it someday soon. Give it a try!
Lee
The Flash Blog on WPF
I just had a really fun conversation with Brad Becker who some of you might be familiar with from his time at Adobe. He’s now the Senior Product Manager for Expression at Microsoft and he has some great insig
Thanks for posting these types of posts. They are extremely valuable to the Flash & Flex community, ecspecially given your background and covering all 3 technologies (well… 6 if you want to get technical).
First off, if you have time, see if you can find out of any of the DirectX API’s will be suppoted in WPF/E (not WPF). If they could get the ones I used 4 years ago on the web player, that’d be sick. They were slow in VB, but I bet they’d be faster nowadays.
Second, that’s whack you don’t dig the IDE. You’ve probably spent way more time in it than I did to be fair. Still, I thought it was really cool, and actually enjoyed the scalability of it’s vector nature. The only issues I had were that the timeline had light years to go… it didn’t hold a candle to Flash’ or After Effects; I was hoping for more of the later considering it’s swath of supported media types.
Third, I can’t find the article, but I thought JD quoted Microsoft as saying that WPF/E would be cross-platform (PC / MC), cross-browser but wouldn’t have any of the hardcore scripting capabilities that WPF did. Meaning, it wasn’t meant as a runtime engine like Flash Player is, but rather, more of a rich media engine (aka 3D on the web). Is still the case? Upon reading JD’s quotes, I just assumed that WPF was a pimp version of .NET that we’d all love, but WFP/E was, frankly pathetic… be nice to get some clarity on that point, although, I realize it’s still early in the game.
Thanks again, and keep posting these!
The below is based on what I know about WPF, and WPF/E of which I have used neither, but seen all the videos on Channel 9.
WPF/E is a very broken down version of WPF (no 3D) among a slew of other things. WPF is to go head on with Apollo WFP/E is head on with Flex. I really would not compare WPF to Flex at all, It’s destined for the desktop only. However WPF/E is a small runtime similar to the flash runtime weighing in at about 2mb with a very small subset of WPF core functionality (no 3d). WPF is not multiplatform nor does it function in a browser (AFAIK it’s MS only, and can not be considered a Rich Internet technology). WPF/E does work in Firefox and is cross OS, but again no better then Flex as most of the fancy eye candy that uses GL is not included.
That said I think that flex is the solid choice. why?
Adoption, designers are used to Adobe/Macromedia products, and are hard pressed to change. The Idea behind Rich Internet Application has more to do with design then code so when choices are made it won’t be the programmers choice. Flex can talk to .net (WebOrb, Florian) on the backend where most of the hard core coding is done, the client side is “primarily” User interaction which falls it into the design space.
Good article.
Jason
Nice article. I spend most of my time developing in Flex 2, but have played around with WPF/Expression. I also spent a great deal of time with Director developing 3D games.
My observations / random thoughts are:
- XAML is much more “fine grained” than MXML. C# is implemented in the typical MS “code behind” strategy (i.e. the code is not inline with the XML like in Flex). The XAML produced by the IDE is almost unmodifiable because it is so complex. I prefer the abstraction level of MXML personally.
- WPF seems to run like a dog unless you have a 3D card and a decent computer. I assumed it was rendering everything through Direct3D (not OpenGL) which would explain the performance lag for non-3D machines. Flex renders through the CPU and seems to run extremely well. I saw this as a major drawback with WPF development (i.e. it will take a while for hardware to catch up with it).
- I like WPF as a concept, but I would prefer something that ran well on all browsers/platforms (aka Flash) with the 3D capability of WPF. Since WPF/E doesn’t include 3D it’s not really going to distinguish itself from Flex/Flash. I was hoping that Adobe might consider porting the Director 3D engine over to Flash, and even making Flash hardware accelerated by rendering it entirely through OpenGL. Director 3D was a great little engine, though is now showing its age (no shader support etc).
Dreams are free…
@Data Binding-Topic
whats about adobe Flex, which includs the databinding mechnaism….