Actually, from left to right, it’s me, Ward Bell of IdeaBlade and Microsoft’s Glenn Block, whom John Bristowe and I interviewed in the most recent Ignite Your Coding webcast. Ward and Glenn have forgotten more about building composite apps than I will ever learn. If you attended the “Building Composite Applications with WPF and Silverlight” session in my track at TechDays Canada 2009, you saw what was essentially Ward’s presentation; he’s the only reason I know anything about Prism.
Ever since joining The Empire, I’ve been saying that Windows Mobile needs to go back to the drawing board. While there was good technology lying in its innards – mobile versions of the .NET framework, SQL Server and Office – treating the mobile form factor as “the desktop, but much, much smaller”, was the wrong approach. In the meantime, the Esteemed Competition were doing the right thing: designing their phones’ OS features and interface from the ground up rather than attempting to force-fit the desktop UI into a pocket UI.
Over at Channel 9, Laura Foy has posted her interview with Joe Belfiore, VP Windows Phone 7 Program Management, who gave her a walkthrough of the goodies in Windows Phone (the video is 22 minutes, 18 seconds):
Some quick notes from the video:
There are three mandatory hardware buttons, which are context-sensitive:
Back
Windows (the “Start” button)
Search
The screen is a capacitive touch-screen, capable of supporting multi-touch
The Start menu is built up of tiles: little block representing the information and features that you care most about
You can add your own custom tiles; Joe shows a “me” tile linked to his Facebook profile
A browser with:
Snappy performance
Support for multitouch actions such as pinch zoom, double-tap to zoom and finger drag
Very readable text, that to sub-pixel positioning in HTML
Phone number recognition in HTML documents; touch them to dial them
Street address recognition in HTML documents; touch them to get a map
Multiple tabs
The “People Hub”
Aggregates Exchange, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and other mail contacts
Provides a live feed of your contacts
Context-sensitive search:
Press the “Search” button while in the People Hub, and you search your people list
Press the “Search” button while in the Start menu, and it runs a web search
Based on your query, it knows whether to give you a web search result or a local search result
In the demo, Joe does a search for pizza and gets a map and results for pizzerias near him, and a quick pan over to adjacent pages yield directions and reviews
A tap on “nearby” yield the locations of useful things like parking, ATMs and so on near the selected pizzeria
In another demo search, Joe does a search for “Avatar” and it returns a list of nearby theatres and times for the movie Avatar; a quick pan to an adjacent page yields the results for local business and places with “Avatar” in the name
Email:
Easy pivoting between unread, flagged and urgent emails
A caching system prevents you from seeing the dreaded “loading” screen
Press “Search” within email and you perform a search of your email messages, by subject, text and so on
Rotation: you can operate the phone in “portrait” or “landscape” mode
Calendar:
Support for both work and personal calendars
ActiveSync works in the background and keeps the phone synced with email, contacts and calendar
User-customizable UI colour schemes
The “Pictures Hub”
Gallery: Lets you browse all the pictures on your phone
Mosaic: Recent and favourite pictures
What’s New: New photos from your social networks
Camera roll: A folder for photos taken with your phone
Support for photo albums from Facebook and Windows Live, which you browse as if they lived right on your phone
Music and Video
History: Most recently played music and videos
New: New music and videos added since the last sync
Zune HD-style marketplace searching and support for Zune subscriptions with unlimited music plays
The “Me” tile
Lets you update your status on places like Facebook
Nice little typing features like auto-spelling-correction and a special soft keyboard for emoticons
The UI concept: Windows Phone is task-centric, not app-centric, with a hub associated with each: people, photos, media
There’s also a games hub, which ties into Xbox Live
Third-party applications and games? Wait…
Wait a Minute…What About Third-Party Apps and Games?
Can you wait a month?
Here’s the deal: the announcement at Mobile World Congress was about showing what Windows Phone can do. As for what’s possible on the developer front, it’ll all be announced at the MIX10 Conference, which takes place from March 15th through 17th in Las Vegas.
You can save $200 off the price of MIX10 registration if you register before February 21st, so if you want to get in on the ground floor with Windows Phone and save some money, register now!
What the Tech Press is Saying
Pretty good stuff, actually. Rather than bury you with links to a zillion blog entries filed from Mobile World Congress, I thought I’d pick two of the big tech blogs, Gizmodo and Engadget:
It’s different. The face of Windows Phone 7 is not a rectangular grid of thumbnail-sized glossy-looking icons, arranged in a pattern of 4×4 or so, like basically every other phone. No, instead, an oversized set of bright, superflat squares fill the screen. The pop of the primary colors and exaggerated flatness produces a kind of cutting-edge crispness that feels both incredibly modern and playful. Text is big, and beautiful. The result is a feat no phone has performed before: Making the iPhone’s interface feel staid.
If you want to know what it feels like, the Zune HD provides a taste: Interface elements that run off the screen; beautiful, oversized text and graphics; flipping, panning, scrolling, zooming from screen to screen; broken hearts. Some people might think it’s gratuitous, but I think it feels natural and just…fun. There’s an incredible sense of joie de vivre that’s just not in any other phone. It makes you wish that this was aesthetic direction all of Microsoft was going in.
The design and layout of 7 Series’ UI (internally called Metro) is really quite original, utilizing what one of the designers (Albert Shum, formerly of Nike) calls an "authentically digital" and "chromeless" experience. What does that mean? Well we can tell you what it doesn’t mean — no shaded icons, no faux 3D or drop shadows, no busy backgrounds (no backgrounds at all), and very little visual flair besides clean typography and transition animations. The whole look is strangely reminiscent of a terminal display (maybe Microsoft is recalling its DOS roots here) — almost Tron-like in its primary color simplicity. To us, it’s rather exciting. This OS looks nothing like anything else on the market, and we think that’s to its advantage. Admittedly, we could stand for a little more information available within single views, and we have yet to see how the phone will handle things like notifications, but the design of the interface is definitely in a class of its own.
Today is all about virtual meetings; I’m spending most of it sitting at the home office with a headset microphone clamped to my head, bouncing from one online meeting to another, magically transporting my presence over great distances. My co-worker John Bristowe is in the same boat and quipped on Twitter: “I feel like I’m playing Live MeetingPortal”.
With that remark, and since it’s a Friday, I can’t help but post this amusing cat photo featuring Portal:
Last week, I presented Kodu (pronounced “Code-ooh”) to a group of teachers and high school students at Corpus Christi Catholic Secondary School. Kodu is a system created by Microsoft Research for programming videogames without using a traditional programming language; instead, you use a combination of menus and visual programming. It was designed to be a gentle introduction to programming that would appeal to children, but many adults – myself included – have ended up getting drawn into it, spending hours constructing and tweaking game worlds.
Kodu’s a little tricky to describe – it’s one of those things that’s much easier to show rather than tell. Here are a couple of videos that should give you a bit of Kodu’s flavour. First, here’s IGN’s look at Kodu:
Kodu was designed to be programmed with the Xbox 360 gamepad, which you can use if you’re programming it on the Xbox 360 or a computer (if you’re using a computer, you’ll need either a wired Xbox gamepad plugged into one of its USB ports or a USB adapter for your wireless Xbox gamepad). If you’re using Kodu on a computer, you have the additional option of using the keyboard and mouse.
This is the first of a series of articles on Kodu programming that will appear here from time to time. If you’ve got kids (or know some) who are curious about programming, or if you’re looking to try a completely different kind of programming, get Kodu on your Xbox or PC and give it a try!
In this first installment, I’ll show you how you can build a simple little program that lets you drive an avatar around a small world. In later installments, I’ll show you more game-like elements and the “code” for a game of mine called “Stupid Sparkling Vampire Game”.
Touring Teran00bia
In addition to a programming “language”, Kodu provides you with tools for editing the worlds in which your games take place. I often start with a simple, no-fuss world that I created called “Teran00bia”. It’s a small, flat square world suitable for experimentation. If you have the Windows version of Kodu, you can download Teran00bia here. I can also share the Xbox 360 version, but you have to “friend” me on Xbox Live first – my gamertag is “Accordion Guy”.
Teran00bia is a blank slate, a world with nothing in it. Here’s what it looks like when you load it:
In this exercise, we want to stick a single character – Kodu – into the world and allow the player to drive him around using the controller’s left stick.
To start programming, get into Edit Mode. Press the “Back” button on the gamepad to switch to Edit Mode. Your screen should now look like this:
In Edit Mode, the left thumbstick moves your “cursor” (the purple “donut”) around the world, while the right thumbstick changes your camera angle. You use the left bumper (that’s the button just above the left trigger) to zoom out and the right bumper (the button above the right trigger) to zoom in. The screenshot below shows a zoomed-in view of Teran00bia:
The floating icons near the bottom of the screen make up Kodu’s menu. You use the left and right triggers to scroll through the menu and the A button to select a menu item.
Select the Object Tool from the menu. It’s the second menu item from the left, and its icon is Kodu, who looks sort of like a blue fish with an antenna. When you select the tool, the Kodu menu disappears and you’re now using the object tool, as shown below:
The Object Tool lets you add items to the world or edit any existing ones. There aren’t any items in the world at the moment, so let’s add one. Use the left thumbstick to move the cursor to the spot where you want to place an object, then press the A button. The following menu will appear:
This menu lists the items available to you. Starting at the top and going clockwise, the items in the menu are:
Kodu (the game system’s mascot, who can be used as either a player character or a non-player character)
Apple (useful as a health power-up, but nothing stops you from making them poisonous or explosive)
Bots 1 (a set of characters that can be used either as player characters or non-player characters)
Bots 2 (more characters that can be used either as players characters or non-player characters)
Objects (things that characters in the game can interact with, such as rocks, coins, castles and factories)
Tree (another object that characters in the game can interact with – I have no idea why trees weren’t part of the set of Objects)
Path (lets you draw paths which Kodu and the other bots can follow)
Use the left thumbstick to select Kodu from the menu, then press the A button to confirm the selection. A Kodu will appear:
You can move Kodu around by pressing the A button to select him, using the left thumbstick to pick a new location and then pressing the A button to drop him there.
What we want to do is program Kodu to move in response to the left thumbstick, as is the convention for most Xbox 360 games. While Kodu is selected, press the Y button. The screen should look like this:
Every programmable object in the Kodu game system has a set of behaviours, each one having two parts:
When, which describes the event that the object will respond to
Do, which describes what the object will do in response to the event
The behaviours are numbered starting at 1 and are listed in order of descending priority – that is, behaviour 1 has first priority, followed by behaviour 2, then behaviour 3, and so on.
Your programming “cursor” is the pencil. Move the pencil over the “+” in the “When” part of behaviour 1 and press the A button. You’ll see a menu pop up:
This menu lists the events to which Kodu can react. For now, we’re concerned with making him respond to the left thumbstick, which is part of the gamepad. Select “Gamepad” from the menu with the left thumbstick, then press the A button to confirm the selection. The menu will vanish and you’ll see that a “Gamepad” tile has been added to the “When” part of behaviour 1:
We need to specify which gamepad control Kodu should respond to. Make sure the pencil is over the “+” of the “When” part of behaviour 1, then press the A button. A menu containing various controls on the gamepad will appear:
Use the left thumbstick to select “L stick”, then press the A button. The menu will disappear and you’ll see that the “When” part of behaviour 1 has two tiles: “Gamepad” and “L Stick”:
We’ve just described an event that Kodu should respond to. Now it’s time to describe the response. Move the pencil over the “+” of the “Do” part of behaviour 1 and press the A button. A new menu will appear:
This menu lists responses to events. In this case, we want Kodu to move where the player tells him to move, which is specified by the left thumbstick. Select “Move” from the menu with the left thumbstick, then press A to confirm the selection. The menu will vanish, and you’ll see that a “Move” tile has been added to the “Do” part of behaviour 1:
We’ve now completely defined a single behaviour for Kodu: “When the player moves the left thumbstick, move in that direction”. It’s time to take our (admittedly simple) game for a spin.
Press the Back button to stop programming Kodu. You’ll now be in the Object Tool. Press the Back button again to return to Edit Mode, where Kodu’s main programming menu will become available. Use the left trigger to select Play Mode and press A to confirm the selection.
The program will start with the intro screen. Press A to dismiss the intro screen.
You’ll now be in the game world. Use the left thumbstick to move Kodu around:
Kodu moves, but he’s not so fast. Let’s look at a way to speed him up a little. Press the Back button to exit the program and return to Edit Mode. Use the triggers to select the Object Tool from the menu, then press the A button to confirm the selection.
Move the cursor under Kodu so that he’s selected:
Press the Y button to program Kodu. You’ll be return to his set of behaviours:
Move the pencil over the “+” of the “Do” part of behaviour 1, the press the A button. A menu will appear:
The menu will contain modifiers for the “Move” response. Select “Quickly” from the menu using the left thumbstick, then press the A button. The menu will disappear and you’ll see a “Quickly” tile has been added to the “Do” part of behaviour 1:
To make Kodu move even faster, you can add another “Quickly”:
…in fact, you can add up to three “Quickly” tiles to push Kodu to his maximum speed:
Play Around
I could cover more Kodu features, but you should use it the way it was meant to be used – experiment! Try adding other objects to the world and adding behaviours to them. Take a look at the programming behind the worlds that were provided with the Kodu game system (be sure to check out “Left 4 Kodu Classic”, a cute Kodu version of the zombie thriller game Left 4 Dead).
I love this “Drew”-style poster featuring the cast of Mythbusters:
If you’ve been to the movies sometime within the past 30 years, you’ve probably seen a poster by Drew. You can see a catalogue of his posters that were released here; there’s also a page of his “posters that never were”.
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It could be turning into a meme! Hot on the heels of my How Fanboys See Operating Systems post, which got a good deal of attention on Reddit and other link-sharing sites came Ruby Inside’s How Programming Language Fanboys See Each Other’s Languages, and now there’s How Microsoft Language Fanboys See Each Other’s Languages…
The guys at Ruby Inside have taken the idea of from the graphic in my How Fanboys See Operating Systems article and run with it in a post titled How Programming Language Fanboys See Each Others’ Languages:
I’m not sure what’s going in the square depicting how C fanboys see Java…
When we got to Napanee, it was time to fuel up both the car and ourselves, and we did both at the Flying J Truck Stop. We thought that it would be a nice change from the usual fast food joints: a real-life honest-to-goodness place that catered to truckers, without whom our stores, from the [...]
As a Developer Evangelist, it’s my job to make sure that programmers are inspired to build software. In the pursuit of that goal, I’ve the picture below as the last slide in my presentations at TechDays and Career Demo Camp. I’ve had a number of requests for the image, so I’m sharing it below:
Click [...]
My friend (and former officemate!) Cory Doctorow is launching his latest novel, Makers, tonight at the Toronto Public Library at 239 College Street (east of Spadina). The fun happens in the Merrill Collection room, located on the third floor at 7 p.m. tonight. Cory will be doing a reading, taking questions and signing books. [...]
![[ani] portal kitty](http://www.globalnerdy.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/aniportalkitty.gif "[ani] portal kitty")
