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Xamlon, Inc. Releases Beta of Xamlon Pro, Flash Edition

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 January 2005, 09:00 CST

Developers Now Able to Build User Interfaces Using XAML, Write Application Logic in Their Programming Language of Choice and Publish Directly to Flash(TM)

Xamlon, Inc., the only complete XAML resource for developers, announced today the first beta release of its Xamlon Pro, Flash Edition. With this release, Xamlon allows Flash development that is easier, faster and more flexible than anything currently available. Now, programmers and markup developers around the globe will be able to write Flash applications in XAML, Microsoft's new XML-based markup language, using any .NET language for programming they choose rather than being limited to Macromedia's ActionScript.

The ability to easily program in Flash gives significant advantages to developers due to its ubiquity in today's development community. Flash (version six and higher) is installed on approximately 95 percent of all computers in North America and Europe, according to NPD Online. Flash also runs across the Web on almost every platform, including Windows, Mac, Linux and a growing number of PDAs and cell phones.

"The Xamlon Pro, Flash Edition, beta is opening the door to Flash development for an enormous community of previously excluded developers," said Paul Colton, CEO and founder of Xamlon, Inc. "Rather than being limited to a single, script-based programming language or a proprietary development environment, developers can publish to Flash using any .NET language they choose for backend logic while writing the user interface in a simple, Microsoft-promoted markup language. Developers can use any development environment they chose, even down to a simple text editor such as Notepad. That's a huge advantage for any developer interested in Flash."

According to Peter O'Kelly, senior analyst at Burton Group, "The next-generation of applications with richer user experiences will be built with new declarative, XML-based programming models such as Microsoft's XAML. Developers will benefit from the ability to use the new models with multiple client runtimes, rather than having exclusively tightly coupled alternatives such as Avalon/XAML from Microsoft and Flash/Flex/MXML from Macromedia. Xamlon is leading in the deployment of multi-client tools by adding Flash as an optional target for its XAML tools."

Using Xamlon for Flash applications, developers write the user interface in XAML, a declarative tag-based markup language, rather than using Flash MX, Macromedia's propriety development environment for Flash. Introduced by Microsoft in 2003 as the new user interface language for its next operating system, XAML allows developers to separate user interface code from application logic, providing better control over interface layout and drastically reducing development time. This two-tier development model allows developers to change the user interface without rewriting logic and event-handling code.

In addition to offering XAML for simplified development, the Xamlon Pro, Flash Edition, beta allows developers to program backend logic with any .NET language, including Visual Basic.NET, C#, C++, JScript and more. Although .NET languages are used for the application logic, the .NET runtime is not required; deployed applications only require the Flash runtime on the client. Additionally, user interfaces written with Xamlon can run with few or no changes on Windows and the .NET Framework, creating a very compelling solution for deploying the same code, both user interface and logic, either natively on Windows or via Flash.

The final release of Xamlon Pro, Flash Edition, is slated for March.

Xamlon, Inc.

Xamlon, Inc. is the only complete XAML resource for developers. From XAML literacy to development tools, Xamlon provides everything developers need to start using XAML today. The Xamlon engine enables developers to rapidly build and deploy applications now that will easily port to future versions of Windows. XAML separates interface design from application logic, allowing easier user-interface development. The result is feature-rich, forward-compatible applications in a fraction of the time. Headquartered in San Diego, Xamlon, Inc. was founded in 2003 by Paul Colton, creator of JRun. For more information or to purchase Xamlon Pro 1.0, please visit www.xamlon.com.

Source: Business Wire

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