Archive for April, 2009

BizSpark Reminder

Tagged as News

Just a quick post to remind folks that Mindscape is a BizSpark partner which means we’re able to sign up start ups to be part of the BizSpark program. We announced when we became partners of the program a while ago but thought it might be helpful for folks who have only recently started following our blog, or if a developer has moved to a startup, to mention it again.

So, if you meet the following criteria please email us and we can get you signed up:

• Under $1m per annum revenue
• Less than 3 years in business
• Building software products (not a services business)

To learn more about BizSpark please visit the BizSpark website and once you’re ready to join, let us know.

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Posted by John-Daniel Trask on 26 April 2009

WPF Coverflow control released

Tagged as WPF, WPF Elements

I’m pleased to announce that we have just released a control that allows WPF developers to create a coverflow effect similar to what is available in iTunes.

Here’s a screenshot of the control in action:

So what can I do with it?

The control is very configurable and at a high level allows you to:

• Configure the size of the covers
• Alter the size or existence of the reflections
• Completely customise the look and feel of the covers with standard WPF styling techniques
• Alter the spacing between covers
• Alter the tilt of the covers

The control also works with all standard WPF capabilities – for example, binding to an ItemsSource property for the collection of covers. One other very cool feature is controlling what’s displayed on the cover – it can be any UIElement meaning you can host a video, image, other controls, whatever you want really!

How do I get it?

Here’s the great news – all customers of Mindscape WPF Elements already have it! We baked it into the nightly builds once it was polished and ready for release. If you’re a customer you can get it right now by clicking here.

If you’re not a customer but would like to test out the WPF Coverflow control, download the free trial of WPF Elements here (note, you must use the latest nightly, we will be bundling this into a final release version soon).

You can also see the WPF Coverflow control in action live within your browser by clicking here (requires .NET Framework 3.0 SP1 installed for XBAP support).

Let us know what you think!

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Posted by John-Daniel Trask on 24 April 2009

Should I purchase LightSpeed now?

Tagged as LightSpeed

This question has been coming up fairly frequently recently since we’ve started talking about LightSpeed 3.0. The answer is strong yes.

There are two key reasons for this:

• LightSpeed 2.2 nightly builds include some of the enhancements that are coming for LightSpeed 3.0. These primarily are related to the LightSpeed Designer but it does mean users are getting some of the features already. This is nothing new, we always supply feature enhancements in nightly builds but does mean you’re getting some of the benefits already.
• We will review licensing and pricing with LightSpeed 3.0 and if it changes the pricing will be increasing, not decreasing. We love our customers for having faith in us and the tools we provide. Because of this we will be providing free upgrades to 3.0 to customers who have purchased LightSpeed this year (or who have LightSpeed Enterprise for under 12 months as it includes priority support options).

Purchasing LightSpeed currently means you will get a free upgrade but also will likely save money on the purchase price of LightSpeed 3.0. Grab your copy of LightSpeed now :-)

If you have any further queries about LightSpeed 3.0 please leave a comment.

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Posted by John-Daniel Trask on 22 April 2009

Mindscape on twitter

Tagged as News

Just a quick blog post to those of you who use twitter – you can now follow us here: http://www.twitter.com/MindscapeHQ.

We push out updates via twitter about things we’re up to, new products and generally like to use it to solicit feedback about some of our plans. We’re still working out exactly how twitter can work for a small organisation like ours for connecting with our audience better so let us know what you’d like to see :-)

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Posted by John-Daniel Trask on 21 April 2009

WPF Star Diagrams released!

Tagged as News, Products, WPF Diagramming

I’m proud to announce that we have now released the WPF Star Diagrams control which is the next installation in our WPF Diagramming product line.

WPF Star Diagrams includes all the foundational bits that you would expect – customisable nodes, multiple zooming options, connection and node interactivity, read only mode if desired, export to PNG, JPEG etc, printing supported and much much more. In this post we’ll cover a particularly interesting new feature that makes creating stunning star diagrams with WPF incredibly easy.

Automatic Layout support

In WPF Star Diagrams, we have provided a couple of algorithms that when applied to a star diagram, can arrange all the nodes within a diagram in a tidy fashion. At the click of a button, you can view nicely arranged diagrams without fussing about positioning nodes manually. By applying such layout algorithms multiple times in quick succession, your diagrams come to life as all the nodes keep themselves suitably positioned even as you drag them around the screen. One of our layout algorithms can arrange the nodes of a diagram by spreading them out in all directions away from their root nodes. Another one will position all the nodes into a standard tree structure. If you need to, you can even invent your own layout algorithms.

Just like with WPF Flow Diagrams, the star diagrams framework is easily extended to suit all your needs for whatever diagrams you are looking to construct. Diagrams are easy to edit with changing the sizes and positions of nodes and easily creating, relocating and removing connections.

Visualising the solar system

In this video we demonstrate interacting with a star diagram that represents our solar system. This highlights some of the layout systems and is included in the free trial download if you would like to dig deeper yourself.

Feedback welcome

Click here to read more about the WPF StarDiagrams or download it now and play with the solar system sample.

If there is any thing that you are looking for in both WPF Flow Diagrams and Star Diagrams, then we would love to hear from you – leave a comment on this post :-)

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Posted by Jason on 17 April 2009