Expression Studio 4 is out and I can’t tell how happy I am to see the version 4 finally released. I started out with version 3 then moved to version 4 beta recently. It wasn’t all happy and jolly to work with both versions of SketchFlow, but I think I built up some love/hate relationship over time. And I definitely became a friend with version 4.

I was introduced to Blend/SketchFlow at Mix10 last March and pretty impressed with what I saw. I am a big fan of wireframing and prototyping and it seemed like the perfect tool for the job. Now I think of it, I might have fallen for the marketing ploy of some sort (even if it might be in a very loose sense of it.) Mix10 is MS conference after all. What did I expect?

Even though I had a rough start, I quite like the SketchFlow now. But not in a “it’s so cool I can sell this” way, but more in “it’s growing on me” way. Here are some things I learned about SketchFlow and how I became a “friend” with it.

1. It is not wireframing tool or development tool. It’s somewhere in between.

I usually use Visio or Omnigraffle to do wireframes. Both needs some getting used to but at least it’s plain and simple what it does and what it doesn’t. The biggest issue I had with SketchFlow initially was that I thought it was some magical tool that sort of works like Visio or Omnigraffle but makes things interactive by adding bit more to it. And of course, I was very wrong. It was harder to set things up since all controls are mapped to either WPF or SilverLight controls. So you really should know how .NET controls work in a way, at least if you want to use it efficiently and methodically.

2. Do not expect to convert SketchFlow right into the development project.

Coming from developer perspective, I wanted to created something super useful and clean that other developers can take and start adding functionality to it to finish the project. When I tried to change the name of the file and noticed changing filenames does not change class references associated with it, I knew I misunderstood what the tool is about. This is prototyping tool and that’s it. Developers might be able to use portion of it but whole setup might be off the mark for them. For instance, I did few prototypes for WPF applications and sometimes created several screens of same window to see the flow of information. In a dev environment, I definitely wouldn’t set it up that way. So if you’re project manager goes, “We already have SketchFlow prototype so we can do it in two weeks instead of a month.”, you might want to see the files first to see that’s correct.

3. It might be a good idea to do some tutorials before diving in right away.

I laughed at the notion first. “What tutorials? Developers just do it and get used to it.” – Wrong. Big time. It might have saved time to see how DB works, how to use states, and difference between user controls vs. components etc.

4. It is not perfect but so I am.

I was frustrated at first. Then got to know the tool better. I realized I was expecting something that tool wasn’t. Now I know the way around it and now everything’s so much better. So I became good friend with SketchFlow at the end. We still have differences but I learned to accept for what it is.

The thing about SketchFlow is it’s still pretty new. So if you’re getting into this tool, there must be many things you have to figure out yourself. I looked around for some tips and I couldn’t find much online. But once you got into it, you’ll see the value and what it can bring to your application in general. The biggest win for me was that the tool helped me demonstrate the power of rapid prototyping to the folks I work with. To me, it’s worth all the frustrations I felt initially.

I’ve been taking a break from the usual Flex development world and getting familiarize myself with the wireframing. I am definitely not an expert in this field but as a RIA developer, I thought it was important to learn and try it out to understand more about it when I could. My first challenge came from the true understanding of what wireframes are. Is it a precursor to a design? Nothing but the organization of contents? I saw many resources out there explaining what it is, but this is my favorite so far.

A wireframe diagram lets everybody focus on what’s important at this (Information Design) step: clearly understanding what goes on each page, where it goes, and why it goes there, so you can achieve the best overall balance and structure for each page. – The Importance Of Wireframes In Web Design And 9 Tools To Create Wireframes

I saw many projects flying to visual design stage directly from concept creation, and those usually go through many renditions and even more frustrations and valuable designers’ time. For me, the wireframes simply was time-saver, but now I understand it’s must more than that–something like being a strong foundation for RIA projects.

It’s been about a week since Mix10. It was my first Mix10 and I was quite impressed with things I saw there. Of course, my attention was mostly on Silverlight4 and how it can be used in real-world business context. Overall, it was interesting and very useful for me, but I hoped they had more examples of real-world situations rather than tutorial-like how-to stuff about the features. I saw few good examples from couple of short sessions but that was about it.

Inevitably, I found myself comparing Silverlight4 with Flex3 (not 4) constantly whenever their new features involve something that can be done in Flex for a long time. By the time conference is over, I realized the real value of using Silverlight4 might not be on Silverlight4 itself, but rather Visual Studio IDE and the workflow MS came up with SketchFlow and ExpressionBlend. I’m no designer but I’m experienced enough to know that the smooth transition between designers and developer save a lot of time, efforts and frustration. If their workflow can streamline this process, I’m all for that. Only problem now is the cost associated with two different sets of development tools.

There were so many things going on in the conference including very exciting announcement about Windows Phone 7 series and IE9, also good sessions about UX in general. If anyone’s interested, all the videos are up on Mix10 website (http://live.visitmix.com/).

I’ve been taking some time looking at the Silverlight recently and found myself pleasantly surprised by some aspects of Silverlight. I work mostly with Flex3 these days, and as an Adobe certified Flex developer, I almost wanted to settle with Flex and not looking at anything else. But of course, anyone know me would agree I’m not that kind of developer. I believe there’s the best solution for every problem and it doesn’t always mean one tool or language is right for everything.

Looking at Silverlight for few weeks, I feel like I made a right decision of getting to know more about it. I definitely need to learn more about the upcoming Silverlight 4 but overall, I was quite impressed with the workflow and the developer-centric IDE that I always appreciated as a .NET developer.

Now I’m ready for Mix10 conference next week. I’m curious how Microsoft would picture the future of Web and RIA development.

This is my new blog. I could update look’n feel of my existing blog and keep what I had so far, but I had to organize my very unorganized root folder and start fresh. Of course, I deleted my old contents on the process (unintentionally) and here I am, (really) starting fresh.

So, this is my first post on the new blog. I thought it’s very appropriate to name it ‘Hello world!’ since it defines what I do and why I’m here doing what I do. I remember the very first time I started programming–in Computer class in 9th grade with the original Macintosh computer.  My task was to program with something called BASIC and display a line of text on the screen, and there it went, my first ‘Hello world!’.

Now I’m writing my blog post on my MacBook Pro, it seems so long ago. But, I still have that tingly feeling when I code something and click on the build button, waiting for the magic to start. I hope this blog, too, becomes magical place for me, where I can share what I love to do with the world. I could never successfully keep up with my signature blog (other than my way too personal tumblogs), so this will be a challenge for me. But, I am excited and very happy to introduce my blog out in the world.