We've just had a spate of little releases at Xamlon, of interest to users of swf may be the Xaml to Swf convertor Web Preview (there are also a Compact Edition for the .NET Compact Framework, and a nifty SVG>Xaml utility). What this does is takes a Xaml file (declarative markup for the next Windows, which is somewhat akin to SVG+XUL) from an html text box, and then converts it to swf on the fly. Things are still in progress, but it is pretty nifty to watch none the less!

We are also nearing completion of the code part, which allows taking any valid .Net code and compiling that into swf actions. This means you can program in C#, as well as the mighty Python, the Actionscript like JScript, the Java dis-likes J# -- even the VB-for-Chicken's edition of VisualBasic. The great thing about .Net is there isn't much of a 'pecking' order with languages - there are great ones and VB too.

There should be a preview of the code before too long, which of course means no holidays for me this holiday season. Although what I really wanted for Christmas this year was to be working full bore on exactly this project -- I guess that means I've been a good boy. Or at least Santa can't see through walls like he claims. There is also the curvature of the earth to consider...

Speaking of holidays, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. If this isn't a holiday season in your culture, I do hope you have a few really great weekends...

Peace and love.