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And then you can use this tool to convert the web based C#/XAML app back to Flash. http://www.xamlon.com/

Hopefully Macrobe will take this as a challenge and drop in some 3d support and copy a few other features into their next version.

Main differences here is Flash is focused on the web - while you can output an .exe it has its limitations (disk access, etc -- which requires workarounds like embedding it inside another layer (ie. C# app) and passing messages back and forth).

Sparkle is for Desktop apps - and you can output for the web (but will limit your potential audience)

first post indeed :) Sorry about the formating, here's a more readable version..
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Comparing a PDF and a Word document is like comparing oranges and apples... The logic and power behind the PDF is that it's a printer driver. You can output from any software to PDF, and this is quite far from what Word is supposed to do.

There is no native editor for the PDF format: you can't create a new document and just start typing from scratch with Acrobat, you need something to start from (image, text file, webpage, etc). Adobe now packages Acrobat Designer with the professional Acrobat suite, and this is the only exception as you can start interactive forms from scratch in this software.

But I digress... My initial motivation for posting was that no one seems to have noticed that Microsoft integrated a direct competitor to the PDF in the latest Office Suite.

It's called Microsoft Office Document Image Writer (.mdi) and is a printer driver just like Acrobat.

As for the Adobe/Macromedia merger editorial comment (tm), I'm a web developper/designer that is using daily both companies' products, and I really hope this does good to the web. It truly could. I'm just hoping that the web portion (Macromedia) keeps listening to the developers and adopt the Adobe gui (far more stable/logical) and quality (no more alpha releases like the initial Flash MX 2004).

I've also read that the merger could be a strategic alliance to be able to reply to Longhorn's XAML integration.. Opinions?
http://www.xamlon.com/software/xamlonpro/flash/

Lots of changes in the air..

It's called XAML. It is not a programming language, it is a declarative way to control the user interface of a client application. It's nothing new conceptually, just jumping on the XML bandwagon. You can read more about it on this MSDN Blog.

Oh, and there are already commercial clones of it out, even though it won't be released until Avalan/Longhorn timeframe.

This Xamlon forum topic invites customers (presumably potential as well as current) to discuss why they'd find a port of Xamlon to Mono useful.

Presumably such discussion is more likely to be taken into account should it go there rather than here.

My company, Xamlon, has just released its flagship product, also called Xamlon.

Thank you for your nice advertisement. No seriously. Why post a story to Slashdot about your own product or service? That is what the millions of Slashdotters around the net are for. It's hard enough for one of us to get a story posted... now we have to compete with the source?

It allows for XAML development on all supported Windows platform, from Win98 through Longhorn.

That's an example of why you should allow journalists to do their job and report news. You forgot to pluralize platform. Your sentence should read, It allows for XAML development on supported Windows platforms.

Grammatically, you can't possibly list supported operating systems in the article by date without explaining yourself, so you should have linked to a page that would show the supported operating system. But even that page is scarce with info about supported operating systems and says: "The engine is .NET 1.1 compatible and runs on any .NET 1.1 platform (Windows 98 - Longhorn)", which is only specific if the reader knows which operating systems are included in the subset Windows 98 - Longhorn, and many do not. If you meant that you could support any operating system released since Windows 98, why didn't you just say that? It leads the reader to think that maybe there is an OS that is not supported somewhere in that subset, but you are not reporting it because of some business reasons.

Yes, I think your product seems quite wonderful. But you're going about promotion the wrong way. I happen to like the fact that you're competing with Microsoft based off their own specs!

FTA: Xamlon built the program from the published technical specifications of Microsoft's own user interface development software, which Microsoft itself doesn't plan to release until 2006.

Doesn't that open your company up for lawsuits? (IANAL)

Microsoft had been saying that Avalon (and XAML) would not be backported, prior to this. Companies like Xamlon made a version of XAML that works today, but it's not compatible enough with Microsoft's version.

Native 64 bit support?
No need to wait for longhorn for that

XAML? Or that