The expiration for the existing CTPs is set to expire Friday, June 13, 2008.

We decided to take a snapshot in our current developement and release two new July CTPs.

Layout Mix July CTP: http://www.blendables.com/files/folders/layout_ctp/entry455.aspx

3D Mix July CTP: http://www.blendables.com/files/folders/3d_ctp/entry456.aspx

There were some property changes and thus we also reposted all the samples to ensure they work properly with the July CTPs.  We are working on a list of changes as well as some new samples to demonstrate new features.  You can expect to see some of those soon. 

Enjoy and as always please post to the forurms if you have ANY questions.  You can also email us at support@blendables.com if there are any questions that can't be posted.

Kurt

Josh Smith, creator of Podder, the WPF podcast player app, has announced a Podder Skinning Competition.  To help draw attention to the contest and to support the WPF community we have up'd the ante a bit by providing a free copy of blendables essentials mix to the winner.

Contest Page: http://joshsmithonwpf.wordpress.com/podder-skinning-competition/

Blog Post from Josh on Blendables: http://joshsmithonwpf.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/identitymine-sweetens-the-pot/

Good luck to all that enter!

The blendables team

Here's a little deeper rundown on the new features in the Layout Mix (May CTP Release). 

The Layout mix now includes full support for enter and exit animations when children are added to or removed from an animation panel.  The March CTP had a number of hooks for the enter and exit animations, but they were not yet implemented.  These new animations are in addition to the existing support for layout animations and switch animations (which come into play when the panel is used within the Layouts collection of a SwitchPanel). 

The May CTP also introduces a couple of new animation panels: Carousel and Grid.  Like all animation panels, these new panels can be used as layouts within a SwitchPanel or they can serve as standalone panels.

The new Grid panel behaves just like the native WPF Grid but it adds all of the goodness that is provided by the AnimationPanel base class.  This includes animated repositioning of the grid's children and support for enter and exit animations when children are added or removed from the panel.

The new Carousel panel is a 2D panel that arranges its children in an elliptical layout.  By default, the panel will scale its children and set their z-index values to create a 2D layout that has the appearance of a 3D carousel.  For greater control, you may opt out of this automatic scaling and ordering behavior and control the scale and z-indices via bindings to attached properties on the children.  Here is a sample demonstrating how the Carousel panel can be used as an items host for a ListBox.

Finally, the May CTP introduces a new "SwitchTemplate" concept to augment the SwitchPanel class.  Just to recap the purpose of SwitchPanel a bit...  SwitchPanel is all about layout-to-layout animations in WPF.  The active layout of a SwitchPanel can be set to any AnimationPanel.  Transitions between layouts are animated using an iterative animator that can be specified on the SwitchPresenter or on individual animation panels within the Layouts collection. 

The animator that is used to perform switch animations (or for enter, exit, or layout animations in an animation panel) can be a custom class that provides frame-based or time-based updates.  It can also be any one of the included animators that ship as part of the Blendables library.  These existing animators are built upon the Penner animation equations.

Using the new SwitchTemplate concept that is introduced in the May CTP, you can now place SwitchPresenter elements anywhere within the element subtree of a SwitchPanel.  When the active layout of the owning SwitchPanel changes, the template of the SwitchPresenter elements will automatically be updated to the SwitchTemplate associated with the new layout.  Not only will this result in a template change, but any items within the new template that can be mapped to items within the old template (because they share the same SwitchTemplate.ID attached property value) will automatically animate to their new positions.  This subelement animation will occur using the same animator that is used for switch animations in the SwitchPanel.

Stay tuned for samples demonstrating all of these cool new features.  We look forward to hearing your feedback!

Cheers!
-Jonathan

Tonight sometime your March CTPs for the Layout and 3D mix are set to expire.  Good news though.  We have new CTPs for your CTPing pleasure.

Report for the Layout Mix:

• New May CTP Uploaded (expiration June 13) - http://www.blendables.com/files/folders/layout_ctp/entry455.aspx
• Enter and Exit Animations for both AnimationPanel and SwitchPanel
• SwitchTemplate Support for SwitchPanel
• New Carousel panel as AnimationPanel
• New Grid as AnimationPanel
• We'll have samples posted shortly.

Report for the 3D Mix:

• New May CTP Uploaded (expiration June 13, 2008) - http://www.blendables.com/files/folders/3d_ctp/entry456.aspx
• No breaking changes to report.

As always please let us know if you have any questions in the support forums.

Thanks all!

Kurt

Earlier this week IdentityMine and the blendables team jumped at the opportunity to help support 'The Code Trip', Microsoft's ongoing bus tour of the Western US.  At each stop starting in Irvine, CA the blendables crew has added blendables essentials mix as prize giveaways. 

I'll be driving down to San Luis Obispo, CA this upcoming Monday, March 31 to join up with the tour.  I'll be riding with the crew up to Santa Cruz and will be at the Mountain View and San Franciso events as well.  If you can make it out be sure to track me down.

You can find more info about the trip here:

Events: http://thecodetrip.com/1/events

Travel Log: http://thecodetrip.com/1/blog

Hope to see you on the road!

- Kurt

Really want to thank the community for downloading and checking out our latest offerings.  Since we returned from MIX we've been working like mad to get samples up which demonstrate how to use the new mixes.

You can find 5 new 3d samples here: http://www.blendables.com/files/folders/3d_samples/default.aspx

We have 1 large sample for the layout mix which shows the SwitchPanel infrastructure and a bunch of the individual Panels.  You can find that sample and future layout mix samples here:  http://www.blendables.com/files/folders/layout_samples/default.aspx

If you have ANY questions, comments, feedback please visit us in the forums and leave us a message:

Essentials Mix Forum: http://www.blendables.com/forums/8.aspx

3D Mix Forum: http://www.blendables.com/forums/36.aspx

Layout Mix Forum: http://www.blendables.com/forums/35.aspx

Thanks all!

Kurt

One of the main reasons for relaunching the new blendables.com was to provide a new, updated home for multiple products.  I'm happy to announce that we have 2 new products in the blendables family.

Right now we just have the CTP installers out but you should start seeing samples make their way onto the site over the next few weeks.

Read more about each of the products here:

Blendables 3D Mix

Blendables Layout Mix

Thanks all and we look forward to your feedback.  Please be sure to jump in and add to the forums if you have any questions/requests.

-Kurt

Don't fret.  We know the site is down and no it has not been compromised by rogue h4x0rz.  Check back later today for the new hotness.

Over the next few months I'll be participating in a few events including MIX08, SXSWi and Microsoft's The Code Trip bus tour.  I looked into getting my laptop laser etched but from what I've seen on the web, etching the Thinkpads don't look as good as the MacBooks.  I decided on paint and had a local sign shop cut out a stencil for me from an .ai file I provided to them.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and adds a little more fun to my rig than a plain black top.

blendables laptop on flickr

As part of our yearly pilgramage to MIX08 we usually have a few opportunities to talk about the exciting things going on at IdentityMine.  2008 is no exception.  This year we have 3 sessions we're participating in.  One is our own session and we are participating on two panels.  Information on on the sessions can be found below.

Well before heading out from our first week of 2008 here at Blendables HQ I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year.  In 2007 we went from 0 -> Product for Sale in a mere 10 months.  It was a big effort from the entire IdentityMine team and I want to thank all the users who helped us during the CTP period in testing the final set of controls.  I can guarantee you we're not done with the Essentials Mix and you can plan on a bunch of new products shipping in 2008, making it a great year for blendables and the WPF/Silverlight platform.

- Kurt

A few weeks ago Lab49 announced their Finance Innovation Contest.  It's great to see a community being built around WPF and as new members to the component market we're always looking for ways to contribute and support the space.

I immediately reached out to the Lab49 folks and a few days later blendables was setup as a sponsor of the contest.  We're giving away 25% coupons to entrants as well as complimentary licenses to blendables essentials mix to the finalists.

The basics of the contest is that the Lab49 group has put together a financial data set and they want users to come up with new and exciting ways to visualize and interact with the set.  They are sold on the power of WPF in the financial enterprise and want to help show the potential of Microsoft's most powerful programming platform.  Lab49 brought in some heavy hitters as judges and have a treasure chest full of awesome prizes to entice WPFers out there.

I look forward to seeing all the great entries and I thank Lab49 for having blendables as a sponsor.

Well since Microsoft doesn't use the tagline anymore I figured it was ok to use as a blog post title :).

In addition to the membership and information shared on blendables.com we wanted to extend our community offerings to also include some social networks.  How could we be next gen without facebook?!

  What can I say?  Facebook offers some great social networking features and we needed a place to aggregate things such as our photos from flickr, links from news sources, videos, etc.  Most importantly facebook offers a chance for our customers to utilize some of the social aspects of the site to interact with us and each other.  Blendables on Facebook

  Want to know the answer to the question "What is Blendables Doing?".  Then be sure to follow blendables over on Twitter.  You'll find links, random thoughts and who knows maybe even a discount will sneak in there every so often.  Blendables on Twitter

  When we were setting up groups on facebook and twitter one of our team members overseas jumped in and created a community on Orkut.  While Orkut doesn't have a huge following in the US it definately has a large and active community in the rest of the world.  Because we cater to designers and developers all over the world we wanted to ensure we took blendables to where everyone hangs out and has a chance to participate.  Blendables on Orkut

We want to ensure you know blendables is YOUR product and we're listening on how to make things an even better experience.  So let us know and participate as much as possible.

- Kurt

Just a quick screencasts on license embedding. 

Check out the full writeup over in the forums:

http://www.blendables.com/forums/t/157.aspx

It's been a great few days for blendables and IdentityMine.  Below is a quick snapshot of the booth and some of the sessions that have already completed.

(click photo for slideshow)