Part One:

I guess I feel really lucky, in that there are still people out there that trust my opinion despite my own almost desperate now employment situation. Thank you for letting me know that you still do.. It’s likely that very soon when this blog’s payment is up that this will disappear. This maybe some of the last times I write for you.. It’s been a blast.. Thank you and I love you all I hope I am back soon.. By the way my ISP isn’t honoring their free blog for MVP deals anymore.. Which they only have for two billing cycles in six years..

”Set Course Mr. Sulu: Second star to the right and on till morning..”

People are looking for direction.. I can’t do projects anymore for companies. I have had so much problems with companies who don’t pay up front and showing my work in good faith, that and not getting paid, even a little bit, that living on no margin means no food for me.. So take this all for what it’s worth..

Advice for future designers..

I have one simple one as a designer for designers…

Continue to embrace web standards..

Also don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. I was burned with this once upon a time during the early days of the web when the “SiteBuilder Network” program disappeared into the Microsoft Developer Network,  again I seem to be in that same spot with Silverlight partner program.. When Microsoft kills support for something it ends up in the “Microsoft Developer Network” to survive as legacy as long as it can.

So my experience tells me this about putting all your eggs in one basket (just don’t):

Embrace multiple vendors HTML app platforms (Like Android and iOS)

Also it tells me staying in the middle with Adobe tools you can’t really fail…

If you are an App designer there isn’t one answer out there thus far for embracing HTML 5. Even though there is Blend for HTML 5, I am still not convinced of it’s worthiness and tooling over Adobe products for HTML5, or some new ones out there..

So if you want guidance on a product, there is no heir-apparent at the moment at least in my humble opinion..

Blend designers, it’s your time to diversify and not just use HTML 5 to create content and package for Windows 8 Metro apps. Let’s take those designs to other platforms as well..

We now have the opportunity to integrate with other tools out there..  You will still (at some end-point of your workflow) end up in Expression Blend to test designs and package for Windows 8, however Blend doesn’t have to be the only tools in your arsenal. This time around you can afford some of these too..

Canvas-Based Animation Tools

Whether you are creating a website or designing a user interface for a Web App (either on Windows 8, or Google Chrome/Android Apps) you will need good vector graphics support and frame-by-frame animation capabilities.

Here are some options on different platforms that exist.. Note: I will not be talking about any developer based tools here because I feel in an app situation they don’t allow for proper designer developer workflows to actually get something finished up..

Not a lot to say about this, but I will tell you if I am a designer using a Mac with OS X I really like this $30 animation tool on the Mac App Store.. It’s called HYPE by an developer called Tumult.. To me this right now knocks the canvas tools I have seen on ANY platform on it’s behind…

http://tumultco.com/hype/

Using Tumult Hype, you can create beautiful HTML5 web content. Animations and interactive content made with Tumult Hype works on desktops, smartphones and iPads. No coding required. This is a steal at $30..

From the MacWorld review of this application: http://www.macworld.com/article/159996/2011/05/hype_wysiwyg_editor_for_html5.html

”..Animations are keyframe-based and can be controlled one of two ways: manually, or by using the application’s Record option. With Record, you can adjust anything on your canvas, and Hype will automatically render the transitions needed to create the animation. You can isolate individual pieces of elements—only adjusting the shadow or reflection on an image animation, for example—and even use multiple timelines for greater control..”

“..Exporting, too, is a snap: Hype will automatically generate a folder with all the necessary elements and code for you to place at your leisure. You can even upload a Hype project directly to Dropbox and preview your Website there…”

Styling

Tumult Hype outputs state of the art HTML5, CSS3 styles, and JavaScript. It supports cutting edge features like box shadows, reflection, and 3D transformations.

Multiple browser support

Tumult Hype tries hard to deliver 100% fidelity across all browsers. For example, if the high-performance CSS3 transitions aren't supported, Tumult Hype will fall back to Javascript-based heartbeat animations. When there are no good fallbacks, Tumult Hype warns about browser incompatibilities in the inspector and at export time, so you're never caught by surprise.

Accessible on mobile devices

Unlike other tools, Tumult Hype creates content for everything from the latest desktop browsers, to mobile devices like iPhone and Android.

http://tumultco.com/hype/features/

These can be easily incorporated as code in with Expression Blend for HTML. If Microsoft is smart they will persuade these folks to do a Windows 8 version of this application.

You may also find Adobe Edge interesting as well.. It tries to duplicate Flash functionality but ends up getting to maybe Flash 1.0.. not Flash 10/11 at this stage in it’s life and I prefer “Hype” to this Adobe tool so far..

Adobe’s Edge Preview




GUIDANCE for MOVING an App to any HTML 5 Mobile Web Browser

Porting an HTML 5 “Metro” app for Windows 8 to a mobile web browser per client request and  as long as you aren’t using any Microsoft CSS specific functionality or anything specific to the platform as WinJS libraries in your initial design. You can take your app content from that  base HTML5 and CSS and use some other tools to port it to an app that runs in a mobile web browser. My favorite tool to do this is called the iWebKit framework.

http://snippetspace.com/projects/iwebkit/



iWebKit is a free framework designed for the creation of iPhone and iPod touch compatible websites or web apps. The kit is accessible to anyone and HTML experience is not essential. It is simple to understand thanks to the included User Guide and help on the forum. In a couple of minutes you will be able to create a full and professional looking website.
What makes iWebkit  really cool ??

iWebKit is a great because it is very easy to use, extremely fast to load, compatible & extendable. It is simple html that anyone can edit contrary to some other very complicated solutions based on AJAX. Simplicity is the key! It doesn’t REQUIRE JQUERY but is compatible..

How to use iWebKit: Developing with iWebKit is the easiest way to create your own website. It is just copy and paste! You can extend iWebkit by adding themes and plugins customizing it the way you want to.

Being HTML 5 sites, if you port to this product (it doesn’t require a Mac, and you can open the HTML and the entire framework on your Microsoft Windows PC..

If you just need a simple mobile website/ Web App.. check out WIXMOBILE.. It’s free and no design necessary..

http://mobile.wix.com/