While at TechEd, I made a
prediction about Avalon, XAML, and a surprise from Microsoft:
So, based on my read of just a couple msft guys, and seeing things in the community for a while, here's my read on the situation: They want to deliver Avalon (WinFX) with VS 2005 in November--they're holding it back as their 'big splash.' They've been so open about everything else, they still need something to make the VS 2005 launch a big deal. And I think that big deal will be an Avalon designer, and release runtime for WinXP along with the VS 2005 launch.
Today we know how that Avalon designer will be released: As
Acrylic, Microsoft's bitmap and vector graphic design application. The pieces where there, I shoulda seen it coming. Anyway, check out the
new beta of Acrylic. It will include "support for the Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly code named
Avalon) coming in Windows Vista."
So, download the new beta, try out some XAML apps, and post your experiences here.