Online Advertising, Web Development & General Rantings

My approach to this project is going to be different to the iTunes one. Because of the nature of the original application “Buzzword” I am going to make Silverword a SilverLight only application (as opposed to mixing SilverLight elements with html/Ajax elements on the same base html page) that resizes to fill the entire browser real estate.

I’ve spent about 2 days dissecting Buzzword and working out how to make things work in SilverLight. The prototype that I’m about to show you is only half done but it has many elements that are worth talking about.

Without further adjure here is the link to the prototype for Silverword. It will form the basis of many future post’s, there are many elements in this prototype that still need working out and building, please be patient as it evolves over the following weeks.

SILVERWORD LOGIN - My SilverLight prototype of the cool Buzzword application begins with a login screen, most of the login page is just eye-candy but eventually It will allow text entry into the text areas and integrate with some authentication service. For now just click on the “sign in” button to proceed to the desktop.

SILVERWORD DESKTOP - This is the main work area, here you see the documents that the user has access to. The prototype demonstrates some important points regarding what needs to be built for this application. It shows the need for some common controls like

1) listitem - which in the picture represents a single document

2) top menu

3) context menu - which represents the menu associated to a document

4) toolbar menu - which displays buttons in a horizontal format, can be seen sitting under the top menu

5) button - can be seen at the bottom left “share” button

SILVERWORD DESKTOP 2 - This is another screen shot showing another framework element that will need to be built, the dialog/popup window (modal/non-modal).

My next post will take you through the beginnings of this prototype, the actual SilverLight application canvas and how it resizes to take the full size of the browser real estate. Future post’s will walk thorough each of the elements defined above, the goal is to create some sort of framework of controls that we can reuse across the application.

The prototype will continually evolve over the following days and weeks so keep checking it out!

The link to the sample site is here : SILVERWORD

As always here is the accompanying SOURCE CODE, enjoy and stay tuned for the next posting.

In a previous post I mentioned a cool flash application by the name of “Buzzword“. It is a killer web processor application that I’ve fallen in love with.

I use it everyday for storing and editing my documents. I’ll even go as far as to say that for most of the documents I create and edit on a daily basis I’ll use Buzzword in preference to MSOffice Word 2007.

Buzzword is only in preview but it behaves like an application ready for prime time. See some of the beautiful screen’s from buzzword below.

[Buzzword Login screen] - Buzzword if anything is a cleanly designed very aesthetically pleasing application. It’s fully flash and behaves beautifully to the touch. You can tell that a lot of effort went into the design process for the UX.

[Your documents sitting on your desktop] - The desktop shows all the documents that you have access to. It really is beautifully designed from a functional perspective. And the different views of the listings of documents is just “eye-candy bliss”. I love the desktop and I love the experience it conveys.

[Document opened and ready for editing] - the document editor is a masterpiece comparing it to other online text editors. Technically I have no idea how they did it but I can tell you that the overall aesthetics of the editor is perfecto! It behaves so beautifully when editing, as if you were using office’s word desktop application.

Microsoft you better stand up and take notice of buzzword because I truly believe this application could dethrone you in the mom/pop/teen word processing market! I can only imagine what buzzword will be like when it is made to work in FLEX/AIR and is marketed by Adobe.

So why did I blog about this application? I believe that this application will, in time, become a benchmark for all future web applications. It will be what others will be measured against. It really is a beautifully designed, at all levels, application that just makes sense!

I want to make a SilverLight version of this!

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll attempt to replicate this cool application in SilverLight, starting with a prototype of it. I’ll call this project “Silverword”

Stay tuned for my next post which will go through my prototype sample.

Update: DannyT correctly pointed out that Buzzword is actuall a FLEX application already, here i thought it was purely flash. That actually makes sense seeing how it behaves and delivers technically. Thanks for that!