If you don’t know about it yet, Infragistics posted a Public CTP of NetAdvantage for WPF 2008.2, which includes the new xamOutlookBar and Reporting features. From the post…

In an effort to get more code to the public faster, Infragistics’ WPF team has shipped an interim build of NetAdvantage for WPF controls planned for the 2008 Volume 2 release.  This release includes two major enhancements: xamOutlookBar™ and Printing Capabilities that not only easily print the xamDataGrid™, but allow for the creation of a fully stylized report.  The xamOutlookBar is styled and has functionally modeled off of Outlook® 2007 which greatly increases the developers ability to create line of business applications.  The Printing Capabilities allow not only printing, but allow for publishing documents out as XPS.

I have seen a couple of tweets about this and I know it’s being blogged, but just wanted to add to the noise. The visuals for a the House of Cards video and a 3D interactive Flash piece were created using a modified version of Papervision3d and data created by 64 rotating lasers (for 3D plotting). Very cool!

http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/viewer.html

The Infragistics Silverlight June CTP is now available for demo and download, compiled against Silverlight 2 Beta 2 released last Friday.

The CTP includes a Silverlight Chart and Silverlight Gauge both of which you can see in the online demo. So download the bits, take them for a test drive, then send us feedback and help shape the final shipping product!

The public beta of Fireworks CS4 is now available for download at labs.adobe.com. In addition to a very noticeable (and polished) cosmetic makeover, there are a lot of great new features. Check out Nick’s list of top new features. Alan has also posted a Breeze session archive demoing the new features. My panels should all function correctly, but please let me know if you run into any issues and I’ll work to get them fixed.

Over the past several months I’ve been working on a new “BrushManager” panel for Fireworks. I’ve been creating all of the individual pieces as AS3 components, both for ease of development and maintenance reasons. The BrushManager (I’ll eventually come up with a better name) lets you quickly toggle between Solid Fill, and Linear or Radial Gradient Fill. The Gradient editing capabilities currently in my Gradient Panel will be migrated into this new panel, along with a new precision Gradient Direction Editor. I currently have a test version of the Gradient Direction Editor in a standalone Fireworks Panel, available for download below.

Take the panel for a spin and send me your feedback. It’s still a bit buggy at this point, so use at your own risk!

The video below is encoded at 1280 x 720, so be sure and watch in HD on the Vimeo site!

Fireworks Panel: Gradient Direction Editor from Grant Hinkson on Vimeo.

Download Preview Panel: Fireworks Gradient Direction Editor Panel