14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has delivered the second C++ sample application as a part of the Hilo project via an update that went live at the end of August 2010. The Hilo Annotator is now available in addition to the Hilo Browser, which was introduced in early 2010, and unveiled officially in June.
At that time, Microsoft was promising to deliver additional resources, adding to Hilo, and with the Annotator, the company is living up to its promise.
For those not familiar with Hilo, the project is designed to offer a collection of resources, including articles and sample applications, enabling developers to build high performance, rich responsive client applications for Windows 7, by leveraging Visual Studio 2010 and Visual C++.
“Since then we have published some articles that walk the reader through all the steps that go into developing the Hilo Browser application,” revealed a member of the Visual C++ Team.
“These articles describe the way we implemented the application in C++, our thought process for designing the application, as well as deep discussions on the source code and implementation using C++ and the modern application features in Windows 7."
“Now we are back with the next application in the Project Hilo series. We call it the Hilo Annotator.”
As was the case with the Hilo Browser, the Hilo Annotator is offered to developers through the MSDN Code Gallery.
Microsoft made available not just the bits for the project, but also the source codes.
“This application provides basic image editing capabilities but more importantly it illustrates how to take advantage of the following Windows functionalities:
•Ribbon: To provide a modern, easy to use and easy to learn user interface.
•Windows Imaging Component (WIC): To display and manipulate images.
•Even more of technologies like Windows Animation Manager and Direct2D that we have seen in the previous articles,” the Visual C++ Team member added.
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.NET Framework 4 RTM is available for download here.