Vista terms explained - new software breeds new jargon

The amount of jargon generated by the new Windows gives some idea of the scope of the changes to come. Here is just a sample:

Acrylic Vector and bitmap graphics packages for application design. Part of the Expression suite.

Aero A set of guidelines for improving the Vista user experience, or UX.

Atlas A web client framework for building scripted applications.

Avalon Code name for the Windows Presentation Foundation.

Expression Suite of three new interface design programs: Acrylic, Quartz and Sparkle.

Indigo Code name of the Windows Communications Foundation.

Quartz Web page designer. Part of Expression suite.

Sparkle Flash-like animation designer for application interfaces. Part of Expression suite.

Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) Will supersede Visual Basic for Applications as the main tool for customising applications.

Vista The desktop version of the new Windows, formerly codenamed Longhorn. The server version has yet to be named.

Windows Communications Foundation (WCF) A pillar of WinFX. Deals with links between applications.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Another pillar of WinFX. A display engine that promises games-class graphics for workaday applications.

Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere (WPF/E) Subset of above. Talks Javascript and so can be used (in theory) on any platform.

WinFS Short for Windows Future Storage. Not, as often supposed, a file system in itself but one that sits above the NTFS system underlying Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista. Includes data about data, turning the file system into a database facilitating fast, rich searches. Not to be confused with…

WinFX The Vista application programming interface.

XAML XML (see below) dialect used by the Expression suite.

XML Extensible Markup Language A cousin of HTML. Both use a similar tagging system but HTML is limited to presentation – for instance, a B tag before and after a word means ‘display this in bold’. XML includes data about data so that a pet dog would be tagged differently from a hot dog. Tags may be defined within a document or somewhere else. Entire XML dialects, such as XAML, can be constructed for particular applications.

XPS XML Paper Specification, formerly codenamed Metro. Secure pdf-like format for archiving.

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