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Looking around the web, every page that talks about Microsoft Bend points to the Bend Website: 'bend.codeplex.com', which is not open to the public. However, through all of this, I found out some stuff:

Requirements:

Windows Installer 3.1

.NET Framework 4

Windows 7 (although it was said to work fine in XP, Vista)

Bend appears to have been available to download before from the above URL, but not now. A number of people have downloaded it and so far positive reviews have been given.

Bend is in the 'alpha' stage and is open-source. (but we cant access the program and its source, so I don't think it's all that open...)

Bend is simply a basic text editor that uses XAML and WPF. One interesting feature of it is syntax highlighting, which it supports for a variety of formats.

I found this image at http://clubhouse.microsoft.com/Public/Post/19f534dc-99e7-41c3-b089-bccfe1c9991b. It shows the file types that Bend can save files as. As it does say in the image though, Office documents will end up with the junk in the top-right corner. I am unsure about the new Open XML formats though, as Bend supports XML (see 'Save As' dialog in the center).

Splendid_Bend.png

It seems as if Microsoft is trying to hide Bend now...

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Looking around the web, every page that talks about Microsoft Bend points to the Bend Website: 'bend.codeplex.com', which is not open to the public. However, through all of this, I found out some stuff:

Was it actually made by Microsoft? Codeplex is a public site where anyone can upload things.

I found this image at http://clubhouse.microsoft.com/Public/Post/19f534dc-99e7-41c3-b089-bccfe1c9991b. It shows the file types that Bend can save files as. As it does say in the image though, Office documents will end up with the junk in the top-right corner. I am unsure about the new Open XML formats though, as Bend supports XML (see 'Save As' dialog in the center).

Those are all just file name extensions. All the formats in the list are plain text, and anything that can edit plain text (including Notepad) can save as all of them. It might be that it supports syntax highlighting for them though. It can't support Open XML because it can't actually interpret the XML data, and an Open XML is actually a zip file that contains the XML files. If you open it in Bend (or its equivalent, Notepad) you'll just get junk, unless you extract the zip archive first and open one of the XML files. Then you'll get a plain text file full of XML tags.

It seems as if Microsoft is trying to hide Bend now...

There doesn't have to be any big conspiracy. It might have been removed because the author changed his mind and didn't want it released, or it could be for legal reasons.

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Here's my quick mockup:

capture.png

Note that the Backwards and Forwards buttons in reality should look like the OS's defaults. I took these from an Aero mockup made by me as I didn't want to remake them :p Same counts for the favorite icon.

Love that!

I have tried to combine Office, Metro (simplicity) and the regular Aero style of Windows...the result (maybe someone likes it):

internetexplorer9.png

That looks good, really good!

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Was it actually made by Microsoft? Codeplex is a public site where anyone can upload things.

Every place I saw, it says 'Microsoft Bend'. But, yeah, it could be anyone. I saw a discussion like this on another page. But seeing as every single post concerning Bend, it says that its made by Microsoft, it seems to me like its made by Microsoft.

Those are all just file name extensions. All the formats in the list are plain text, and anything that can edit plain text (including Notepad) can save as all of them. It might be that it supports syntax highlighting for them though. It can't support Open XML because it can't actually interpret the XML data, and an Open XML is actually a zip file that contains the XML files. If you open it in Bend (or its equivalent, Notepad) you'll just get junk, unless you extract the zip archive first and open one of the XML files. Then you'll get a plain text file full of XML tags.

Yeah, I already knew that, but I just put 'formats' in my post. It seemed like the most appropriate word at the time.

Yeah, I thought so. I don't know how zip archives are written, so I was just speculating.

There doesn't have to be any big conspiracy. It might have been removed because the author changed his mind and didn't want it released, or it could be for legal reasons.

Yeah, I'm not saying there's some big conspiracy about it. I just find it odd that in lots of places, people have downloaded Bend but now... its gone.

But yeah, those could definitely be possible reasons. I'm not gonna try guessing at it though; I have no idea.

At any rate, if it ever comes back online, I'm definitely gonna go there at download it.

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I have tried to combine Office, Metro (simplicity) and the regular Aero style of Windows...the result (maybe someone likes it):

internetexplorer9.png

I like this one a lot too. Except for one thing: If I were some like average not-tech genius guy, and I started up my browser and got this, I wouldn't expect my Favorites to be in the File Tab. Possibly create a special contextual tab (that really is there all the time though) and make that Favorites. That way, anyone can more easily see where Favorites is.

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Updated version of mine:

capture.png

Note that the buttons on the side in the toolbar are in hover state.

Oh, and the frame around it is of a mockup that I call "Aero-Rev" which I made for a possible visual style.

OK Aero-Rev needs to be made for win 7 pronto ... looks very nice.

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Here is my IE 9 Mockup Concept :)

Of course it can be improved a lot!

You can also download the PSD file.

http://www.mediafire.com/?6rjkoa8k24uqpac

That looks great and clean. I actually took your PSD, thanks! and modified it (Less bookmarks, tabs aligned with the IE button for a cleaner look) to what I would think would be a very nice, if simple, browser.

post-276844-12820845282403.jpg

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OK Aero-Rev needs to be made for win 7 pronto ... looks very nice.

Thanks :D I still need to mockup loads of stuff though.

Also, I've updated my mockup yet again :p

capture.png

Changed the inactive tab to a tab that looks a lot more possible to be in it compared with my previous inactive tab. I've also changed the toolbar colors to the ones seen in the Windows 7 Explorer toolbars.

My last edit probably :)

Edited by Capric0rn
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That looks great and clean. I actually took your PSD, thanks! and modified it (Less bookmarks, tabs aligned with the IE button for a cleaner look) to what I would think would be a very nice, if simple, browser.

post-276844-12820845282403.jpg

I like this one really, though I'm a big user of the IE8 fav bar (it's full of RSS feeds for me). I think that IE menu button will probably be a given, since it's been used in Office now for two versions and also in the redon WordPad and Paint for Win7 (probably in some other apps also?) so I really do expect something like that to make it's way into the next UI for 9.

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Every place I saw, it says 'Microsoft Bend'. But, yeah, it could be anyone. I saw a discussion like this on another page. But seeing as every single post concerning Bend, it says that its made by Microsoft, it seems to me like its made by Microsoft.

Bend was not made by Microsoft.

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I AM SOLD!!!..

AWESOME..

so professional.

really looks like IE9

im sure microsoft will be copying your design !!!.. :)

Well, except maybe the status bar. They would never go for something like that. It would be a single bar that spanned the whole width. Since the rest is Office-inspired, the statusbar would look like that too.

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I have tried to admit some of the requested changes (like easier favorite access), just for fun and because i like to make mockups :p

btw. i do not like metro UI applications on Windows, just does not fit with the rest of the user interface and gives you inconsistency...but i like the IE9 Metro mock ups ;)

IE9_by_bluefisch200.png

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Thanks :D I still need to mockup loads of stuff though.

Also, I've updated my mockup yet again :p

capture.png

Changed the inactive tab to a tab that looks a lot more possible to be in it compared with my previous inactive tab. I've also changed the toolbar colors to the ones seen in the Windows 7 Explorer toolbars.

My last edit probably :)

"Stay fast." :laugh: .

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