Define "seamless"...

(Disclaimer: although I’m all for constructive criticism most of the time, this is clearly nothing more than a rant, which by the way, does not even deserve translating.)

Lets start with a dictionary definition of the word seamless:

adjective. perfectly consistent and coherent

Now lets take a look at a quote from the website of a product I decided to work with while writing my book on WPF (highlight mine):

Expression Design is the perfect companion to Expression Blend, letting you quickly build sophisticated vector assets. Then seamlessly transfer — by way of XAML — your graphics to your Expression Blend projects.

Finally, lets take a look at what actually happens when the product in question “seamlessly” exports to XAML:

export_xaml

Do you see it too? How its not at all consistent or coherent, but rather the outlines become horrible thick black blotches and the gradients simply disappear? Ah, thank you… That’s a relief. For a moment there I thought it was just me.

In whoever wrote that clearly fallacious marketing crap’s defense, they do seem to know what the imputed word means. Take a look at this other quote:

Or seamlessly copy and paste your images into Microsoft Office while preserving transparency.

Ah, now this one does work, as you can see in this screen-shot:

export_word

You have to wonder what kind of black magic is behind this magnificent feat:

oh_a_png

Oh, a PNG. Why not?