Windows App Developer Links - 2012-07-24

Windows 8

• Hardware accelerating everything: Windows 8 graphics (Building Windows 8 Blog)

  • "With Windows 8 we set out to enable all applications to have the beautiful and high-performance graphics enabled by modern graphics hardware. This work builds on the well-established foundations of DirectX graphics, which have been providing an increasing breadth of APIs and capabilities. ... WinRT brings these capabilities to the full range of new Windows 8 applications. In this post, authored by Rob Copeland the group program manager on our Graphics team, we look at the details behind the scenes in enabling this new class of graphical application..."

Metro App Development

• Creating beautiful views for local files (Windows 8 app developer blog)

  • "Part of Metro style design is building clean views that allow content to shine and help users accomplish their tasks. We explore in particular how you can create beautiful galleries with content from user's files and folders on the local file system. Being able to display local content is a key requirement for many gallery apps that let users browse and consume their content - photos, videos, music, or documents. Windows 8 provides tools to do this in a simple, efficient, and customizable way. To show this I'll take the example of the PhotoJournal app, a connected photo journal where users can view and manage their photos and videos using a timeline view..."

• The .NET Framework 4.5 includes new garbage collector enhancements for client and server apps (.NET Framework Blog)

  • "What makes managed code, "managed"? Most people would point to the garbage collector. Automatic memory management makes a tremendous difference in programmer productivity. And when garbage collection improves, all .NET applications benefit. Abhishek Mondal, the program manager for GC on the Common Language Runtime, and Maoni Stephens, the developer for GC on the CLR, authored this article..."

• Windows 8 Metro Apps: The 8 Must-Know Tricks! Day 3 (Samidip Basu)

  • "This is Day # 3 in the Windows 8 development article series on common tips & tricks towards real-world Metro apps. We've gotten past our initial idea & layout hurdles and your first Windows 8 Metro app is slowly coming together. Time to give your Metro app some typical Windows 8 character & its own brand. ... Day 3: Semantic Zoom..."

• Using the Metro Share Contract With Custom Data (David Davis)

  • "... Metro applications are optimized for tablets device. These new applications operate in a restrictive, sandbox environment. This is part of the security that is intended to keep user's systems safe. Windows developers are used to being able to access all parts of the system when developing their applications. So sharing data between applications is as easy as posting the data to a common location that both applications can access. ... Microsoft has developed a series of contracts that allow your Metro applications become part of the operating system. The Share contract is one of the contracts that allow Metro applications to share content with other Metro applications..."

• Debugging WinRT/XAML bindings (Andrej Tozon)

  • "Visual Studio 2012 may not (yet?) support debugging of XAML bindings debugging in WinRT/Metro-style applications in a way we're used to from programming WPF and Silverlight (a.k.a. XAML breakpoints), but basic notifications of failed bindings in the output window seems to be present and working. Let's look at the basic set up (new blank application)..."

• System colors in WinRT/XAML (Joe White)

  • "In XAML Metro (WinRT/XAML), the system colors are buried in theme resources that you can't even see. If you want to use one of the system colors, you can find them in the visual designer's Properties page, but you can't find them in the documentation. This bugs me, since I'm a coder and tend not to bother much with the designer. So I went ahead and wrote the documentation myself. I now have a metro.excastle.com subdomain, which contains documentation for the system brush resources in WinRT/XAML. I even show color swatches for both the Dark and Light themes..."

• WinJS Custom Controls (ExpressionBlend.com)

  • "Controls are the basic blocks of any application, you use controls everywhere and also HTML Metro apps are part of the game, you add a control inside a HTML Metro page just placing a <div> with a special "data-win-control" attribute in it... if you have pages (even in different applications) that need some special kind of functionality paired with some custom UI, custom controls allows you to reach the "write once, use everywhere" paradigm (unless you like reinventing the wheel of course...)Let's see how you can create your own custom control and use it inside a HTML Metro application, simulating a simple custom countdown control..."

• Example Metro app /WinRT: Out-of-the-box Icons for Buttons (XAML) (Iris Classon)

  • "Not sure if you have noticed, but there are quite a few out of the box icons for buttons that come with Metro. I've put them all on one page here so you can see them, and the name of the style The styles are found in the common folder, in the Standardstyles XAML file..."

Apps & Code to Look At

• Using a provisional WinRT port of SilverlightSerializer to store state in MVVMLight ViewModels (Joost van Schaik)

  • "Over 1.5 years ago I showed how to store your Windows Phone application state (‘tombstoning') using SilverlightSerializer by Mike Talbot. In my quest to leverage hard-won Windows Phones skills to be usable in Windows 8 I made a provisional port of SilverlightSerializer 1 to WinRT. That is, in C#. Since my win8nl library port is a bit behind, I've stuck the class in a simple project that you can download here..."

• 9 new XAML/SharpDx demos (Jose Fajardo)

  • "I'm becoming more experienced with WinRT XAML and DirectX via SharpDx, and as such my demos are becoming more complex. This is all a learning process for me and the code reflects that. I hope you find something useful in the samples. Here's a quick video of the 9 new samples..."

Tools, Frameworks, & Libraries

• Windows Runtime Support in ReSharper 7 (JetBrains .NET Tools Blog)

  • "The forthcoming release of Windows 8 introduces the new Windows Runtime programming model (also known as WinRT). Since WinRT can be programmed in languages that ReSharper already supports (C#, VB.NET and JavaScript), it's only natural that ReSharper 7 comes with comprehensive support for WinRT development..."

Free Training Materials

• Webinar: Why build for Windows 8 and how RadControls for Metro can help (Telerik)

  • "Windows 8 brings up new opportunities for businesses helping employees be more productive with immersive apps. The new platform bridges the gap between the engaging experience end-users are expecting and the security and management features the businesses need. RadControls for Metro complements the Windows 8 SDK, bringing controls such as Charts, Gauges, DatePicker, TimePicker and more. Join our free webinar to learn how you can become more productive with your Windows 8 development, no matter if you are using XAML or HTML." Reminder, this webinar is Today, July 24th.

Visual Studio 2012

• Running selective unit tests in VS 2012 RC using TestCaseFilter (Vikram Agrawal)

  • "New unit testing platform in Visual Studio 2012 provides a new way to selectively execute test based on filtering condition through TestCaseFilter. TestCaseFilter can as specified as a string while executing tests through command line (vstest.console.exe), Team Build (when running test using "Visual Studio Test Runner") or through Test platform client API..."

Office 2013

• Office Preview - Getting Started Guide (Office Next)

  • "Last week was quite busy. We had great feedback from the preview announcement. If you weren't among those who took the earliest opportunity to get the software, or even if you did and just wanted to learn more about the preview program, we've invited Beth Petry, Senior Program Manager for Office Customer Programs to explain the various opportunities for participation. The preview release covers a lot of ground. Large enterprises, small or mid-size business and people at home have experiences offered for their specific needs. This post is less about the products, and more about the roadmap for participating..."