Windows App Developer Links - 2012-08-07

posted on 06 Aug 2012 | App Developer Links

Metro App Development

  • Building your own Windows Runtime components to deliver great Metro style apps (Windows 8 app developer blog)

    • "For Windows 8, we completely reimagined the platform, allowing you to choose the programming language and technologies you already know to build apps tailored to the device and form factor. With the Windows Runtime, you can even easily use multiple languages within a single app. You can build a great Metro style app with HTML and JavaScript that can interact with the Xbox 360 controller through building your own Windows Runtime component in C++. You can build reusable XAML controls exposed via Windows Runtime components that are instantly consumable by Metro style apps written in both C++ and C#. Essentially, we have let you build apps on the Windows 8 platform using the languages of your choice with no comprises. In this blog post, we talk about what you need to know to build your own Windows Runtime components..."

  • Windows 8 Notifications: Image Handling (Jim O'Neil)

    • "In the last post, I discussed the structure of a notification template and the mechanics for providing the various bit of information in that template. As you know, many of the notification templates can include one or more images, and that brings up a host of configuration options that I didn't have a chance to get into last time. This post will fill in the gaps and provide insight into three main topics: What image sizes and formats do you need to provide? Where can the images be hosted? How do you accommodate different device resolutions and themes? ..."

  • Windows 8 Notifications: Leveraging Azure Storage (Jim O'Neil)

    • "When incorporating images into your toast and tile notifications, there are three options for hosting those images: 1. within the application package itself, using an ms-appx:/// URI, 2. within local application storage, using an ms-appdata:///local URI, or 3, on the web using an HTTP or HTTPS URI. The primary advantage of hosting images on the web is that it insulates the application from changes to those images. The images hosted on the web can be modified or refined without requiring an update to the application, which both necessitates a resubmission to the Windows Store and relies on users to update the application. Windows Azure, Microsoft's public cloud offering, can be an incredibly convenient and cost effective way to manage the images used in notifications..."

  • Windows 8 MVVM Animation Control (Geoff Webber-Cross)

    • "As we know Windows 8 Metro apps (or whatever they are called now) don't support trigger or behaviours like Silverlight and WPF apps do, even though they are XAML family. This means that once you have crafted an animation in XAML, you can't actually trigger it without code behind. This article demonstrates how to use an attached property which is toggled by a bool dependency property and controls a pair of animations..."

  • Windows 8 MVVM Settings Service (Geoff Webber-Cross)

    • "In the previous article I talked about animating a slide out effect for a settings panel, I thought I'd complete the picture by showing the service used to hook into the charm bar. ... Once implemented, the settings panel can be put on every page where it is required and it will magically appear when the settings item is clicked in the charm bar..."

  • Store the access to files/folders instead of using a picker each time ! (Jonathan ANTOINE)

    • "In a Win8's style app you have full access to the local, roaming and temp folder of the app. The app can also access the libraries(documents, videos, pictures, ...) if the correct capabilities are declared in the package manifest. If the app needs to retrieve any other file or folder, it has to ask the user through a picker. This is a one-time UI which gives you access to the desired item only if the user is OK with that. It can be boring (and it is) for the user to give you access to a file each time you need it. In this post we will discuss the solution proposed by the WinRT Framework. This is in fact as easy as managing a list of strings! ..."

  • Example Metro app /WinRT: How to change the style of the radiobutton (Iris Classon)

    • "Got a question on twitter today about hot to change the icon color of the radiobutton, and I thought - why not put an example up on the blog in case others are wondering the same thing. If you want to change just the color of the radiobutton icon itself you can change the brushes set for the "BackgroundEllipse" , and if you want to change the checked eclipse brushes, then it is the brushes for the "CheckGlyph" that you want to change. Here is an example of how to change the background eclipse..."

  • Adding an Accelerometer to the Windows 8 Simulator (Michael Ashby)

    • "I have been busy developing for Windows 8 for a while now. Until Microsoft releases a WinRT "Surface" device (October?) I thought it would be nice to be able to test my apps transitions between ApplicationViewState. I have an accelerometer in my .Net Gadgeteer kit... and a wifi module... hmm. What I built is a gadget that exposes JSON formatted accelerometer data via a web service. Any Windows 8 (WinRT) applications can consume this service. There are a few details to getting this to work. I will briefly go over the main things to be aware of here. I will post the entire project later..."

Office 2013

  • Introducing apps for the new Office and SharePoint and the Office Store (Office Next)

    • "This week, Office Next will discuss the new Office & SharePoint development platforms. Brian Jones, Principal Group Program Manager for the Office Solutions Framework team, joins the blog to offer three posts about apps for Office and SharePoint and how developers can start building them today..."