Windows App Developer Links - 2012-08-24

posted on 24 Aug 2012 | App Developer Links

Happy Friday everyone! Today marks a new milestone: Today's post is my 100th Windows 8 Developer Links post. You can help me celebrate by getting the word out about my links blog to anyone you know who might be interested in staying on top of Windows 8 development news. If you're feeling especially generous, you can also follow me on Twitter at @DanRigby. Thanks!

Windows 8 App Development

  • Media Playback: What you need to know about playing media to make your app shine in Windows 8 (Windows 8 app developer blog)

    • "For Windows 8, we made some changes in our audio system designed to improve the app experience. In this blog, I discuss these changes, and how you can take advantage of them in your media apps. Hopefully this info helps you better understand how audio works in Windows Store apps, especially when it comes to audio playback in the background. Let me begin by describing a common user scenario..."

  • Windows 8 Beauty Tip: Using a VariableSizedWrapGrid in a GridView makes Grids Prettier (Jerry Nixon)

    • "Using a GridView in XAML is the primary way to show lists of data. The GridView inherits ItemsControl and behaves like the ListView which behaves like a classic ListBox. The GridView scrolls horizontally, handles selection, rearrangement, and (as we see in this article) also allows for variable sited items..."

  • Wrappanel for windows 8 winrt (Michiel Post)

    • "This is the first in a series of blog post about the Q42.WinRT open source toolkit for Windows 8. Out of the box, there's no WrapPanel available for WinRT. There's the VariableSizedWrapGrid, which you can use. But it doesn't work well with items that have different sized. Each item in the grid gets sizes based on the dimensions of the first item. You can see this behaviour in action here..."

  • Windows Store Development Tips and Tricks -1 : Debugging Options (Ibrahim Ersoy)

    • "Hi, I'll be starting a series of Windows Metro Tips and Tricks (newly changed to Windows Store or Modern UI Applications) from now on. Our first tip will be about changing your Debug Options. While you're developing a Windows Store App,you have 3 Options for debugging it..."

  • Integrating with Windows 8 Experiences (Channel 9)

    • "Windows 8 contracts are agreements between Windows 8 and your app that allow you to integrate your app into Windows 8 experiences. For example, Windows 8 lets users share content from one app to another by using the Share contract. In this session, you'll learn how contracts work and how to implement the built-in contracts such as Search, Share, Settings and Play To..."

Apps & Code to Look At

  • MetroGameKit renamed to Win8GameKit and updated for RTM (David Isbitski)

    • "I renamed the Metro Game Kit Project to Windows 8 Game Kit for obvious reasons. The new url is win8gamekit.codeplex.com and the old url will work as well. You can grab it on GitHub here too if that is your cup of tea..."

Tools, Frameworks, & Libraries

  • Microsoft Advertising SDK now compatible with Windows 8 RTM (Windows Advertising)

    • "Today the Microsoft Advertising SDK compatible with Windows 8 RTM is available. This SDK release is for developers that are blocked by Windows 8 RTM breaking changes. It is important to note that this release does not include the full feature set of what will be in the Microsoft Advertising SDK official RTM drop in mid-September. For more details, browse our documentation here..."

Visual Studio 2012

  • New Visual Studio 2012 Debugging Features for the Windows 8 App Lifecycle Model (Visual Studio Blog)

    • "Windows 8 brings a new app lifecycle model, in which Windows Store apps are automatically managed for the user. These apps always feel alive, even though they never run when they're off the screen. This provides great benefits for power consumption and battery life. ... In this post, we'll take a look at what this all means for debugging. Of all the debugging advances we made in Visual Studio 2012 (from JavaScript debugging, to the Windows 8 Simulator, to remote debugging on Windows RT devices), the debugging experience for Windows 8 lifecycle states and background tasks was one of the most challenging to design! ..."