Windows App Developer Links - 2012-08-28

posted on 27 Aug 2012 | App Developer Links

Windows 8

  • Windows 8 productivity: Who moved my cheese? Oh, there it is. (Scott Hanselman)

    • "... People don't like it when you move their cheese. They are just trying to get through the maze, they have it all under control and then, poof, someone moved their cheese. Now it's a huge hassle to find it again. Change a hotkey or the case of the menus and all heck breaks loose. ... I upgraded from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro. There's fewer SKUs in Windows 8 now, basically just Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro (for super users) and Windows RT (for Tablets). However, once it's installed, it's initially confusing but I have been using it every day all day since it was released and have got myself productive again. Here's what I ran into and how I realized that there's less reason to freak out than I originally thought..."

Windows 8 App Development

  • Building an End-to-End Windows Store App - Part 1 (S. Somasegar)

    • "In previous posts, I've alluded to one of our key focus areas for Visual Studio 2012 being the theme of connected devices and continuous services. This includes creating a top-notch set of tools in Visual Studio 2012 to both design and build amazing Windows apps and the services that back them. With Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 released, I've decided to explore and document the end-to-end development of a basic Windows Store app that uses services on the backend. For this task I've chosen to use Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8..."

  • WinRT app guide: Step 3: Creating the basic UI (Iris Classon)

    • "Finally time to get down to business! On this app we will start with the UI, but before we do that we need to create a new project. You have to run Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 to be able to create a Metro style / Windows 8 style application. I run Windows 8 on a virtual machine..."

  • Dilemma in choosing technology to create App for Windows Store? (Dhananjay Kumar)

    • "When one start creating Applications for Windows Store, the first question come to mind is what technology should be used to create applications. In this post, I am trying to ease that decision to some extent. If you creating application form scratch then as of me you should rely on your existing skills. However for migrating application, you may want to take decision on basis of type of application need to be migrated. Below is the flowchart I would follow while taking decision for technology path..."

  • Windows 8 and HTML Part 7: Supporting Snapped View (Jeff Brand)

    • "... Snapped view is one of the key requirements for any Windows 8 Store application. You app must support Snapped view to get into the Store. As a result, supporting Snap is one of the most important features to think about when building an application. It is so important, you should have Snap support in the back of your head with each page you add to your app. Consider how you will support Snap as you layout and develop your UX. You may not be familiar with Snap, then here is a quick introduction..."

  • WinRT XAML: Automatically Scrolling ListView to Bottom and Detecting When ListView is Scrolled (Mikael Koskinen)

    • "One of our Windows 8 WinRT apps requires a ListView with two features: 1. "Auto-stick". The ListView must automatically scroll to the bottom when a new message is added to it. 2. "Scroll detection". User can disable the "Auto-stick" by manually scrolling the ListView. If the user scrolls the ListView to bottom, the "Auto-stick" is enabled, otherwise it's disabled. Here's some guidance on how you can achieve these features in a WinRT app using C# and XAML..."

  • Fixing the AppBarButtonStyle for ToggleButton support in your Win8 apps (Shawn Kendrot)

    • "With the RTM release of Visual Studio 2012 the Visual Studio team made some improvements to the various AppBar button styles. One of these awesome improvements was to add support for ToggleButtons. Now you can use any of these out-of-the-box styles with Buttons AND ToggleButtons. This is pretty awesome... Except for the fact that the style is missing a required TextBlock. ... To fix this, open the StandardStyles.xaml file and go to the AppBarButtonStyle..."

Tools, Frameworks, & Libraries

  • Physics Helper XAML (CodePlex)

    • "Physics Helper XAML allows you to easily create 2D physics based games and simulations for Windows 8, Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight 5 using C# or VB. It is a port of the Physics Helper and uses the Farseer Physics Engine..."

  • Mobile Services (Windows Azure)

    • "Create a backend for your Windows 8 client app in minutes: With Windows Azure Mobile Services, you can streamline common development tasks like integrating push notifications and configuring user authentication. During preview, Mobile Services are free for your first ten apps when you sign up for a Windows Azure account. Use Mobile Services to: Easily save data in the cloud, Add users to your app, Quickly integrate push notifications..."

Visual Studio 2012

  • Visual Studio 2012 Web Deployment Projects are Dead - Long Live Publishing Profiles (Doug Rathbone)

    • "I've been a long time supporter of Visual Studio Web Deployment projects. Not because I built ASP.Net websites and wanted to compile them, but more because they held so much unadulterated power from the simplicity of just being an MSBUILD file inside your solution. With the launch of Visual Studio 2012 Microsoft has made the call to no longer support WDP moving forward. This made me sad; but I was just being naive. Visual Studio 2012's Publishing profiles are even more powerful, and they bring all your old friends along for the ride..."

Office 2013

  • Click-to-Run and Office on Demand (Office Next)

    • "If you've downloaded the new Office Customer Preview, then you probably noticed that your installation experience is quite a bit different than in any previous version of Office. These changes aren't just cosmetic, they're part of our strategy to bring the rich Office applications that you know and love into the future as an integrated part of our Software + Services offering. In this post I want to talk about why we think it's important to invest in client delivery, what we did, how we did it, and what it means to you in your everyday interactions with the new Office..."

Other

  • Establish Your Own Developer Kaizen Guild (Johnny Code)

    • "Much like Scott Hanselman says you need a "Life's Board of Directors", every developer needs to be a part of their own Developer Kaizen Guild (DKG). What is a Developer Kaizen Guild (DKG)? Kaizen is Japanese for "improvement" but is used in the context of continuous improvement. Read the Kaizen Wikipedia article if you want to know more about the philosophy and practices. A guild "is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade" according to Wikipedia. To build on those definitions, a Developer Kaizen Guild is: "An tight-knit group of developers focused on continuous improvement of themselves and their trade." The full phrase "Developer Kaizen Guild" was coined by a good friend and great developer Jared Barboza. What are the benefits of a DKG?..."