Windows App Developer Links - 2012-08-31

posted on 30 Aug 2012 | App Developer Links

Windows 8 App Development

  • How I Built an "Awesome Chat" application for Windows 8 with Windows Azure Mobile Service (Gaurav Mantri)

    • "In this blog post, I'm going to talk about how I built a Windows 8 application using Windows Azure Mobile Service. Windows Azure Mobile Service is the newest Windows Azure Services that you can use to provide backend services for your mobile applications (currently Windows 8, more coming soon). ... The service looked really promising and I thought I should give it a try and trust me, you're not going to be disappointed. All-in-all it took me about 4 hours to build the application (and that included installing Windows 8, VS 2012, signing up for a marketplace account etc.). ... Without further ado, let me start! ..."

  • Windows 8 Notifications: Using Azure for Periodic Notifications (Jim O'Neil)

    • "At the end of my last post, I put in a plug for using Windows Azure to host periodic notification templates, so I'll use this opportunity to delve into a bit more detail. If you want to follow along and don't already have an Azure subscription, you can get a free 90-day trial account on Windows Azure in minutes..."

  • Windows 8 Development-When Your UI Thread is not Your Main Thread (Mike Taulty)

    • "This is something that someone raised with me today and I thought I'd write it down because I noticed it when I first came to developing with .NET on Windows 8 and WinRT and it threw me for about an hour or so which perhaps lets me save you from spending an hour or so on it in the future..."

  • Getting rid of advertisements in your Windows 8 app in 5 minutes (Andrei Marukovich)

    • "Here is a screenshot of app running on my tablet... And here is the same app a couple of minutes later... What's happened? Where is Gears of War Ad? As I posted before, app assemblies, non-compiled XAML and html pages are easily accessible for users. Windows 8 RTM doesn't bring anything new for apps protection. Neither special knowledge nor tools are required to open app's package in WindowsApps folder, find .xaml page with advertisements and remove AdControl elements. Your grandma can do it between baking a cake and knitting socks given good instruction. ... How can this simple hack be avoided? Probably the easiest solution is to create AdControl in code behind..."

  • [Windows 8] How to take screenshots of a video? (Thomas LEBRUN)

    • "Sometimes, it's useful/needed to take screenshots of a video that is played by your application. Here is a simple (but working) technique to perform this task..."

  • How To Take Photographs From Windows 8 Applications And Automatically Upload Them To The Cloud-Part 6 of 6 (Bruno Terkaly)

    • "... At this stage, we're just about finished with both applications. To the final step is to point the Windows 8 application two are freshly deployed web service in the Microsoft data center. This simply means we need to change the URL used by the Windows 8 application..."

  • How Do I: Use the Callisto framework to enrich a Windows 8 application? (Chris Caldwell)

    • "This video demonstrates obtaining and referencing the Callisto framework within a Windows 8 (XAML) application. The sample also shows the basic use of a Ratings control..."

  • Designing apps with Metro style principles and the Windows personality (Chris Bernard)

    • "Metro style design has a set of five guiding principles to help you make the best choices when designing your app. These principles are the foundation for building great Metro style apps. Consider these principles as you plan your app, and always ensure your design and development choices live up to these principles..."

Tools, Services, Frameworks, & Libraries

  • The XAML Project (OvestLabs)

    • "100's of free vector design resources. Quality controlled. Compatible with Silverlight, Metro, WP7, & WPF. Copy and pase directly into Expression Blend. Download directly to desktop as a png. Streamlined XAML for perfect integration. Fully editable within Blend..."

  • Okra App Framework v0.9.4 Released (Andrew Wilkinson)

    • "Version 0.9.4 of the Okra App Framework is now available via CodePlex and NuGet. Since the core functionality of the framework has been in testing for some time now I have removed the ‘beta' suffix from the version number, with the benefit that the framework should show in the default NuGet feed. Minimal changes and bug fixes were made in this release, with the key change being updating the Okra App Framework to work against the RTM version of MEF (v1.0.15)..."

Expression Blend

  • Getting Started: Xaml Authoring with Blend for Vs 2012 (Blend Insider)

    • "Now that you have your copy of Visual Studio 2012 including Blend, you must be raring to go and explore the world of Windows 8 development. We hope this post helps all the C#/VB & C++ junkies out there get started pronto on creating amazing apps for the Windows Store..."

  • Getting Started: Authoring Html for Windows 8 Apps Using Blend for Vs 2012 (Blend Insider)

    • "... Getting Blend installed and running is only one part of it. Using Blend in conjunction with Visual Studio to build great Windows applications is the other part, and that is where this post comes in. In this post, you will get an overview of Blend and the great features it provides for allowing you to build great Windows applications."