Windows App Developer Links - 2012-09-10

posted on 09 Sep 2012 | App Developer Links

Windows 8 App Development

  • WinRT app guide: Step 6: Adding a DataTemplate to the ListView (Iris Classon)

    • "First! The most important thing! Let's have some fun. Adding text and coming up with names is tedious and boring. Lets add a few more items to our test data, and add some more text in the comment section so we can see how it would look when we use the program for real. Time to add some ‘ipsum', bacon style. I'm going for the bacon one, but I'm sure there are others if you happen to be a vegan (did you know I used to be a vegan?). http://baconipsum.com to get your bacon..."

  • Tutorial Series: using WinJS & WinRT to build a fun HTML5 Camera Application for Windows 8 (2/4) (David Rousset)

    • "In this second tutorial, we're going to add support for video recording. The first step will then to work on the UI to let the user choosing between photo & video mode. Then we will add the JavaScript code that will let you recording some videos. Finally, we will add a cool slide effect with CSS3 animations to provide a visual feedback to the user while taking some photos/videos..."

  • How to find an element in a DataTemplate in WinRT/XAML (Aaron C)

    • "Here's one way to find a named element in a DataTemplate in XAML in Windows 8 XAML. You might try FindName to discover it doesn't work. That's because it's not recursive. So, I created a simple extension method to do the same thing..."

  • Parallax Background in XAML Revisited (Phil Muhlenkamp & John Michael Hauck)

    • "Adapted from the original post Metro Parallax Background in XAML. Those who are super observant may have noticed that as you scroll through the tiles in the Windows 8 start screen, the background moves at about 1/10th the speed as the foreground. I've heard some people call this a "parallax background". No matter what we call it, I'm sure we all want it in our own Windows 8 app. This post explains one relatively simple way to accomplish this..."

  • Metro: The SemanticZoom and the missing ItemTemplateSelector for ZoomedOutView (Andrea Boschin)

    • "Did you ever try to use the ItemTemplateSelector property for a grid view in SemanticZoom's ZoomedOutView property? So the question is simpler than it appear: take a GridView, used to show items in a semantic zoom, - when the user zooms out - and try to give a different template to each item, using the usual template selector. And the answer is also simple: it does not work. I suppose there is a good reason for this problem, but what it really matter to me is the solution..."

  • 5 points developers should know about WinRT/Windows 8 (Anoop Madhusudanan)

    • "Most of us already started developing for WinRT, so it make sense to have a better understanding of the run time. I am listing down few points with respect to WinRT, mainly from a developer's perspective..."

  • Windows 8 and the .NET Micro Framework (Channel 9)

    • "In this episode, Pete Brown (Windows Developer Evangelist and XAML and Gadget Guy) shows us how to write Windows Store apps that use the .NET Micro Framework and advanced socket networking to talk to devices like robots..."

Apps & Code to Look At

  • Tile updates from Background Task (Dave Smits)

    • "Live tiles let your application come to life. It lets the user open your application more often. It makes your application look great on the startscreen. Tile updates can be send with push notifications, even when your application is not running on the client. But you dont have always an server to send the push notifications..."