Windows App Developer Links - 2012-09-28

posted on 27 Sep 2012 | App Developer Links

Windows 8 App Development

  • Apptivate.ms: A Windows 8 App Development Contest (Stack Exchange Blog)

    • "Windows 8 officially launches on October 26th, and it's already generating quite a few questions on Stack Overflow. So when Microsoft approached us about sponsoring an app development contest, we thought it was a great idea. Today we're announcing Apptivate.ms, a Windows 8 App Development Contest sponsored by Microsoft..."

  • Storage in a Windows 8 App (Jeremy Foster)

    • "Apps generate data. Some of them generate a ton of data and others just a few little bits and pieces. Allow me to enumerate your options for storing stuff when you're working on an app for Windows 8. There are subtle differences between the way storage is done in an HTML/JS app versus a .NET or a C++, but for most of the techniques you're just accessing the WinRT library so the steps are practically identical. Before we enumerate the types of storage, let's talk about the types of data that typically get generated in an app..."

  • Near Field Communication in Windows 8: Part 1 (Walter Ferrari)

    • "Near fied communication (NFC) is a breakthrough technology aimed at facilitating communication between two devices in close proximity, within a 4-cm distance. In Windows 8 the support for this technology has been included in a broader application scope that Microsoft named Near Field Proximity. This article will give you a general view of NFC explaining how Microsoft has reinterpreted it, and we will learn how to build an environment by using 2 virtual machines to test the classes contained in the namespace Windows.Networking.Proximity..."

  • Using Azure Web Sites to market your Windows App (Tim Heuer)

    • "In some of our internal discussion lists there was some questions about how to host certain content for their application. Most of the discussion came up from apps needing a privacy policy (Rule 4.1 from the Windows Store App Certification Requirements). Some folks had apps they just developed, but no "site" or service they were using. But they needed to host a privacy policy. Lots of thoughts were floated around and I suggested Azure Free Web Sites as an option. I originally suggested it as a simple way you could just have a URL to a privacy policy, but...duh, you could easily use it as a very quick marketing site for your app..."

  • Windows 8-Secondary Tiles (Jesse Liberty)

    • "Continuing my series based on the presentations I'm giving on Europe, today I return to Tiles to look at creating Secondary tiles. A secondary tile can be created by the user and pinned to the start menu to provide deep access into your program. A classic example of a secondary tile would be to pin a tile for your home town in a weather application, or a specific stock in a portfolio program..."

  • Experimenting with Windows Azure Mobiles Services (Round 2) (Mike Taulty)

    • "One of the things that I was looking at in my post on Azure Mobile Services the other day was the idea of creating a ‘virtual table' or a view which represented a join across two tables. For example, imagine I have a new service mtaultyTest.azure-mobile.net where I've defined a person table..."

  • Windows Store App Submission Steps (Diptimaya Patra)

    • "In this article I would give a brief how to Submit apps for Windows Store..."

  • Using Live SDK in Windows 8 - C# (Shai Raiten)

    • "Live SDK provides a set of controls and APIs that enable applications to integrate single sign-on (SSO) with Microsoft accounts and access information from SkyDrive, Hotmail, and Windows Live Messenger on Windows Phone and Windows 8. ... In this demo I'll show how to use Live SDK with Windows 8, so in order to follow this article you need to have the following installed..."

  • Making HTTP requests from Scripts in Mobile Services (Josh Twist)

    • "It's no secret that my favorite feature of our first release of Mobile Services is the ability to execute scripts on the server. This is useful for all kinds of scenarios from validation and authorization to sending push notifications. We made it very easy to send push notifications via WNS (Windows Notification Services), it's basically a single code statement..."

  • Enhancing the Win8 Slider experience (Diederik Krols)

    • "This article describes a way to enhance the user friendliness of a standard slider control in a Windows 8 Store App. Problem: In a touch oriented application, we often allow -or force- the user to set the value for an integer or an enumeration through a slider control. In most cases this is more comfortable and less error prone than working with the soft keyboard. Unfortunately it's not always ideal..."

Tools, Services, Frameworks, & Libraries

  • New Microsoft Advertising Ad SDK for Windows 8 Available Today (Microsoft Advertising Blog)

    • "Today I'm proud to announce the general availability release of the Microsoft Advertising SDKfor Windows 8. I wanted to take a moment and thank the developer community for all your feedback and support in building the SDK. We have actively been incorporating feedback since the Technical Preview release last year. The team has been focused on offering a best-in-class consumer experience as well as creating a world where developers can best take advantage of all Windows 8 Ads in Apps has to offer their applications..."

  • Modern UI Data Visualization Toolkit (Mahmoud Medhat Moussa)

    • "I've been Hiding for a while working on what I consider a big step for Modern Applications to Look Nicer with more charts and ways to display Data In Controls. So As a Matter of Fact I successfully Migrated the Famous Sliverlight toolkit to be running on Windows 8 Modern UI Applications..."

Free Training Materials

  • Free Jump Start course: Develop Windows 8 Apps and prep for the exams 70-480 and 70-481 (Microsoft Press)

    • "Microsoft Learning and Developer & Platform Evangelism (DPE) are teaming up again to provide an exciting new learning experience. This Jump Start is tailored for Application Developers looking to take the fast track to building apps for the new Windows 8 platform! If you've been asking questions like "how different is Windows 8 -- really?" or "why are developer communities reacting differently to this version of Windows?" then this new Microsoft Jump Start is for you. We're excited to introduce you to Jeremy Foster and Michael Palermo, two seasoned Microsoft Technical Evangelists with real world experience developing applications using a wide array of platforms and languages. Jeremy and Michael will be leveraging the popular "Jump Start" virtual classroom approach to engaging, expert-led, and demo-rich team-teaching. REGISTER NOW..."