Windows App Developer Links - 2012-10-02

posted on 01 Oct 2012 | App Developer Links

Windows 8 App Development

  • Creating a Direct2D game for WinRT (Filip Ekberg)

    • "If you want to write a game for Windows 8 and was thinking of using XNA, think again. When creating games for Windows 8 you'll have to go back to using DirectX. But don't worry, with Visual Studio 2012 on Windows 8, you'll get a lot of help doing so. Let's have a look on how to create a Direct2D game for WinRT!..."

  • How to create a Alchemy game for Windows 8 (Rudi Grobler)

    • "In this article I'll show you how to create a clone of the very popular (10,000,000 - 50,000,000 installs) android game by Andrey Zaikin called Alchemy. Alchemy is based on a simple idea... You start with only four basic elements: Fire, Water, Earth and Air. Combine them and their products to get more elements..."

  • Downloading files in Windows 8 apps using Background Transfer feature (Piotr Walat)

    • "In this blog post I am going to show how to use Background Transfer feature to download files over HTTP in a Windows Store C#/XAML app. Background Transfer has several advantages over using HttpClient and is much better for long running transfers. I am going to create a simple app, that initiates download over the Internet, tracks progress of the download and supports re-attaching transfers after the app is closed..."

  • C++ Runtime for Windows 8 Store apps (Visual C++ Team Blog)

    • "If you have shipped software built using Visual C++, you probably have had to think about deploying C++ Runtime DLLs. If your binaries dynamically link to the C++ Libraries, then your desktop apps probably deploy C++ Runtime using VCRedist, merge modules or by copying C++ Runtime DLLs alongside your own binaries. In this blog post, we are going to look at how this problem has been addressed for Windows 8 Store apps that are written entirely using C++ or contain some components written using C++..."

  • Windows 8 Developer Community and Resources (Jeremy Foster)

    • "I'd like to provide a somewhat comprehensive resource of resources. If you are looking for help, looking for support, or looking for some camaraderie in your fight to get an app in the store and claim your fame and fortune, then look no further. ... Whether you're a contributor, though, or going it alone, you can't go it alone. You need good involvement in your local developer community..."

  • Windows 8: Using WinRT APIs in Desktop Apps (Peter Kuhn)

    • "It's not a secret that desktop applications are able to use certain WinRT APIs too. In some of the documentation, for example that of the Accelerometer class, you can read: 'Applies to: Windows Store apps | desktop apps' There's even an overview list of all the WinRT classes that can be used from the desktop, conveniently compiled and linked to on a single page. So clearly there must be a way to include them in your normal, non-Windows Store applications. But when I tried to actually do that, I found little to no documentation on it and was struggling to set up everything..."

  • Windows 8-Toast Notification (Jesse Liberty)

    • "Continuing my series based on the presentations I'm giving in Europe, today I turn to toast notifications. As with Tiles, Toast notifications are a great way to let the user know that something interesting is happening with your application. Toast notifications can be very complex but their essence can be stripped down to just a few lines of code, especially thanks to the NotificationsExtensions library available from Microsoft..."

  • Walkthrough: Capturing a photos in your Windows 8 application (Jerry Nixon)

    • "Windows 8 apps easily access all the sensors on a Windows 8 machine. But Windows 8 apps can't access any sensors on a Windows 8 machine without first asking the user's permission. Asking Permission..."

  • Using OAuth 2 in WinRT using C#: it has never been easier before (Leon Cullens)

    • "WinRT has a built-in authentication client that can be used to authenticate users through Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google, etc. This post covers the process of authenticating users with Google. Before I start explaining how the OAuth process work, I'd like to talk about the architecture..."

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

    • "In my previous post I talked about Using Live SDK in Windows 8 - C#, now it's time to see how you can do the same things using JS. 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..."

  • Windows 8 Development Snack: Where is Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI exactly? (Robert MacLean)

    • "A lot of the guides for developing Windows Store apps talk about an event log where you can see information from the apps - this is of special importance for those doing background processing, live & secondary tiles. In the documentation it is either called just TWinUI or it is called Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI, however you may battle to find that in the event viewer since the group it is in, is not named that..."

  • Event Handlers in a Windows 8 App (Jeremy Foster)

    • "One of the nicest things about JavaScript is the way it considers function. Instead of being wholly owned subsidiaries of classes, functions are as portable as any other object, and their arguments are dynamic too. This makes for some elegant event handling. In this screencast, I'll attempt to give you a taste of how to wire up events in a Windows 8 app using JavaScript..."

Tools, Services, Frameworks, & Libraries

  • ReSharper 7.1 Early Access is Open (JetBrains .NET Tools Blog)

    • "Say hello to ReSharper 7.1 EAP! Starting today, you can download early builds of the new ReSharper update. In this release, we're trying to focus on little things: removing minor but irritating flaws as well as introducing small improvements that go a long way towards better usability. The everlasting battle for smooth performance and light memory usage is also in full force. Anyway, read on to learn what we have in store as of EAP launch..."

Visual Studio 2012

  • Introducing Visual Studio 2012 (Video) (Peter Provost)

    • "Near the end of the development cycle for Visual Studio 2012, a group of folks in the VSALM team (led by my very creative manager Tracey Trewin) came up with this cool animated video introducing some of the great new features in Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate. I think it is pretty cool, and even pretty funny, so I wanted to share it with you all..."

  • September Update CTP for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 and Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 (Visual Studio ALM + Team Foundation Server Blog)

    • "I have had a couple of people ask me about these new downloads appearing in MSDN downloads simply called something like: CTP of Quarterly Update for Visual Studio 2012 (x86) - (English). Unfortunately these downloads contained no description other than: "Statement of Support: This release has not been subject to final verification and validation, and is not intended to be run on production machines." ... Going forward we will do a better job of letting you know what is in these builds but at a high level the Sept updates contain..."