Tagged: windows 8

In my working with Windows Store apps, I’ve become increasingly fond/aware of the advantages for app localization.  There are a lot of resources out there for you to localize your app using a good-better-best approach as well.  I’ve previously written about localizing a Windows Store app using some of these methods and what the WinRT platform supports to make this easier in most cases. Now that you’ve localized your app, you may be faced with the question of how you might want to respond to language choice changes by the user.  Remember that the Windows Store app model is...

As someone who uses a few iOS devices around the house, I’ve become fond of visiting sites and seeing a little banner that lets me know that a native app is available for the web app I’m using.  This concept was introduced in iOS 6 and called “Smart App Banners” in the developer documentation.  You may have seen them as well I wanted to provide the same affordance for Windows Store apps and recalled there are already two ways to integrate the web app browsing experience with the native app in the Windows Store: ...

So you got that shiny new Surface device today?  I’m sure you spent the first few hours just opening it up, setting your personal experiences to your desire, re-installing and discovering new apps. But you are a developer and now you want to see how your app looks on this great device…Here are some tips to get you quickly started. Setting up the tools One thing to keep in mind is that Surface is NOT a full ‘desktop’ machine and runs on an ARM processor.  This means to that you cannot install Visual Studio directly on the...

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...

I was helping a friend today doing some over-the-shoulder code review and suggestions for his Windows app he’s writing for the store.  In doing this I asked a question about how to perform a certain action.  He indicated that he put those functions in the AppBar and was it not obvious I was supposed to use them.  I looked at the AppBar again and found out why I wasn’t drawn to them.  First, the labels he used weren’t descriptive to me and relied too much on me looking at the actual icon.  Second, however, is that when I hovered over...

I’ve previously posted a few things about SQLite including a HOWTO on how to build from their source code.  If you still want to build your own DLL from their source code that is totally fine, but not necessary in most every single case I’ve seen in app usage.  One of the challenges I noted is that since SQLite is a native component and if you are a managed (.NET) app you can’t be architecture neutral anymore (AnyCPU).  What this means is that you have to build your app for each architecture you want to support: x86, x64 and ARM. ...

At the “Developing Windows 8 Metro style apps with C++” event that happened on 18-May-2012, we saw and heard some very interesting things.  If you were watching live then hopefully you didn’t see how I tried to work through my presentation while my disk was suspiciously guzzling every last byte until it eventually ran out of space!  But I digress… During the keynote presentation by Herb Sutter, we brought up several customers that are well-known in the native code world to talk about their experiences with Metro style apps and C++/Cx.  In particular hopefully this one caught your eye: That’s right, the...

Being more involved in the engineering process of a product I had the chance to participate in the design of various features instead of just the ones that I’m responsible for delivering.  One of those areas was the way we would enable developers to produce localized applications.  Before this process I have to be honest and as an app developer never really paid much attention to providing localized versions of any app that I wrote.  I had absolutely no good reason for coming to that decision, just never bothered.  In helping to design and understand localization a bit more I...

Just a little post to point out a hidden gem if you are a .NET developer creating a Metro style app: you can bind to anonymous types.  This came up in a discussion with a customer today that I was having and, frankly, I never tried it until then because my mind was back in Silverlight where this isn’t possible.  There may not be a tone of cases where this is valuable for you, but knowing it is there may help. Let’s assume I have a basic class Person: ...

If you’ve been playing around with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview then hopefully you’ve seen the hundreds of samples provided and downloaded some apps form the store.  In a lot of those applications you’ll notice the common theme of the use of an AppBar…the command bar that shows when you swipe from the top or bottom of the screen.  You can also invoke the AppBar by right-clicking or using the Windows 8 keyboard shortcut of Windows key + ‘z’ to bring it up as well. Picture of the AppBar in the Bing Maps application ...

Today, the Microsoft Advertising team announced an update to their AdCenter SDK to include support for monetizing your Metro style apps. In a blog post announcing the update, Ian notes that if you were using the previous SDK that there have been breaking changes and to use the updated SDK.  This update includes support for XAML applications and adding the ad units couldn’t be easier.  After installing their SDK (which was developed using the same distribution concepts in my post about creating a distributable custom control previous post), you will be able to use Add Reference in Visual Studio,...

At //build one of the surprising immediate things I heard about was folks wanting to build custom controls right away.  I knew that would happen, but not so quick on something so new (WinRT).  The XAML platform did not have good support for building custom controls in the Developer Preview but now that the Consumer Preview for Windows 8 and Visual Studio 11 Beta are out, there is much better support.  There are two key things when thinking about custom controls: 1) building it and 2) making it consumable by developers (even if those developers are your own company).  I’ll...

Today the Bing team announced the release of their WinRT Bing Maps control (BETA) for XAML applications.  First the goods: Read their announcement here: Bing Maps for Metro style apps Download the bits: Bing Maps SDK for Metro style apps (VSIX) Read the reference API docs: Bing Maps SDK If you are familiar with the Silverlight control, it is similar in nature to how you would use it in your XAML Metro style app.  Here’s some helpful tips that are in the docs but just wanted to elevate...

So you’ve started to kick the tires of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and now you are building an app.  You’ve read all the UX design guidelines and started looking at some great apps on the store.   Perhaps you’ve also viewed the online documentation and some samples?  And you’ve likely read about the contract implementations and other charms items like custom settings.  UPDATE: Take a look at Callisto: a XAML toolkit which has a SettingsFlyout control What is Settings? When I refer to Settings here I’m referring to that consistent experience in Metro style apps when the user invokes the charms bar...

An old colleague of mine and now HTML extraordinaire, Adam Kinney, just recently posted on his spelunking of some styling in both WinJS and XAML runtimes with regard to icons/buttons to use in a Metro style app and the AppBar. Adam has two posts: (WinJS) Windows 8 AppBarIcons enumerated and visualized (XAML) Windows 8 AppBarButtonStyles enumerated and visualized Basically what these do is define a set of styles, both in CSS and XAML, that map back to unicode values in the Segoe UI Symbol font.  This contains a...

I hope that you had a chance to download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.  One of the things that you will absolutely want to do is watch Jensen’s video as a video walk-through of Windows 8 features, focusing on working with the operating system as a user, introducing the gestures and things you want to know about.  It is a great, short video and you should definitely watch it: As an avid keyboard user (and one without a touch device currently) I rely on the ‘desktop’ use of my Windows installation.  In addition to those things that Jensen mentions in his...

Today, Microsoft will reveal the Windows 8 Consumer Preview for download to everyone.  This builds on the momentum and feedback from the Developer Preview released in September.  I’m very excited to get the developer platform in front of you so you can see the changes and new features we’ve made available as well as fixes based on your feedback. Along with the release of the actual bits, we’ve updated many resources for you to take advantage of as a developer, so allow me to iterate my top resources for you now… First, download the Windows...

Today there was an event in San Francisco which introduced the Windows Store for Windows apps as well as some details on revenue sharing and policies.  As a part of that Antoine LeBland, Vice President for Windows Web Services, also opened up a new dialog about the store specifically in a new blog Windows Store for developers.  This blog will help developers learn about aspects of the store as well as serve as a place for dialog between the store teams and you, the app developer.  I think it is great that the store team is following in the footsteps...

By now hopefully you’ve seen a lot of the revealing of what the next version of Windows has in store for developers.  Trust me there is a LOT to absorb as the week continues and you should absolutely keep your eye on the BUILD conference site where session information will likely start to appear. I know that a lot of readers here will be interested in the XAML-specific sessions so I thought I’d iterate them here real quick.  NOTE: Anything on the agenda with a “C” after the session number is a chalk talk...