Windows App Developer Links - 2012-04-18

posted on 18 Apr 2012 | App Developer Links

Windows 8

  • Announcing the Windows 8 Editions (The Windows Blog)

    • "Today I would like to share information with you on the editions that will be available for "Windows 8" when it is released to market. We have talked about Windows 8 as Windows reimagined, from the chipset to the user experience. This also applies to the editions available - we have worked to make it easier for customers to know what edition will work best for them when they purchase a new Windows 8 PC or upgrade their existing PC."

Visual Studio 11

Expression Blend

  • Creating an HTML Metro Style App that References C# and C++ Code (Microsoft Expression Blend Team Blog)

    • "This post is about creating a WWA (Windows Web Application) hybrid app with C++ and C#. With this type of Blend project, it is possible to have JavaScript code use functions and libraries from both C++ and C#. This post will walk you through how to create a basic hybrid app with both C# and C++."

Metro App Development

  • .NET for Metro style apps (.NET Blog)

    • ".NET is now a core part of several Microsoft platforms, and each has focused on specific subset of APIs. A lot of thought has been put into crafting each API surface area. Many of you have asked how the .NET APIs available for Metro style apps were chosen. In the following post, Immo Landwerth - a program manager on the CLR's Core Framework team - provides an answer to this question."

  • Reclaiming memory from Metro style apps (Building Windows 8 Blog)

    • "In this post, group program manager Bill Karagounis on our Fundamentals team details the behind-the-scenes efforts to reclaim memory even when apps are suspended, and how this all happens without developers needing to worry."

  • Windows 8 and the future of XAML: Part 5: More contracts in WinRT/Windows 8 (Gill Cleeren)

    • "In the previous article, we've introduced contracts in Windows 8. To quickly recapitulate, a contract allows Metro style applications in Windows 8 to communicate which each other or with Windows, without there being a hard reference between the participants of the communication. ... In this article, we'll dive some more in contracts, more specifically, the share contract. "

  • Win 8 Page Navigation (Jesse Liberty)

    • Jesse walks through how to do page navigation in a C#/XAML WIndows 8 Metro Application.

  • Saving user details on OnSuspending event for Metro Style Apps (nmarun)

    • "One of the features available for developers is the ability to save user data so it can be retrieved the next time the app is run after being closed by the user or even launched from back suspended state. ... Let's see how to wire up this successfully."

  • Accessing files on local machine in Windows 8 Metro Style Apps using JavaScript and HTML5 (nmarun)

    • Nmarun demonstrates how to enable a WinJS/HTML5 Metro Application to access local files using the FileOpenPicker.

  • Windows 8 JavaScript-Change Lock Screen Image (Shai Raiten)

    • "In this post I'll show two things: 1. Using File Picker using JavaScript, 2. Change Windows 8 Lock Screen Image Programmatically"

  • Tip: Binding an Image element's Source property to a Uri in WinRT XAML (Pete Brown)

    • "In the current version of Windows 8/WinRT XAML, you can't bind image sources directly to Uris, but there's a nice way to do it by using property element syntax and and a BitmapImage class. It's more verbose, but may be just the ticket if you need to bind to Uris and not strings, and can't change, or don't want to change, your [view]model."