Windows App Developer Links - 2012-05-04

posted on 03 May 2012 | App Developer Links

Windows 8

  • Making Windows Media Center available in Windows 8 (Building Windows 8 Blog)

    • "In this post we wanted to update you on Media Center and Windows 8, specifically how we will make sure Windows 8 fully supports the capabilities of Media Center as it is in Windows 7. We took the feedback about maintaining the functionality very seriously, and we clearly understood what we've heard many of you saying around the value of Media Center for movies, Internet TV, broadcast TV, optical media, music, photos, and all the other scenarios it covers today. Many said in comments and email to us, that so long as the feature is available somehow it is fine."

Metro App Development

  • Integrating With Windows 8 Share Charm - Part 2: Receiving Data (Going Metro Blog)

    • "In the previous blog post Integrating with Windows 8 Share Charm - Sharing Data I have discussed how to Share data from an App. In this blog post I will discuss on how to create the target app capable of receiving the shared data."

  • Custom events in WinJS (Jayway Team Blog)

    • "In this post, we'll perform a refactoring that moves some code that controls the AppBar in a Metro application written in HTML5. The code is currently placed in each page in the application and each page searches the DOM for an element with an id 'appbar' and then hides or shows a button in the AppBar, depending on if a "full view" button should be visible or not. But even if we have data in the DOM available as global state, it doesn't mean that we should use it - writing Metro applications in WinJS doesn't change the fact that encapsulation is still an important property of the design of your application!"

  • Windows 8 Metro Style Apps: How to build a great app (Channel 9)

    • "You have looked into building Windows 8 Metro Style Applications. But now comes the step of building a great app that integrates with Windows 8 experiences and that has great user interaction. How do you make your app preferred by users? How do you give confidence to users? In this session we look at the Metro style guidelines, how to adopt the Metro Design Principles and some examples of going from 'meh' to great! This session focuses on the User Interaction and Experience, so expect little code but lots of input on how to make your app great, whether you are a designer or a developer."

  • Metro style apps and the Win32 API (virtualdub)

    • "There's been a bit of discussion about the difference between "desktop apps" and "Metro style apps" on Windows 8, particularly as it pertains to Windows RT (previously Windows on ARM), which currently isn't going to allow third party development of desktop apps. Part of the confusion comes from the fact that you can use native C++ code in a Metro style app. Native C++ doesn't mean you can just recompile an existing C++ app written on top of Win32, though, and there are lots of misconceptions about what this means for converting existing apps to Metro. ... Looking at the documentation and the requirements, I'm of the opinion that most C++ apps will require a major rework to conform to Metro app requirements. This is based on the restrictions to Win32 API usage that will require invasive changes to either the C++ code itself or the frameworks that the C++ code is based on. Nevertheless, it's useful to actually look at the API lists and get an idea of where the trouble spots are, which is what I'm going to do here. Think of this as a what-if exercise, kind of what would happen if someone at work just asked you for a wild guess at what would need to change to retarget Metro."

  • Win32 and Metro-CreateFile(2) (Pavel Yosifovich)

    • "When a new Windows version comes out, I'm always curious about the new Windows API (Win32) functions that are added to the release. With Windows 8, things get a little more complicated, as there are desktop apps and there are metro apps. Now, for every Windows API function the documentation states whether this API is valid for desktop apps only or for desktop apps and metro apps. One classic function is CreateFile. This is one of the oldest functions - exists since the very first Windows NT version. In Windows 8, it's marked for desktop apps only. This may be understandable, as the Windows Runtime has other ways to use files, such as the StorageFile class. However, Windows 8 has a new function called CreateFile2. This one, in contrast to CreateFile, can be used in desktop and metro apps."

Apps & Code to Look At

  • Cocoon (Andy Wilkinson)

    • "Cocoon is a framework to support the development of .Net Windows 8 Metro-style applications, in particular those that link to web services. It simplifies accessing, displaying and editing data using standard Metro controls, and allows easy application of the MVVM pattern. For more details, and news on the latest releases visit http://andyonwpf.blogspot.com"