Windows 8 App Projects - XAML and C# Edition (eBook)

Nico Vermeir is a .NET developer living in Belgium. He specializes in Windows Phone and Windows 8 development. He is a founding member and current board member of the Metro App Developer Network (http://www.madn.be). You can run into him at almost every local tech event, both as a speaker and as an attendee. His blog can be found at http://www.spikie.be. He s also very active on Twitter (@NicoVermeir). Next to his own user group Nico is also part of Microsoft's Extended Experts Team, a Belgian team of technical experts and community leaders that are present at most community events to provide support, help and demos to attendees.

1. Introduction 2. Getting Started: The first chapter helps reader with setting up their development environment. We also take a closer look at the Windows 8 simulator and the difference between running native. 3. Building a first project: This chapter is where the actual developing begins, we take a look at the available templates in Visual Studio and start building a multi-page app that we navigate through. 4. Getting cloudy with data: There are very few apps that get by without consuming data. In this chapter we’ll take a look at how to implement both local and remote data in a Windows 8 application. 5. Build a charming application: The charms are a unique and great feature of the Windows 8 platform. Integrating them in an application provides a form of interaction that will feel natural to the user because it is a part of the operating system. 6. Using live tiles: Windows Phone has already proven the value of the live tiles. They provide a way to inform your users of certain events and provide a way to draw users back into your application. In this chapter we’ll take a look at how to create and update tiles and badges. 7. Notifications: Notifications provide a way to inform your user of important things without them having to have your app open in the background. We will learn how to use different kinds of notifications in this chapter. 8. Make your app adaptable: Windows 8 will appear on a variety of devices with different aspect ratios, resolutions, form factors, etc. In this chapter we’ll learn how to make sure that your app looks good on all possible forms and sizes of Windows 8. 9. Sensors: The range of upcoming devices running Windows 8 will have a variety of sensors on board. In this chapter we’ll have a closer look at the most common ones and learn how to leverage them in our apps. 10. Games: Building games is as much fun as playing them. Windows 8 has full DirectX support, next to DX Javascript developers can quickly get started building games as well. XNA is not supported on Windows 8 but thanks to the community even XNA developers can now build games using MonoGame. In this chapter we’ll compare these three methods. 11. Going to market with your app: Once your app is finished you’ll want to publish it as fast as possible. In this chapter we’ll take a look at common reasons for certification failure.