- Posted by christhi on July 14, 2010
Beta is here! This means we are getting closer to release, which means it is time you start building your Windows Phone applications ASAP. Just in case you are asking, here is a great resource to help you get started building great Windows Phone applications.
As part of our efforts to help developers jumpstart their development of Windows Phone applications, we released a refresh of the Windows Phone Training to meet the changes in the Windows Phone Beta tools release. You can download a local copy of the training kit, or you can go to the online version on Channel 9.
More information about the new tools can be found here
This release of the WP training kit includes all the labs from the previous release (updated to the Beta tools) and all the videos from the previous release. In addition we added two new labs:
- Using Windows Phone Launcher and Choosers In Your Applications
- Understanding the Windows Phone Application Lifecycle (handling Tombstone)
A new functionality in this Beta release tool is the exposure of APIs for using Windows Choosers and Launchers. The launchers and choosers framework enables Windows Phone applications to provide a set of common tasks for users, such as placing phone calls, sending email, and taking pictures. The “Using Windows Phone Launcher and Choosers In Your Applications” lab covers some of these new launchers and choosers. The emulator doesn’t provide the full Windows Phone user experience, and therefore we don’t cover all the available choosers and launchers in the API. But there is more than enough for you to learn about this topic.
Understanding the Windows Phone Application Lifecycle (handling Tombstone)
As you probably already know, Windows Phone allows only one application to run at any given time in the foreground, and no 3rd party applications are allowed to run in the background. Therefore when a user navigates away from your application, either to a chooser like picture chooser, or to a launcher like phone call, Windows Phone operating system terminates your application.
Tombstoning is the procedure in which the operating system terminates an application’s process when the user navigates away from the application. The operating system maintains state information about the application. If the user navigates back to the application, the operating system restarts the application process and passes the state data back to the application. This lab explain in great detail what tombstoning is, how it works, and what you should be handling in your application
Another area of improvement in the API is Push Notification Services. We’ve upgraded the lab to work with the updated Beta API and while doing so gave it a nice facelift. This lab features an end-to-end scenario for a simple weather application that registers to receive Push Notifications as well as a WPF client application that mimics the 3rd party backend server.
On top of that, the training kit includes four additional labs (all refreshed and up-to-date with the latest Beta tools):
Hello Phone - This lab aims to be the classic “Hello World” application, introducing you to the tools and procedures required to build and test Silverlight for Windows Phone applications. During the lab, you will see how to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phones, Expression Blend to build and design your Windows Phone applications, and how to deploy and debug your Windows Phone application on the Windows Phone Emulator
Building Your First Windows Phone Application – This lab introduces you to the basic building blocks of any Windows Phone Silverlight application. During the course of this lab you will create a simple puzzle game. The lab takes you through the different stages of starting a new project, adding controls and code behind, and testing and debugging. Unlike the Hello World lab, this lab focuses more on phone-related topics like navigation, using pages, frame and navigation services, multi-touch, and isolated storage.
Windows Phone Navigation and Controls – This lab introduces you to the Windows Phone layout system, the phone’s chrome, and few new controls. The lab explains the basics of navigating between different screens (pages) in a Windows Phone Silverlight application. During the lab you will build a navigation application that switches between various screens, with each screen displaying different phone functionality, such as playing an audio or video file.
Game Development with XNA Framework for Windows Phone – This lab introduces you to XNA game development on Windows Phones, as well as to the basics of XNA game development. During the lab you will build a simple XNA game application that introduces key concepts in XNA game development and learn how to use Microsoft Visual 2010 Express for Windows Phone to build and design your XNA games for Windows Phones
- Posted by christhi on July 12, 2010
Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta ReleasedJUL1220
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First things first: go get the Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta. It has arrived!
It’s time to get serious about building the actual apps and games for Windows Phone 7 that consumers will be looking for starting this holiday season.
One of the things I really want to do is just take a step back and congratulate the entire Windows Phone 7 team. They have done an amazing job of delivering code month after month on our path to releasing later this year.
Here’s a link to the release notes for the beta, but I wanted to talk about a few top level items:
- Microsoft Expression Blend for Windows Phone – Blend is now integrated completely into the Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta.
- Developer Registration Utility – Now you can unlock you Windows Phone 7 device for development purposes.
- XAP Deployment Tool – if you want to deploy XAP files directly to an unlocked device, now you can.
- The Windows Phone 7 API – we’re getting close to completion. Many namespaces that were previously distributed over several different DLLs have now been consolidated into one. In addition, there have been realignments and changes in several other namespaces as well. Push Notifications, Accelerometer and App Bar APIs have all been updated.
- Additional Controls – There are some additional controls coming in the next few weeks (i.e. Panorama and Pivot) which didn’t make the beta release. They are coming soon.
- Control Templates – Silverlight for Windows Phone control templates have been updated to match evolutions in the overall OS.
Get Trained – Windows Phone 7 Jump StartWindows Phone 7 JumpStart is a FREE virtual live class for developers interested in developing applications and games for Windows Phone 7. We’re providing this in partnership with our MS Learning team. The course is organized into four virtual instructor-led sessions that are of 3-hour duration. They will be presented by forthcoming MS Press authors and MVP's, Andy Wigley and Rob Miles. It will provide developers a jump start for developing Windows Phone 7 applications. The Labs will be completed offline with office hours access to the instructors.The dates for these course sessions are:
- July 20 – 8am: Session One: Getting Started with Microsoft Windows Phone and Silverlight
- July 20 – 1pm: Session Two: Programming Game Applications with XNA
- July 22 – 8am: Session Three: Programming Applications with Silverlight
- July 22 – 1pm: Session Four: Review and Wrap Up
Go register for the course now!Devices for DevelopersWe made a promise last month that we would be getting pre-production preview devices to developers this month. We are keeping that promise. In fact, the very first preview devices were awarded last week to a pair of pretty amazing high-school students who won the Windows Phone “Rockstar” contest as part of the Imagine Cup. When we saw what they had done, we knew we had to get them preview phones.Starting next Monday (July 19th), we start shipping the devices more broadly. Sadly, we will not be able to meet all of that demand. We are planning to set up deploy and test labs in major cities to make it a little easier for everyone who wants to have access to a preview phone to have it. More on that soon.Lastly, to get your name in the queue, assuming you haven’t already sent in an email, you can now send an email to wp7req@microsoft.com. A field representative will get back to you as soon as possible. Again, these are preview phones, so they are limited in quantity. When you send email, please include the following information:
- Your name
- Company name, if applicable
- What city/state/country you are located in
- App(s) you plan on developing (category and brief description)
TwitterAt some point, we had to mention Twitter, right? We strongly encourage developers establish a connection with their local field evangelist, since they will be the ones ultimately putting phones into the hands of developers, but they can also point you in the right direction for solving problems, get you connected to other partners, and generally help out. To make it easier to get to know your local evangelist, we’ve set up this list - wp7dev/champs (http://twitter.com/wp7dev/champs).You can also follow other members of the team based on their area of coverage: