Windows (Phone) Development

for n00bs

Christos Matskas@christosmatskashttps://cmatskas.com

Intro - What to expect

• Where do we start• Planning for your app• Development/testing• Questions

Where do I start?

• .NET developers will find it easy • XAML? What is XAML?• HTML5 Web Apps (WP7 and later)• HTML, CSS, Javascript (WP8.1 only)

Windows (Phone) Dev Centre

Get a developer account Windows Phone App Studio Get the tools for WP Easy --> hard (Asc)

- VS2013 with Update 2 comes with all the tools- VS2013 Express Update 2RC- VS2012 with Update 4 + SDK- Windows 7 (no emulation) - Windows 8 full experience

Tools for Windows Store apps (cont)

VS2012 or later Windows 8 Touch Screen Use SourceControl (Git, subversion, TFS etc)

Demo

WP - Hello World

Before you start development

Create Proof-of-Concept Check feature availability on other platforms

WP and Win8/WinRT don't share the same namespaces.

Read the UX and development guidelines Get a designer to do the UI

Before you start development (cont)

Physical device or emulator? Create a wireframe for your app Watch videos and tutorials on mobile development

WP App Considerations

Target version (WP7, WP8, WP8.1) Storage requirements. What's available to you:

- Installation folder (7 or greater)- Local folder (7 or greater)- Media library (8 or greater)- External storage (SD card) (8 or greater)- Azure Mobile Services (7 or greater)- 3rd Party API OneDrive, DropBox etc. (7 or greater)

WP App Considerations (cont)

Live Tiles, Push Notifications, and Background Agents

Sensors? Avoid functionality duplication. Do not re-

invent the wheel! Database (xml, Json, SQLite) Globalization. Very important!!! PCL (Portable Class Libraries)

Monetizing on your app

Application types:- In-App-Purchases- Try-before-you-buy - Free.

Advertising

Additional tools

All of these are FREE The Windows Phone Toolkit Coding4Fun Toolkit Windows Phone Power Tools ISE (Isolated Storage Explorer) Silverlight Toolkit from Microsoft is up on CodePlex (7 & 8)

Analytics/Crash reports

Crash reports through Dev Centre Dashboard

Roll out your own Use 3rd party analytics (Localitics etc)

Testing – Yeah baby!

Unit Tests Integration Tests Emulator and physical device tests Performance tools (App profiling in VS) Alpha/Beta testing with real users

Visual Studio App profiling External events Frame rate CPU usage % Application responsiveness Network data transfer MBps Battery consumption mAh Memory usage MB Storyboards Image loads GC events

Submitting your app

“About” page Tile/Marketplace Icons Screenshots App submission and verification: 5-7

days

Next Step?

Step 1: Open VS and create a new WP project

Step 2: ???Step 3: Lots of $$$$ or ££££

Demo

WinRT - Hello World

Getting Help Google/Bing is your friend Twitter & Jabbr can also be used though to a less extend

Nokia Developer site Dev centre has a very large number of code samples which you can use (or "steal"). They are available to anyone for FREE

Links

Windows Phone Dev Centre: http://bit.ly/1jae3yN Windows Store Dev Centre: http://bit.ly/1jj7wfe Windows Azure: http://bit.ly/1skBNjc Nokia Developer Centre: http://nokia.ly/1g1g93p Developer downloads for WP: http://

bit.ly/1iJd473

Links (cont)

Silverlight toolkit for Windows Phone: http://bit.ly/1skC2eg

Error reporting using Little Watson: http://bit.ly/1hHfn6E

YourLastAboutDialog: http://bit.ly/1uTZgfm ScreenShot.cs: http://bit.ly/1oIhMCT