Category Archives: For Developers
Introducing a new Windows Dev Center experience
Since launching the Windows Dev Center in October, 2011, we’ve worked closely with developers and designers around the world to understand how we can provide the best guidance, inspiration, and samples for app builders. With millions of visitors and your feedback, we’ve been evaluating what’s been working well and what ...
Sharing to your target app
In Sharing from your app, we introduced the idea of sharing content from the example app Food with Friends to several target apps that let the user accomplish rich end-to-end scenarios. Apps in Windows 8 offer interesting content that your customers will want to share with friends or other apps. ...
Develop a cutting edge app with NFC
Near Field Communication (NFC) is an emerging, short range wireless technology. With a precise range of 2 cm, people can physically tap devices together to send/receive content. Tapping lets you select something (or someone) quickly. Not only is it quick, it’s also easy to understand. Once you see it, you ...
Creating connected Windows Store apps
People are continually surrounded by devices that are connected to a network. Even the latest refrigerators and washing machines can connect to the internet and home networks. So it’s no surprise that end-users expect their apps to be connected as well. These “connected apps” consume the latest content from the ...
Register now for //build/ 2013!
Last week Steve Guggenheimer announced //build/ 2013. The conference is taking place June 26-28, 2013 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. //build/ is a great opportunity to learn more about developing Windows Store apps. The conference will include great presentations, demos, info sessions, etc. for you. Many of us ...
Windows Store app support in jQuery version 2.0
If you’ve already done some web development, it’s likely you’ve used the open source JavaScript framework jQuery. And if you’ve tried building Windows Store apps using jQuery, you might have run into errors related to JavaScript runtime or dynamic content. With the upcoming release of v2.0, the jQuery team has ...
Developing Windows Store games
Windows 8 has changed the PC landscape with innovative form factors, new chip architectures, exciting commerce models and huge opportunities. PC games have long been a staple of the way computers are enjoyed. Now, more than ever, games exemplify the value of this new landscape of devices. Thanks to the ...
Alive with Activity, Part 3: Push notifications and Windows Azure Mobile Services
In Part 1 of this series we explored what “aliveness” means to a user and how apps participate in creating that experience. In Part 2 we looked at how to write and debug web services to support periodic updates for live tiles. Here in Part 3 we’ll complete the story ...
Alive with activity, part 2: Writing and debugging services for live tiles
In Part 1 of this series we explored the nature of tile updates, badge updates, and toast notifications that bring a sense of “aliveness” to the overall user experience of Windows 8. In particular, we saw how these notifications are composed with XML payloads that are then issued locally, from ...
Alive with activity, Part 1: Working with tiles, badges, and toasts
Live tiles and the related capabilities of badges, toast notifications, and push notifications are one of the most distinguishing features of Windows 8 and Windows Store apps. They combine to create a system that is “alive with activity”: apps have a constant flow of info coming in from their services ...