Tag: Apps

Slides and Workbooks for 10/19 Game Dev Workshop

My thanks to all the folks who attended today’s Windows Game Development Workshop, and particularly for the folks who stuck around for hands-on fun with building games with Construct 2.

I’ve uploaded the slides and workbooks from the workshop to our Github WinGameKits hub. The slides and workbooks have all the links you need to practice hands-on developing a basic platformer game and export it for publishing in the Windows Store, so even if you didn’t get a chance to attend the workshop, feel free to download the workbooks and give them a try!

Weekly East Region Roundup: Vol. 5

Here are some resources and blog posts from my fellow Technical Evangelists here in East Region:

Developer

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Building Back-end Data and Services for Windows 8 Apps: Authentication Tips and Tricks

In previous installments of this series, I’ve shown how you can quickly create REST-based services accessible via HTTP that allow you to easily store and retrieve data in a Windows Store app, using several different approaches including WCF Data Services, ASP.NET Web API, and the new Windows Azure Mobile Services. You can read all of the previous parts of the series here. I recommend reading the intro post and the post on Windows Azure Mobile Services, as well as the most recent installment covering the basics of authentication with mobile services at a minimum, so you’re familiar with the games I’m using to demonstrate the concepts in the series, and with the basics of mobile services.

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Windows Store App Template to Live Data in 3 Easy Steps

One of the things that I like about building Windows Store apps using Visual Studio 2012 is the availability of several rich and useful templates. One of my favorites is the Grid App template, which demonstrates how to build an app with a hub page listing grouped items in a ListView control, a group details page, listing information about each group, and an item details page, for information about specific items.

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Building Back-end Data and Services for Windows 8 Apps: Adding Authentication

In previous installments of this series, I’ve shown how you can quickly create REST-based services accessible via HTTP that allow you to easily store and retrieve data in a Windows Store app, using several different approaches including WCF Data Services, ASP.NET Web API, and the new Windows Azure Mobile Services. You can read all of the previous parts of the series here. I recommend reading the intro post and the post on Windows Azure Mobile Services at a minimum, so you’re familiar with the games I’m using to demonstrate the concepts in the series, and with the basics of mobile services.

Continue reading Building Back-end Data and Services for Windows 8 Apps: Adding Authentication

Building Back-end Data and Services for Windows 8 Apps: Adding Push Notifications

In previous installments of this series, I’ve shown how you can quickly create REST-based services accessible via HTTP that allow you to easily store and retrieve data in a Windows Store app, using several different approaches including WCF Data Services, ASP.NET Web API, and the new Windows Azure Mobile Services. You can read all of the previous parts of the series here. I recommend reading the intro post at a minimum, so you’re familiar with the games I’m using to demonstrate the concepts in the series.

Continue reading Building Back-end Data and Services for Windows 8 Apps: Adding Push Notifications

Windows Store apps and 3rd-party JavaScript Libraries

If you’ve attended one of my talks on building Windows Store apps with HTML5 and JavaScript, you’ve heard me say that although the default for our app templates is to use the WinJS library for providing rich databinding, controls, and a great look and feel that makes your app fit into the Windows store ecosystem, we also support the use of 3rd party JavaScript libraries as well, with a few caveats.

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W8WIL #5: Bringing the Awesome in Search

In this, the 5th, installment of Windows 8, What I’ve learned, I’m going to share a single line of code that can make your search-enabled Windows Store app absolutely awesome!

Start by enabling Search

For starters, if you haven’t enabled the Search contract in your app, you probably should. Unless your app is a game or other kind of app that has no content to search, implementing the Search contract will enable your users to more easily find content in your app, whether it’s running or not, and allow them to do so via a consistent UI that’s part of Windows 8 itself:

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