What are /r/WPDev's favorite Products & Services?

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I'm already familiar with C#, but I've been going through these lessons on MSDN to familiarize myself with Windows Phone 8.1.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-8-1-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners

I've never developed on a mobile platform before, so this course has been a great way to get started.

I recently released my UWP app SonicWeb (https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9pfnxs8cbkhn) for Windows 10, but only for Desktop. I quickly realized that many of the people downloading windows store apps are the windows phone users this article mentions. A friendly community that is very thankful for new, good apps. Almost every mail with feedback contained the wish to release it as a windows phone app. Guess what I am working on at the moment. In regard to the future of windows phones I think MS is working hard toward a fully unified Windows. Windows runs on many kinds of devices. Some of them are able to connect to the internet using cell networks. And some of them enable you to make phone calls. These are called windows phone devices today. Tomorrow they will be just another type of device a unified windows runs on. And if this strategy really works out, my UWP app will be ready.

For tools -- I recommend C# and XAML...since your ultimate goal is WP development.

For training goto Channel 9 (and never use goto's in your code) -- this is a Microsoft web site for developers and all the content (as far as I know) is free. It's all videos, and, personally, I learn better from videos than books.

For example....WP Development for beginners:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-8-1-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners

But I can't vouch for that series, and there are probably more than few similar ones available. Look around to find one that helps you.

Finally -- if you really want to learn to code and take it to the next level, pick up books like 'Code Complete' (McConnel) and 'Clean Code' (Martin). Those are great books to give you a decent base to learn from.

For newbies to the platform I can't recommend Bob Tabor's absolute beginner videos enough. Have a look on Channel9's (http://channel9.msdn.com) website for his videos. I've dabbled a bit in iOS (pre-swift) and find WP dev sooooooo much easier to read and write.

If you want this to emulate for testing, I believe there's a project template.

Here's a step-by-step guide

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/26359.windows-8-windows-phone-8-ui-automation-code-ui-test/rss.aspx

Here's a video about it.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/3-593

Hi,

You need to download Visual Studio Express 2013 with Update 2 RC. You also have to run Windows 8 (or 8.1) Professional, or you won't be able to run the emulator.

As far as getting started, Channel 9 has a lot of great content. This link it for WP 8.0 development, but it all applies to 8.1 as well for Silverlight apps. When you have your feet wet you can start looking at Windows Runtime apps for WP (aka the universal apps).

There's a //build 2015 talk that goes over some of the stuff covered in this sample: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2015/2-730

And we have an article up on MSDN that talks a little about the FaceDetectionEffect. It's linked to from the readme.

I actually wrote the C# sample for this, so I'd love to get your feedback, especially around ease of use of the sample, what you think of the API, and how you like our model of having a basic camera app (CameraStarterKit) that we take as a template to showcase other camera features.

I've been hearing similar stories from WP devs... Have you looked into Windows Ad Mediator? It leverages multiple ad network at once to help maximize fill rate.

Info: http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/11/07/how-to-maximize-the-impact-of-windows-ad-mediation-for-windows-phone/

Channel9 vid: http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Inside-Windows-Platform/Inside-Windows-Platform--Inside-the-Windows-Ad-Mediator-Service-and-Control-Maximize-your-Ad-Revenue

First of all, this is not the appropriate subreddit for this subject, maybe the guys from /r/php would know better how to point you into the right direction.

I see you're planning to build an app that is going to be using a PHP webservice to access some sort of data and you said you still need to learn PHP, if that's what you tried to say I'd recommend that you should first take a look at http://php.net/docs.php. This page on the official PHP website contains some documentations can help you get started. You can also learn it from books, but I'm not a PHP developer to recommend you the best one.

Hope that helps you a bit.

No that's not how you do it. Download json.net package from nuget and follow the documentation to parse your json string. It's very simple.

Here's the nuget package https://www.nuget.org/packages/Newtonsoft.Json/

Here's the documentation, it's relatively straightforward http://james.newtonking.com/json/help/index.html

I really like this series for C#: http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/C-Sharp-Fundamentals-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners

then take a look at this for 8.1 apps: http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Store-apps-for-Absolute-Beginners-with-C-

i dont know of any 10 specific guides, but i dont think it'll be that different and 8.1 apps will most certainly work on 10 anyways.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-8-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners sounds like what you need. There's also a learn C# one you might need, depending on how good you are at Java and how well you can translate that over - that's at http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/C-Sharp-Fundamentals-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners

Have a look at Cordova. It allows you to write cross platform mobile apps using HTML/Javascript/CSS. There are lots of frameworks that leverage Cordova - my favourite is Ionic.

Be aware though that you wont be able to write 'native' apps using Cordova and there can sometime be performance issues. It depends on what you want to do, I've found it to be really good though!

There was a registry fix for that on a Microsoft help site (I think this was the reg file)

Edit: Found the thread on MSDN

I concur that it's mostly for fun. I have 3 apps approved and 2 of them are standalone and I allow users to download them for free. The most recent uses the Azure Cloud for communication, so I felt I had to at least include advertising to cover the cost of the cloud. The advertising was a snap to include, doesn't distract much from the app. Shameless plug: It's a shared drawing app called WriteAway ( https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9NBLGGH4TS8N )

HttpClient isn't limited to WinRT, there is a NuGet package that can retrofit event WP 7.5 with it: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Net.Http

I would recommend using HttpClient instead of using WebClient/HttpWebRequest since it's far easier to use and has async methods.

Yes, you either need to use some form of cloud service, or create and host your own backend somewhere.

Azure mobile services can be used for free to develop, but have a limit on 500 unique devices daily.

there are some free choices, if your usage is light.

You can check out amazon free tier, and google app engine.

free visual studio online (up to 5 people). It's well integrated into visual studio and you can decide between svn and git systems. If you actually need to see each other writing at the same time: Well, why would you want to do that? It's possible, but I won't recommend it. Try google docs/drive, word online or some of these other coding pads like http://www.firepad.io/

http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/C-Fundamentals-for-Absolute-Beginners

http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-8-1-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners

Then start building something, learn as you go. Mix in how do I do this? With theory, its much more fun.

This kind of question comes up all the time and of course, everyone's answer will be different depending on the type of learner you are.

For me, I'd recommend two routes to learning to make a windows phone app.

1) Start by learning the basics of computer programming. Honestly, the language won't matter much as long as you pick an object oriented language. Since you're clearly interested in WP development, it wouldn't hurt to do this introduction in C#.

Channel 9 has some pretty solid tutorials on c#: http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/C-Sharp-Fundamentals-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners/Series-Introduction-01

2) The second thing you'll eventually want to do (and really this is a bit further down the road after you get the basic of general programming) is probably look into App Studio.. http://appstudio.windowsphone.com/

While AppStudio is definitely limiting in terms of making a custom application it does give you a good place to start when attempting to make your first WP GUI oriented application.

Once you're feeling confident with your new skills you can either modify a layout you made in AppStudio or start from scratch in Visual Studio.

Check out the talk I gave at Build on What's new with Windows Phone Silverlight Apps I cover this a bit. http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/2-517

Windows Store can hold a 7.1, 8.0 and 8.1 versions of your app and the appropriate is installed based on the OS of the users phone.

The 8.1 app can be a standard Silverlight based 8.1 (XAP) or it can be the new XAML Based app (AppX) (or Universal as you refer to it).

Hope that helps, Sam

meh, leave it up. There is this wonderful part of reddit where the community decides whats helpful and relevant haha

Let me know how things go, rip me a message if you have any questions. I am by no means an expert (haven't published anything I've written or anything) but I have STRUGGLED through figuring out a lot of stuff, would love to give back a bit.

Good luck!

Also if you are looking for tutorials etc and have a decent grasp of C# already Channel 9 has a pretty good guide that can get your started.

No problem, glad I could help. I recommend checking out all the WP sessions from this years Build conference and previous years. There have been multiple sessions on marketing and promotion, including one this year. All the sessions are posted online on http://channel9.msdn.com under events and Build 2014/2013. There are dozens of hours worth of amazing talks :)

http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-8-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners

That's a video series on WP8 development. I watched his wp7 version when I started and it covers xaml quite well, I believe.

These are two good video series to get started:

1. C# for absolute beginners, then
2. WP8 Dev for absolute beginners

I think this confusion is still being played out as Unity, Microsoft and MonoGame try and figure out where they all belong together in our current world.

That said, MonoGame is still your best bet unless you start coding in C++.

http://www.monogame.net/news/ <---they call out Windows 10 Universal apps.

(edit: also check out Unity. It's great)

I'd look into perhaps utilizing WebAPI. You can self-host webapi, which means you don't need IIS.

http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/hosting-aspnet-web-api/self-host-a-web-api

You could then run as an exe or service, desktop or server. WebAPI has a ton of features that you can leverage, and handles a REST-like API, JSON, XML and other formats natively.

You might want to also learn how to handle JSON as well, since the reddit API uses JSON. It's very easy to learn if you read http://json.org/ and if you're looking for someone to help with JSON or your app, I may be available in the evenings -6 CST, past 6PM to 10PM or so. I joined #WPDev as it says in the sidebar which is of course empty, but hey if you wanna bug me, feel free to join that.

Alright, thanks for giving me awesome information about the VisualStates, it's very useful.

One last thing, I've tried Closed Captions in the Video Playback sample for Microsoft samples, but unfortunately it gives me error in the resolver saying "System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access is Denied"

I don't understand why, It's exactly like microsft's sample. If you want better way to solve it, here is the link of my problem in stackoverflow

The current iOS app features are here: https://www.discogs.com/app and the feature requests are here https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/707219

As a "reasonable" v1 release. Accessing your collection, adding to/removing from your collection, sharing your collection, browsing the marketplace and the market value list of your collection.

Similar to what the V1 iOS app went with? Would love it to be UWP most of all for tablet & phone.

What you said is what I would expect, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work like that:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6542035/listview-not-updated-correctly-with-observablecollection

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8490533/notify-observablecollection-when-item-changes

Well to absolutely begin with, you should probably read up on the theory behind MVVM, for example this.

As a starting point, i have written this demo project for a control a while ago, which i think should be a very basic showcase of MVVM with MVVM light framework. It will show data binding with converters, view model injection, sample data and using controls. It's WPF, but that should not matter much in this usage. You can just ask me anything about this code.

Do this first - in WPF. This should get the cocepts down (I havn't done it but skipped through it and it does show binding concepts). http://www.tutorialspoint.com/mvvm/.

Then tackle UWP. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/windows10_development/windows10_development_uwp.htm

it's was private beta app, nothing useful for you anyway (i assume) since it's for a local bus travel app for a city in Germany.

The non beta version can be found at:

• https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblgggz59bf (Win10)

• http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=be7f4f21-78ed-48a4-86ad-db9f7c0fe9dd (Win8)

I am currently working on an app that shows bus arrival and schedules for Vancouver, Canada metro transit. It's hidden jn the store for Win10 universal. PM me if it's something that you are interested in.

Transit+ https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh34kpb

It has to be a URL your app can access, some people on the internet suggests http://localhost.com/, but I've tried it on my WP app and didn't work, the solution was a free sub-domain on GitHub Pages. So I just wrote an empty html page, so much it loads fast and it worked.

Edit: Link to GitHub Pages: https://pages.github.com/

Have you installed correct version? HTMLAgilityPack looks like it's now a Portable Class Library supporting WP8, so it should work.

Have you used a NuGet?

Try using Version 4.3.0.. I wonder if 4.4.1 is acting up since it's a preview.

Also, use the NuGet packages, if you're not doing so already.

https://www.nuget.org/packages/WindowsAzure.Storage https://github.com/Azure/azure-storage-net/blob/master/README.md

I ended up using a SMTP Client library instead of WP's email client.
I think it was called MailMessage.. In NuGet :

Install-Package MailMessage

Edit:
Yeah here's the url for the nuget package --
https://www.nuget.org/packages/MailMessage/

I was just setting up App Insights and came across this post.

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-insights-windows-monitor-usage-crashes/

Seems reasonably easy to do and since I was setting up some basic telemetry, figured it was easy enough to do both.

I'm really hoping Microsoft opens up the Xbox Live services to all developers.

Apple has Game Center and Google has Game Play services but Microsoft has nothing to offer the average developer (one that doesn't have a relationship with Xbox). This is a glaring hole for Microsoft to fill.

Here is a tutorial about using Azure to host your own leaderboard web service:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/Adding-a-Leaderboard-to-1f9d216d

A leaderboard is simple enough to implement but the problem is pricing. The free Azure plan allows a good amount of api calls, storage, and bandwidth. Where it falls apart is the number of devices -- only 500 unique devices can make calls per day -- this is the limiting factor to me in making the free plan viable.

You can use the pricing calculator here to see what you can expect to pay. http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/?scenario=mobile

I assume your watching these videos. It looks like the series covers most of the basics. Whether that is enough really depends on what you are trying to build. The two things that helped me the most are:

• Just start programming - you might end up completely rewriting your first app, but you'll learn a lot
• Keep it simple - this will not be as easy as it sounds.

Let me, or others on this sub know if you need help.

In addition to the links already listed, I've found that Channel9 has the best resources of Windows Phone development. Typically much better than the stuff you would find searching on Google.

Also, it's important to note, that when searching through examples a tutorials to keep in mind which version of windows phone you are target. APIs can vary quite a bit between windows phone 7,8, and 8.1.

I'm afraid to tell you that there's not much you can do about that, besides decreasing the amount of elements or the complexity of the XAML code of the pushpins.

The difference between MapIcon and MapElements is that MapIcons are Bitmaps which are directly sent to the map control and are rendered there, while MapElements are XAML elements and rendered by the XAML thread. The delay is caused because of the sync that is required between the map interaction in the map thread and the UI thread of your application.

What you may try, is the XAML of the pushpins as a bitmap (see RenderTargetBitmap). The rendering may take some time, but then you can use them for MapIcons. However, I tried this some months ago and found no way to display the MapIcons all the time.

As I am also developing an app where I would like to have MapIcons, that are always visible, so let's hope that there will be changes to the Map component in the future. There are quite a lot of bugs in the map, e.g. I am also not able to change the anchor point of a push-pin... MS could improve a lot here.

Edit: to learn more about the map control and MapIcons/MapElements/..., have a look at this BUILD conference talk.

I Know this is an old thread but I wanted to show you the newest course they have at channel9 http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-8-1-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners I'm taking the course myself and learning a lot! Its a huge help! Hope you find it useful too!

There is a backwards compatibility. You can write MPNS code, or reuse old MPNS code and in the back end when it compiles, it will convert it to WNS.

Andy Wigley mentions it in one of his TechEd 2014 talks. I think this one; http://channel9.msdn.com/events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2014/WIN-B326#fbid=

The Absolute Beginner series JudgeDan pointed to is the best one for starting out.

Another great series from Channel 9 that you should check out if you're looking at some specific topics is the Jumpstart series. It's more detailed and more topical.

Coming from another noob, my best resources have been the channel9 videos, the steps given by /u/energeticmater, time, tinkering, and then this subreddit when I come to a specific problem.

I've also discovered that doing side projects eventually help me better my main project. Not only do I better learn what things do, but I also start learning the best way to do things. Maybe you should take a break from your website app and try making a new app.

Check this out for guidance. It has most of what you might need but is for Windows phone 8. I'm not sure what you're targeting (8, 8.1, etc).

http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/627318/Using-GPS-for-Getting-Location-in-Windows-Phone

Also keep in mind that if you use the emulator that it will always point to MS headquarters, this isn't a bug it's how the emulator works since it doesn't know where you're really at. To truly test it you'll need to load it on a phone.

Try not to get wrapped up much on the hosting at the moment and get your application working locally.

I would swap out WCF for Webapi (http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview). Get your DB calls working and expose then via Webapi.

Consume The Webapi, the example is a console app but will work the same for WP. (http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/advanced/calling-a-web-api-from-a-net-client)

Put classes that both the WP and WebAPI use into a separate project and reference that project.

THEN when you have things working on your local machine, start thinking about hosting. You should be able to find articles about copying DB's to Sql Azure. You can use either mobile services or plain azure websites to host the webapi. Update the webapi's connection string to use the sql azure's con string and you may have to add the DB as a resource.

Make sure you learn your SQL. ORMS are ok; just understand how they work so you can debug them in the future. I wrote this up quickly, hopefully it helps. I'm sure other commenters will have something to add or criticize.

yes and no

no in the normal sense of firing up visual studio and coding up an app. However, there is Visual Studio Code. I haven't tried it to see how far it can go.

you can also create them via the browser with AppStudio. Unfortunately, for most of the fine tuning, you have to download the code and modify it locally via Visual Studio or such.

Sorry for not clearing that up! Here's my app: http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=f19741f0-2f4d-4394-9493-a17566e76bc0 The link in my first post takes you to translations. You can pick your own language and finish translations there. They will be merged to app once you're finished. Hope that makes it clear.