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As you may know, the Microsoft Patterns & Practices team has recently released the final version of  ”Prism for Windows Runtime“, available for download here on CodePlex.

This project contains a complete guidance for building Windows Store apps using C# and XAML and includes the following resources:

• AdventureWorks Shopper Reference Implementation (RI): a complete sample built using the Prism library and applying the guidance;
  
• Source code for the Prism library and the RI;
• Complete documentation (online and free e-book) including quick-starts for Validation, Event Aggregation and MVVM;
• Prism for the Windows Runtime Templates for Visual Studio.

Big kudos to all the p & p team: they did an amazing job and I personally felt honored to have the possibility of providing feedback whilst the project was in development.

This is really a great guidance for building Windows Store applications that can be easily tested, maintained and extended: every developer building complex apps will benefit from it.

Other useful links:

• Pluralsight course “Building Windows Store Business Apps with Prism” by Brian Noyes;
• WinRT Business apps article series on SilverlightShow;
• Patterns & Practices: Prism for the Windows Runtime by David Britch.

Happy coding everyone!

I’m a big fan of separation of concerns: applying the correct architecture and patterns is the right way to make a successful project instead of making it fail.

There’s a lot of buzz in this period around Windows 8 and its programming model based around WinRT, WinJS, CSS3 and HTML: the platform is out from a while and it’s ready for prime time. What about applying some best practices for building awesome applications?

I’m coming from a XAML background and, in the past years, I had the opportunity to verify in real projects how the correct usage of patterns like MVVM, Commanding, Event Aggregation, Dependency Injection (and more…) permits the developer to build reliable, maintainable and scalable applications.

MVVM Stack for WinJS is a new project by my friend and Microsoft MVP Corrado Cavalli: it contains a set of  reusable classes that helps you creating Windows Store Applications using MVVM, messaging, suspend/resume support, Blendability (design-time data) and more.

The available documentation contains useful information about:

• Introduction
  Introduction to MVVM Stack http://bit.ly/mvvmstack1
• Core components
  Describes stack core components and loading sequence http://bit.ly/mvvmstack2
• Application specific components
  Describes application specific components, what they do and how to customize them http://bit.ly/mvvmstack3
• Page ViewModels
  Describes the viewmodels associated with each view http://bit.ly/mvvmstack4
• Custom bindings and Blendability
  Details about custom binding available in the demo and how to manage Blendability http://bit.ly/mvvmstack5
• Service persistence
  Describes how to handle services state during suspend/resume events http://bit.ly/mvvmstack6
• Command support
  Describes how to use Command instances exposed by ViewModels http://bit.ly/mvvmstack7
• Application resuming support
  Describes how to be notified each time app resumes http://bit.ly/mvvmstack8
  

The code is available for download on Codeplex and contains a sample application describing the concepts.

Happy coding everyone!

I’m always interested in evaluating new tools and components for enriching the User eXperience of projects and shortening the time to market.

In the past I used for some projects XAML controls from Telerik and I’ve been always pleased with their performance, availability of samples and ease of use.

Recently I’ve received my copy of the new “Telerik RadControls for Windows 8” and I observed how the same approach has been applied to the new components for the Windows 8 platform.

RadControls for Windows 8 are native XAML and HTML components for creating Windows 8 apps. Built from the ground up for Windows 8, RadControls offer the same intuitive UI and UX no matter if you are developing in XAML or HTML environment. The suite offers functionalities such as DatePicker and Chart to complement the stock UI toolbox and shorten your app time to market.

If you have a certified app using the product, let Telerik know so that your app can get featured in the showcase gallery.

Check out an overview video here: http://youtu.be/yxzXFrlVPfc

Happy XAMLing everyone!

Just a quick post to highlight an interesting article by Blaine Wastell about a new project (codename “Kona“)  that will provide guidance on developing line of business (LOB) apps for Windows 8.

Check out this link for the details of this interesting project!

The last week has been very exciting for Microsoft developers: The //build/ conference in Redmond was full of amazing content including Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 SDK, Microsoft Surface, Xbox SmartGlass, Kinect for Windows and the new language TypeScript.

Unfortunately I hadn’t the possibility to participate at the conference but had some free time during the week-end to watch some of the recorded sessions available here on Channel9: this is really a great resource and I suggest everyone interested in Microsoft technologies to download some videos and have fun with it.

I decided then to take a look at the new features available in Windows Phone 8 and the related SDK: Justin Angel has a great article about this topic in the Nokia Developer Community.

To get my hands dirty I moved then on my personal Open-Source project “Multi-Touch Behaviors” on CodePlex: this is a set of Epression Blend Behaviors for different platforms including Windows Phone, Silverlight and WPF for applying gestures and manipulations (like the one available in the “old” ScatterView control) to generic XAML elements.

The project was not yet updated to Windows Phone 8 so I took this opportunity and experimented with the new SDK: this was really a great experience since I was able to upgrade quickly all my samples to the new platform using the same codebase used for the Silverlight version.

Unfortunately I haven’t the possibility  to test the performance on a real Windows Phone 8 device at the moment but the first impressions are really positive.

I have already checked in the code for WP8 here, I’m planning more testing and development in the future.

Happy XAMLing everyone

Check out these useful downloads including hands-on labs, presentations, samples and resources from the Windows 8 camps.

More resources available in this post @ ExpressionBlend.com.

Enjoy!

Great days and lot of new tools for Metro XAML developers on Windows 8.

Callisto is a new library of controls and helpers (including SQLite support) for Windows 8 XAML applications (aka Metro style apps) developed by Tim Heuer (@timheuer) and Morten Nielsen (@dotmorten).

Click here to access the project and download the new bits!

Enjoy

The “Windows Runtime (WinRT) XAML Toolkit” is a new resource containing a set of controls and helpers for building Windows 8 Store applications.

Click here to read the details and access the download link on CodePlex.

New to Windows 8 development? Mark your calendars: the new book “Programming Windows, Sixth edition” by Charles Petzold is coming soon!

Happy XAMLing everyone

Are you interested in keeping up to date and discussing topics about Windows 8, WinRT, Windows Store Apps?

Don’t forget to join the new “Windows 8 Experts” Group on Linkedin and start creating awesome applications for this great platform!

A new project has been recently announced in the “Silverlight Experts” group on Linkedin by fellow group-member Laith Alasad:

The XAML Project contains “Free vector design resources for XAML-based technologies such as Silverlight, Metro, WP7, and WPF. Search and download pure XAML graphics for your web, desktop, and/or mobile applications.“

It’s a very useful resource, I’ve already inserted it in my favorites!

Happy XAMLing everyone