DavideZordan.net

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!

Today I’ve been honoured to receive my 4th MVP award from Microsoft for my contributions about Silverlight and XAML related technologies during the last year.

Every new award is always a great emotion; I would like to thank all the people that supported me including the smart guys working in Microsoft, my amazing MVP lead Alessandro Teglia,  the fantastic groups of the insiders lists and the “terrific” Silverlight MVPs. You all rock.

Enjoy and continue XAMLing everyone, big times ahead!

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 news for Kinect lovers today: a new version of the SDK and tools has been released and includes tons of new functionalities like

• Kinect Studio: a new tools for recording and playing back Kinect data;
• Face tracking SDK: real-time 3D mesh of facial features;
• Lot of new samples, additions and documentation improvements;
• New seated Skeletal tracking;
• New capabilities to enable avatar animation scenarios;
• Four new languages supported for speech recognition: French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese.

Click here to read the official announcement in the “Kinect for Windows” blog.

Happy Kinecting!

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

A new version of Expression Blend for Silverlight 5 is now available for download with these features:

• Expiration date - June 30, 2013;
• Go-live license;
• updated Silverlight 5 SDK.

Check out the original post by the Expression Blend Team and download the new bits from here.

Happy Silverlighting!

As announced on the Windows Phone Developer Blog, Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update is now available for  download on the Microsoft Download Center.

The WPSDK 7.1.1 Update provides a WPSDK patch that enables developers to develop and test for the recently announced Windows Phone 7.5 256 MB devices, as well to run the WPSDK 7.1 on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview release via the following:

• Updated 512 MB OS Emulator Image: An updated build Windows Phone OS 7.1 (Build 8773)
• New 256 MB OS Emulator Image: A new Windows Phone OS 7.1 emulator image (Build 8773) that emulates running on 256 MB devices
• Emulator Choice: Ability to debug or run your WP apps in either the 256 MB or 512 MB emulator
• Windows 8 Support: An updated emulator is included, which can run on Windows 8
• IntelliSense support for adding the new 512 MB requirement to the Windows Phone App Manifest file

News since the CTP release last month:

• ‘Go Live’ license: The update now has a ‘Go Live’ license; developers running WPSDK 7.1.1 are now empowered to publish their Windows Phone apps to the Windows Phone Marketplace
• Full Localization: WPSDK now supports all 10 IDE languages; and the OS image now has Malay and Indonesian
• Windows 8 Support: The updated emulator will now run on Windows 8; note that the OS is still not officially supported by developer support until the final OS release

Useful links:

Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update CTP Download Center page

• Full URI
• FWLink
• WPDev.ms

Documentation

• What’s New
• Developing for 256 MB Devices

For additional information on this release, please refer the post on the WP Developer Blog.

Fellow MVP Daniel Vaughan has published in these days on CodePlex a new version of his “Calcium” framework targeting Windows Phone.

From the official release notes:

“Calcium for Windows Phone is a consolidation of the infrastructure code that has been written for the book Windows Phone 7.5 Unleashed, and is already used by a number of published apps. 

Some of Calcium for Windows Phone features include: 

• A user option’s system that allows you to add a settable option to an options page, with a single line of code.
• A bindable application bar with toggle buttons and menu items, hyperlink button/menu items, which allows you to host multiple application bars in a Pivot.
• Built-in support for localization. Bindable resources allows the user to change the interface language at run-time.
• An IoC container and DI infrastructure, and templates to allow you to hide or show a Purchase link in your app depending on the • Trial state of your app and so forth.
• Templates for Views with ViewModels.
• Attribute based state persistence system.
• Message service that allows you to display messages and ask the user questions from your ViewModel.
• Launchers and Choosers abstraction layer.
• Input Validation system, with styles customized for displaying validation errors.

And much more! 

Unlike Calcium for WPF and Silverlight, Calcium for Windows Phone does not depend on Prism and has a smaller footprint, more suitable for the mobile platform.”

Other useful resources:

• “Windows Phone Experts” Group on LinkedIn;
• The new book “Windows Phone 7.5 Unleashed” by Daniel.

Fortify your apps with Calcium for Windows Phone!