Phones running Windows 10 Mobile appeared with a significant delay relative to Android and iOS, promising Lost time best opportunities. The promise turned out to be empty, but this was a key moment in the development of Windows as a universal system for all devices. Moreover, applications in Windows 10 remain so foreign that even after so many years of existence, the Microsoft Store remains many times poorer than the App Store and Google Play.
However, it is premature to say that the ability to develop applications for Windows 10 is useless. Firstly, Microsoft has a desire to launch a series of mobile phones under the Surface line, designed for a business audience, that is, to occupy the niche vacated after BlackBerry left the market.
Secondly, even taking into account the constant decline in the smartphone market on WM, Windows computers still dominates, and HoloLens promises to stir up interest. Thirdly, a half-empty, but still common application store suggests much greater opportunities to attract an audience.
In general, although application developers for Android and iOS will be a little more in demand today, their colleagues working for the benefit of Windows have the opportunity to become a real messiah who will save the entire platform. And here is a short guide to what you need to learn at a minimum for this.
Acquaintance
First of all, take a closer look at the universal platform for applications, which from now on will bear its official name - Universal Windows Platform or simply UWP. She appeared back in Windows times 8, and today it has acquired all the necessary amenities. Although the concept has the slogan “one application for all devices”, but for good application You still have to focus on a separate type. In general, you will find out all the features and limitations of UWP if you read the official release from Microsoft:
Language
In the Microsoft factsheet you can find the following phrase: “You can create UWP apps in the programming languages you are most familiar with...”. In fact, this is not entirely true. You have a choice of 4 of them: C#, Visual Basic, C++ and JavaScript. Of course, this is better than a strict restriction, but it is difficult to call it universality.
By the way, reference books for all four languages can be found directly on the Microsoft website or simply by clicking on the links provided. You can also go for free on our website.
Software
The main brainchild of Microsoft, aimed at application developers for various platforms, is Visual Studio. You can also download it from the official website by selecting the appropriate version. You will learn how to work with it, what tools you may have at your disposal, and most importantly where to press, from the manual. The SDK package will also be required to download. On this page you will find all the information you need about working with it.
There is also an alternative option for creating an application for Windows 10 for those who are a little too early to plunge into the world of Visual Studio. Meet Windows App Studio. In fact, it is an application builder with a set of templates that will help you quickly visualize your idea.
Decor
As befits a reputable company, Microsoft has released quite detailed guidelines for designing UWP applications for its developers. Here you will find answers to all your questions: from typical screen sizes to descriptions of command elements, from standard colors to templates Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
Application development
Here you will find information on how to increase the popularity and performance of the application, how to withdraw money, what are the terms of cooperation with Microsoft, and so on.
Literature
Finally, here are a few popular books and resources that will help you create the perfect Windows application:
Windows 10 Development for Absolute Beginners – as the title suggests, this book is dedicated to those who want to create their first application on Windows 10;
Building Windows 10 Applications with XAML and C# Unleashed (2nd Edition), Adam Nathan – and again the title of the book eloquently reflects its content;
Real World Windows 10 Development, Edward Moemeka, Elizabeth Moemeka - a complete guide to developing an application for Windows 10, starting with an overview of the OS itself, its advantages and disadvantages, and ending with verification and uploading of the object you created;
Location Intelligence for Windows Store apps, Ricky Brundritt - a comprehensive guide to developing Windows apps. Part 8 of the OS is dedicated, so periodically it is necessary to check the official documentation, which does not in any way reduce the value of this literature;
– the book describes the life cycle of a Windows application in a fairly general way and, in much more detail, describes third-party functions and tools;
Windows Developers Forum - ask questions and discuss pressing development issues;
A Developer's Guide to Windows 10 - an hour-long video tutorial that will help you understand all the intricacies;
Last update: 04/12/2017
UWP (Universal Windows Platform) is a unified platform for creating and running applications on Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile.
UWP was the result of a evolution of earlier technologies. Thus, with the release of Windows 8, a new architectural platform for applications was introduced - Windows Runtime (WinRT), which made it possible to run applications in the so-called Modern (Metro) mode on desktops and tablets. Then with the release of Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1, this technology was developed - “universal applications” appeared that could be launched immediately by Windows 8.1 and WP8.1. And in July 2015, the new Windows 10 OS was officially released. It uses the UWP platform, which is a development of the Windows Runtime.
As the name of the platform suggests, it is universal - universal for all eco devices Windows systems 10. And these are ordinary desktops, tablets, mobile devices, IoT (Internet of Things) devices, Xbox, Surface Hub devices. And a UWP app can run equally on all these platforms as long as they have Windows 10 installed.
Why UWP?
Programming for UWP has a number of advantages:
Width of distribution. Currently (April 2017), Windows 10 is already installed on more than 400 million devices. On desktops, Windows 10 is already ahead of Windows 8/8.1.
Supports a wide range of devices. Desktops, tablets, smartphones, large Surface Hub tablets, various IoT devices, in the future HoloLens virtual reality devices - the range of devices on which Windows 10 can run is really wide.
Support for different programming languages and technologies. UWP applications can be created using languages such as Visual C++, C#, Visual Basic, JavaScript. As a technology to create GUI Visual C++, C# and Visual Basic use XAML, JavaScript uses HTML. Additionally, C++ can use DirectX instead of XAML. That is, technologies that are quite common and familiar to many.
App store and ease of distribution. The Windows Store is a great place to distribute UWP apps, both paid and free. The very capabilities of the platform and the Windows Store allow you to use different ways monetization. For example, you can integrate blocks for displaying advertisements into applications via various SDKs. Can be distributed for a fee, and the payment can be flexibly configured. If necessary, you can build in the provision of a trial version, after using which the user can decide whether to buy the application or not. And it can also be monetized using the freemium model, in which the application is conditionally free, and individual services within the application are provided for a certain fee. Moreover, all these monetization opportunities are provided by the built-in SDK tools.
Rich platform capabilities. UWP inherits a lot from the Windows Runtime of Windows 8.1 and at the same time provides many new functionality, such as richer cloud integration capabilities, the use of Cortana, the notification system in Win10 and much more.
What is needed to develop for UWP
To program for UWP, you need Windows 10. All other operating systems, like Windows 8.1/8/7, not to mention Windows XP, are not suitable!
You will also need the Visual Studio 2017 Community development environment. It is a fully featured free development environment that can be downloaded from the official website at https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs.
You can also use the VS 2015 version, and all others previous versions Visual Studio - 2013, 2012, 2010, etc. They don't work with UWP.
When installing Visual Studio 2017, you must check the appropriate box in the installer:
Before you start creating applications, make sure that the appropriate option for developers is installed in Windows 10 Update:
And having Windows 10 and Visual Studio 2017 installed, you can start developing applications.
Developing applications for Windows Phone is not that difficult, especially if you are trying to make an application that provides information about services and products or collects data from RSS feeds.
This is a type of application that can be implemented using javascript code in the browser, or using the Access designer, and therefore, to develop such mobile or desktop applications, you do not necessarily need to acquire a full set of tools. A new generation of application builders has arrived, web services that allow you to create and run your own applications.
Microsoft recently launched its own studio for creating applications - Windows Phone App Studio. This is a simple tool that will allow you to create working applications from scratch. For example, for development simple application which is discussed in the article, you will need less than 15 minutes, since this constructor contains standard templates. Of course, we are not talking about developing complex programs or games, but this article will be enough to get you started.
Like Access applications, programs created with Windows Help Phone App Studio use data connections, that is, they are built on the master/detail view model. You can connect a content feed (be it RSS, Youtube, etc.), or use it to publish your own content. Of course, the application is capable of both at the same time. In addition to feeds, you'll also have the ability to host your own content, whether it's coded HTML pages or pages organized using simple databases that Microsoft calls “collections.”
1. On the first step, you need to decide on the content of your application, you can edit or delete those pages and elements that are by default.
We linked our test application to the great-world RSS feed. All we need is the feed URL, and the builder will automatically create a viewport that displays a list of recent articles, as well as a second viewport displaying detailed information about articles.
However, it is worth noting that the process of creating your own application is not so simple, since the RSS parser used in App Studio sometimes cannot cope with the formatting of the RSS feeds generated by the site. That is, sometimes this can become a real problem, because the text of the article simply will not be displayed, and the ability to debug will be severely limited, as is the case with any cloud development tools.
3. Now, you will need to set title, description, and also set it to 160x160 pixels.
4. Well, the final stage - generation and publication applications. Here's what we got:
At the end, a preview of the created application is available, you can check how it will work on a smartphone or tablet. If everything is fine, click the “Generate” button, a pop-up window will appear:
There are two options to choose from, the first is to generate an application for mobile devices, the second is for tablets and regular PCs. The service takes less than 10 minutes to generate, so you can make a product for each platform in turn. The installation process is very simple thanks to the built-in support for QR codes in Windows Phone. First, you need to install a certificate on your phone, and this is done through a QR code that allows you to download the certificate directly to your phone.
- To put the resulting miracle on the Windows Phone Store i.e. to the application store, so that anyone, not just you, can download it, you need a developer certificate. It costs about 600 rubles.
It is immediately obvious that this tool is aimed at BYODev scenarios - when you need to quickly get an application without getting involved in a full-fledged development process. Although it is worth noting that you still have the opportunity to download ready-made source codes and use this tool for prototyping before giving them to the development team for revision. You will certainly be able to independently link data sources in the form of collections hosted in the cloud.
This is one of the good reasons why Microsoft allows you to download source code that is ready to run in Visual Studio. It will be packaged into a Visual Studio project and can be imported directly into the desktop IDE and then debugged. Debugging the application using your favorite device simulator will help you quickly identify the problem - the image inserted at the beginning of the article was deleted on the server. You can quickly change the code and the application will work again.
In addition to making debugging easier, access to source code also makes it easier to style the generated code, either by changing templates or by changing data source connections to personal sources. The generated code is all commented and, since it is used as the main development design pattern when creating applications, it will be much easier for you to understand exactly how each individual piece of code works and how to adapt it to your requirements.
Regarding creation similar applications One thing is clear: they are not designed for creating complex applications. They are like plastic toys for children: everything is in front of us, and we just have to put something together with meaning. As you gain experience through these types of playgrounds, you can gradually move on to formatting the code and use it to create more complex things. Using tool sets Windows type Phone App Studio, you can get some experience with content-driven apps with RSS feeds, web content, and local content.
Of course, this kit probably doesn't represent everything you'll need to create a commercial application, no matter how simple it might be. But that's not the point, because the generated code gives you a framework to work with, as well as the ability to understand how the application creation process works. One thing is for sure: if you are planning to start developing your own applications, then this is a great place to start. Read further: and?
Hi all!
My last post was written quite a long time ago and it’s time to correct this sad fact. Today I decided to break up the series of articles about Windows Azure and talk about another, no less attractive platform from Microsoft - Windows Phone.
As you probably already know, the operating system for mobile devices from Microsoft has been on the market for a long time (since 2010) and today occupies one of the leading positions, in some countries surpassing even the popular iOS in terms of the number of devices sold. Therefore, many developers both in Russia and around the world are already writing applications for this OS with might and main, reporting excellent sales and profits in the Windows Store.
Getting started developing apps for Windows Phone is actually quite easy. If you already know C# and have experience with WPF or Silverlight, then you can say that you know 80% of the necessary information. The fact is that the development platform for Windows Phone was initially based on Silverlight, and in the WP8 version it was replaced by a platform somewhat similar to it, although closer to WinRT. So if you have ever written applications in WPF, you know what MVVM is and what it is needed for, then go ahead, write applications for Windows Phone.
But what if you are not an experienced developer, but you really want to have your own unique application here and now that you can install on your phone and show off to your friends? This is what we will discuss in today’s article.
Windows Phone App Studio
I have always loved Microsoft because it provides its users and developers with very convenient tools for work. And in August, Microsoft introduced its new service, which will allow anyone, even those not familiar with programming at all, to create their own application for Windows Phone. It's called Windows Phone App Studio.
With this service, you can create a full-fledged application from scratch in just four steps. You can set your own styles, images and data, add a description and upload the result to the app store. However, you do not have to be a registered developer (an annual subscription costs $99). Now everyone can unlock one device for free and download up to two of their own apps to test them out.
I myself became interested in what opportunities this service has, and I decided to create a companion application for my mini-project Facts about Programming. I will now tell you about this in detail.
Step 0.1. Registration
In order to start using the service, you need to register your own LiveID account. I think there is no point in explaining what it is if you have ever used any service from Microsoft. Go to the App Studio website and click the Start Building button:
Enter your LiveID login and password and you will be taken to the management system for your applications. If this is your first time doing this, you will have an empty list. I already have the prog_facts application in my collection.
Step 0.2. Selecting an application type
In order to create your first application, you need to select the Create menu item. You will be offered two options - create an application using one of the available templates or configure everything from scratch.
There are a lot of ready-made templates. Among them there are templates for sports-related applications (for example, to track the results of your favorite team), family, entertainment, and many others. When you hover over the template you will see it short description, and when you select each of them, you will see additional window, which will demonstrate what this application might look like.
In my case, I decided not to rely on a template, but created the application from scratch by selecting the appropriate menu item create an empty app.
Step 1: Application Information
The very first and simplest step of the four for which we are promised to create an application is responsible for information about the future application. You will need to provide its name, a brief description and select a logo. The logo must be in PNG format and 160x160 pixels in size.
Notice the phone number displayed on the right. It always shows your application with the changes you make to it.
Step 2. Filling with content
Each application created through Windows Phone App Studio consists of sections. Each section is a set of pages interconnected by some kind of logic. For example, the data that can be displayed on this page. Let's create a new section in which we will use an RSS feed as a data source.
Here you need to set the name of the future section, select the type of data source (Collection, RSS, YouTube videos, Flickr images, Bing search and HTML5 content are available) and give it a name. After creating a section, we will be taken to the editing page.
The editing page is divided into several parts. In the Data Source section, you can manage the data source that is associated with this section. The Pages section contains a list of all pages that belong to the section. You will notice that we have created two pages by default. The first, called Blog, is the main page of the section, which contains entries read from the RSS feed. The second Info page was automatically generated and is responsible for displaying the details of each RSS entry when the user selects it from the list. We'll leave the section pages for now and edit the data source first. (and don’t forget to click Save Changes so that the section is saved in the project)
Step 2.1. Data source
Having selected a data source on the previous screen, we will be taken to the window for editing it. Since we have selected the RSS source type, we will be asked to specify the URL from which the data will be received. For this example, we will use the RSS feed located at
Once you click Refresh and save the results, home page application in the emulator, you will immediately see that the data from the RSS feed is already displayed in your application. This is extremely convenient and useful, because you can immediately find out what the program will look like. For example, my RSS feed does not attach images to posts, so the App Studio builder substitutes default images that look out of place. Let's fix this.
Step 2.2. Editing the appearance of a page
By selecting one of the pages on the “Configure App Content” page in the Section Pages section, you will be taken to the window for editing it. There are several possible templates available for each page type. For the Blog page, which I initially want to fix, the default view for displaying posts and pictures is set. Let's select a view with only posts, adjusting the page title at the same time:
You can immediately see how the application has changed. Now the records go one after another sequentially, which leads to appearance applications to minimalist style. It is worth paying attention to the Item Title and Item Subtitle fields. Instead of simple text, there are now incomprehensible expressions (Data.Title) and (Data.Summary) written there. For those familiar with WPF, this can be compared to Data Binding. For others, I'll explain.
Since our section is built around the Data Source, we must be able to somehow obtain data from this source. These expressions just mean that in the corresponding fields we want to see information received from the RSS feed. Here the Data object represents one post from RSS, and the Title and Summary fields represent some specific part of this post. If you click on the icon to the right of the field, you will see the entire list of available fields of the Data object, among which there is information about the author of the entry, its date, link and several more.
Let's try to edit the Info page in the same way. A slightly different set of templates is available for it, among which we will choose the simplest and most suitable:
Everything on this page is approximately the same. The only thing is that instead of an object Data here we use Context, which is essentially the same thing.
Step 2.3. Adding menus and other sections
In addition to simple sections, you can add a so-called menu to Windows Phone App Studio. This is a section that consists of a list of links to other sections or external sites. I decided to add a menu to the video sections of the site so that you always have it at hand fast access To useful information. Adding a menu is similar to a simple section and setting it up is not difficult. So I suggest you master this as homework.
Step 3. Styles
Having completed filling the application with sections, pages and menus, we move on to talking about beauty, namely style. In Section 3 “Configure App Style” you will be able to configure the base color scheme that will be used in your application. I chose the colors that are used in the blog - blue and white. Thus, the application turned out to be light and pleasant, although there is no arguing about tastes.
The Accent Brush color determines what your main accent color will be. It is responsible for the application header. The Background Brush, as you might guess, is responsible for the background color. You can also choose a picture if you think it is more appropriate than a solid color fill. Foreground Brush is the color of the fonts that will be used to display data in your application. Well, Application Bar Brush is the background color of the menu bar displayed at the bottom.
Step 3.1. Tiles
Tiles are an integral part of any application for Windows Phone. They can enhance your application by allowing the user to see additional information without opening the main program window. Of course, in Windows Phone App Studio you will not be able to create a smart tile that could independently update its appearance and load additional data from somewhere. However, you can choose from several standard behaviors using some static data. For example, for the glamcoder application I selected the Iconic Template tile type and will display a brief description of the application on it:
Step 3.2. Splash and Lock screens
These are additional decorations that will make your application look more elegant and presentable. A Splash Screen image is a picture that is displayed to the user while your application is loading. There, as a rule, it is customary to place the logo of your program or company in order to immediately make it clear to the user which application he is going to use at the moment.
The Lock Screen image is the picture that will be displayed on the lock screen. In fact, there is no particular practical sense in it, because this picture is static within the Windows Phone App Studio, and it is unlikely that the user will want to replace the colorful Bing wallpaper with your picture.
Step 4. Final
Well, we have reached the very last stage - creating our first application for Windows Phone. On last page With the name Generate, a treasured option awaits us - to generate a package that we can later install on our device. Click the big Generate app button and wait for the magic to work.
After the generation is complete, you will see a corresponding message, as well as several options to choose from. First, you will receive an email from which you can download your application. Second, you can download the finished package file to your computer and then publish it in the application store. And the third option is that you can download the source codes of the resulting application to edit them. I advise you to use the third method. Firstly, this will give you more flexibility and you will be able to make changes that cannot be made in Windows Phone App Studio. And secondly, and this is the most important thing, you will be able to independently understand the application code, study how it works, so that next time you can write everything yourself.
Conclusion
Popularity of a particular mobile phone operating system These days, it's defined not by the features it provides users out of the box itself, but by the apps that are available in the store that allow you to extend the functionality of each device indefinitely. I often hear people who are not very familiar with Windows Phone say that it is a backward system, that there are no necessary applications for it, and similar nonsense. None of this is true. The system is actively developing, every day more and more new, useful, and sometimes even exclusive applications appear.
I really hope this article inspires you to write your own first Windows Phone app. And I want to believe that the knowledge you acquire will help you create a new Instagram or new Angry Birds. And for this to happen as early as possible, go to the development portal for Windows Phone, study materials, watch video tutorials, and create.
Good luck and good applications to you!
There is an opinion that in real life smartphones with Microsoft OS are found as often as people with the patronymic “Artemovich”. The strange (to put it mildly) policy of the “Evil Corporation” regarding the seventh and eighth families of the mobile operating system turned many users away from experimenting with “windows” for smartphones, and now the corporation has seriously taken up the task of correcting its image in this user niche. As an underground Microsoft fan, I hope that everything will work out for them - the “top ten” is marching around the planet, its main trump card is one core for all platforms, and therefore it has every chance of winning over a good part of the mobile market. And as a programmer, I will be happy to make for you an introductory article on development for this mobile axis, so that you are always ready for the growth of its popularity :).
Architecture overview
Thanks to the common core and UWP app runtime system, once written, an app will run on all devices running Windows 10. This range includes:
- desktop computers;
- server systems - OS Windows Server 2016;
- laptops - MS Surface Book;
- tablets - MS Surface Pro;
- smartphones - Lumia;
- game consoles - Xbox One;
- augmented reality glasses - MS HoloLens;
- wall tablets - MS Surface Hub;
- smart watch - MS Band 2.
The list is impressive. In addition, UWP is not limited to the execution of application programs; it also supports the operation of drivers at the kernel level. This allows you to create drivers that function on various devices, provided that the specific component for which the driver is intended is the same.
UWP supports both kernel-level and user-level drivers. The subsystem includes device driver interfaces (DDI), of which the driver for UWP can use.
But all this does not save the developer from adjusting the interface to certain platforms and screen resolutions. In some special cases, this may not be necessary.
Developer Tools
To write, debug, deploy and test applications for Windows 10 Mobile, you will need Visual Studio 2015 (who would doubt it). This summer the third update was released. I strongly recommend it! Its main bugfix is reduced memory consumption compared to the second update.
You will also need Windows 10 Anniversary Update SDK: it includes everything necessary tools for developing applications for the entire fleet of devices running Windows 10. If you are using VS 2015 with the third update, then it already includes the latest SDK.
One of the main innovations is Windows Ink. Using this API, you can add pen support in two lines of code. There are two control objects for this: InkCanvas and InkToolbar.
The new Cortana API makes it easier to implement voice control. The Cortana Actions component in the new API allows you to create new phrases/expressions.
Windows Hello biometric authentication is now available to web developers in the Edge browser.
Blend for Visual Studio 2015, a user interface modeling tool, provides enhanced UI design capabilities over VS. With its help, you can create layouts in XAML for all supported applications: application, web, universal, mobile, and so on. It also contains constructors for additional tasks, including creating animations and controlling the behavior of elements.
Ways to create apps for Windows 10 Mobile
The main way to create applications for smartphones with Windows 10 Mobile is to develop universal (UWP) apps(rollout Visual C# → Windows → Universal New Project Wizards).
However, he is not the only one. As you know, Xamarin is built into Visual Studio 2015, with its help you can also create applications for Windows 10 Mobile, simultaneously for Android and iOS, changing the interface and leaving the program logic in C# (Visual C# → Cross-Platform).
In addition to the Visual C# language, Visual Basic or Visual C++ can be equally selected. VS 2015 allows you to create Universal Apps using JavaScript (JavaScript → Windows → Universal Apps). They can also be deployed to a Windows 10 Mobile device.
Tools for working with legacy projects
Over the long history of the Windows operating system, a huge number of different applications have been created for it. With the release of Windows 8 and WinRT (and later Windows 10 and UWP), old classic applications are a thing of the past, since only desktop Win 8 and Win 10 support classic Win32, COM, .NET applications. This made Microsoft sad. But the guys realized that they could develop a converter that would convert old applications for the new advanced UWP subsystem. From this was born Desktop App Converter.
Converting an Xcode project is done in two steps. First you need to add syntax highlighting for the Objective-C language in Visual Studio: install the objc-syntax-highlighting.vsix extension from the winobjc\bin folder. Then using the utility command line vsimporter.exe needs to convert the Xcode project into a VS project. After this, the resulting sln file can be opened in the studio, where the Objective-C syntax will be highlighted. You can build and run the application, it will run just like all other Windows programs.
Damn me, how amazing it is to see Objective-C code correctly highlighted in Visual Studio!
A free compiler is used to compile Obj-C code Clang. Since the output is a standard UWP application, you can run it on mobile device V Windows environment 10 Mobile. One program can contain code in C++ and Obj-C.
If you have a project for the past Windows versions Phone, that is, 8.1 (or 8.0), then when you open it in VS 2015, the studio will automatically update the project so that it meets the requirements of the Universal Windows App (UWP). Not only the markup will be transformed user interface in XAML, but also with it program logic in JS/C++/C#/VB. If there were calls to the WinRT subsystem in the code, then they will be converted to UWP calls.
There is another common type of application - games. iOS and Android render using a low-level OpenGL interface. On the other hand, on Windows 10 Mobile, DirectX 11 is used to display images in games. This results in incompatibility. But there is a solution - the open source project ANGLE. ANGLE (Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine) - almost native graphics layer engine - allows Windows users Run OpenGL ES applications seamlessly on hardware running DirectX 11. This is achieved by converting calls from the OpenGL ES API to the DirectX 11 API. ANGLE fully supports the following three types of applications:
- universal applications for Windows 10 (Universal Windows apps);
- applications for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1;
- classic Windows desktop applications.
The issue is discussed in more detail in my book “The Magic of Torque” (again, you’re promoting your book! Well, okay, you deserve it. - Ed.).
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