Contents

Foreword

Preface

1 The New Windows Runtime

Looking Back: Win32 and .NET

Looking Forward: Rise of the NUI

Introducing the Windows Store Application

Windows 8 Design

Fast and Fluid

Snap and Scale

Use of Right Contracts

Great Tiles

Connected and Alive

Embrace Windows 8 Design Principles

Windows 8 Tools of the Trade

Blend for Visual Studio

HTML5 and JavaScript

C++ and XAML

VB/C# and XAML

Behind the Scenes of WinRT

WPF, Silverlight, and the Blue Stack

Summary

Works Cited

2 Getting Started

Setting Up Your Environment

Windows 8

Visual Studio 2012

Blend

Hello, Windows 8

Creating Your First Windows 8 Application

Templates

The ImageHelper Application

Under the Covers

Summary

3 Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML)

Declaring the UI

The Visual Tree

Dependency Properties

Attached Properties

Data-Binding

Value Converters

Storyboards

Styles and Resources

Layout

Canvas

Grid

StackPanel

VirtualizingPanel and VirtualizingStackPanel

WrapGrid

VariableSizedWrapGrid

ContentControl

ItemsControl

ScrollViewer

ViewBox

GridView

ListView

FlipView

ListBox

Common Controls

Summary

4 Windows 8 Applications

Layouts and Views

The Simulator

The Visual State Manager

Semantic Zoom

Handling User Input

Pointer Events

Manipulation Events

Mouse Support

Keyboard Support

Visual Feedback

Targeting

Context Menus

The Application Bar

Icons and Splash Screens

About Page

Sensors

Accelerometer

Compass

Geolocation

Gyrometer

Inclinometer

Light Sensor

Orientation Sensor

Summary

5 Application Lifecycle

Process Lifetime Management

Activation

Suspension

Termination

Resume

Navigation

Application Data API

Connected and Alive

Custom Splash Screen

Summary

6 Data

Application Settings

Accessing and Saving Data

The Need for Speed and Threading

Understanding async and await

Lambda Expressions

IO Helpers

Embedded Resources

Collections

Language Integrated Query (LINQ)

Web Content

Syndicated Content

Streams, Buffers, and Byte Arrays

Compressing Data

Encrypting and Signing Data

Web Services

OData Support

Summary

7 Tiles and Toasts

Basic Tiles

Live Tiles

Badges

Secondary Tiles

Toast Notifications

Windows Notification Service

Summary

8 Giving Your Application Charm

Searching

Sharing

Sourcing Content for Sharing

Receiving Content as a Share Target

Settings

Summary

9 MVVM and Testing

UI Design Patterns

The Model

The View

The View Model

The Portable Class Library

Why Test?

Testing Eliminates Assumptions

Testing Kills Bugs at the Source

Testing Helps Document Code

Testing Makes Extending and Maintaining Applications Easier

Testing Improves Architecture and Design

Testing Makes Better Developers

Conclusion: Write Those Unit Tests!

Unit Tests

Windows Store Unit Testing Framework

Mocks and Stubs

Summary

10 Packaging and Deploying

The Windows Store

Discovery

Reach

Business Models

Advertising

Preparing Your App for the Store

The Process

The App Certification Kit

What to Expect

Side-Loading

Summary

Index