I would like to teach my application (Windows Store application) to recognize custom gestures like triangles, ellipses, squares and etc. I found one article similar to what I'm looking for, but it's not for windows store applications. I'm curious if there is any api available to do this task or it should be implemented in a "Do It Yourself" manner?
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I am embarking on my first windows phone app. I noticed there are two templates one is in Javascript (Blank App (Universal Apps)) and the other in C# (XAML) again Blank App (Universal Apps). Which one should I use, I know it depends a lot on the project context, but basically its just a simple phone app, that reads and displays data, mostly crud operations. Any help is appreciated.
I think there are a lot of resources in the internet regarding this question.
For example:
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/8350-xaml-and-c-or-html-and-winjs-for-windows-store-universal-and-cross-platform-apps.html
http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-likes-winjs-for-making-windows-8-apps-but-most-developers-prefer-xaml
https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/156361/advantages-and-disadvantages-to-using-xaml-c-or-html5-javascipt-for-metro-apps
If you have a C#/.NET background, choose XAML - if you have a web background, choose WinJS...
I think that XAML is more popular than WinJS (especially for Windows Phone).
Here's my take to add to the list--http://www.kraigbrockschmidt.com/2013/01/17/html-javascript-xaml-directx-language-windows-store-app/ . In my partner-facing role at Microsoft I got this question quite a bit, and it really boils down to personal preference and experience unless you run into a place where the languages don't quite have parity at present. Parity was more of an issue in Windows 8, many areas were resolved for Windows 8.1. (Parity is more a matter between Windows/Windows Phone now rather than between the languages.)
Personally, being the author of Programming Windows Store Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, Second Edition (free ebook, Microsoft Press, 2014), I like the JS approach very much because you can leverage standards. On the downside, JS code is the least secure of all the options (see this blog post of mine), which might be a make-or-break consideration.
Do Windows Phone 8 Application developed for Windows Phone 8 device will run on Windows Surface Tablets (RT & 8.1)? Kindly clarify me.
Could you please suggest me on, what are the changes required for migrating the application.
Take a look on the Portable class library.
It allow you to share your code between different platform.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg597392(v=vs.110).aspx
This blog clearly explains how to use it :
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/stephe/archive/2012/05/07/partager-du-code-entre-plate-formes-gr-226-ce-224-la-portable-class-library-1-4.aspx
Anyway you got specific dev to do.
You will need to rewrite many portions of the application. It's difficult to be more precise as you did not describe anything about your application.
The UI, assuming you select C# and XAML for the Windows 8 modern application will need a significant amount of changes. While there will be a significant amount of knowledge overlap and technology similarity, the UI will not be portable. The components are similar, but for example, you've probably used the Windows Phone toolkit which is not available for a Windows 8 store application. Another consideration is that on the larger screen sizes, you'll ideally want to use a different layout of your application.
For the business logic, you may be able to use much of it as is. However, anything that deals with the file system or network (and more) will not necessarily be portable. You could use a portable class library for some features, but you may still need platform specific code.
While this all may sound like a tremendous amount of work, I'd actually like to suggest that it's not. The platforms are very similar, the development environment will be identical, and some amount of UI work would have been necessary anyway. Assuming you create two applications, the structure might look like this:
PhoneApplication
Windows8Application
DataModel
PortableClassLibraryStuff
PhoneSpecific
Windows8Specific
A lot of differences beetween WinRT and WP8 API makes porting much more difficult. But if you are still interested in this topic I can suggest you
Waiting for WP8.1 and W8.1 Update 1 API combination or
Writing your own little framework in a portable class library for navigation, setting, notification, ... support. I already did that work and there are a lot of possibilities for code sharing (resources can be completely shared with the binding notation of WP8). For more information please visit the opensource github project: Github MultiPlatform Framework sample. You will still need to rewrite a lot of xaml code but the leaked footage of the WP8.1 API already showed that we will be able to use much more shared UI code :-)
I need to create a touch version of the webstore with 3D elements. At the beginning I chose a WebGL technology because of the straightforward integration with databases (such interface will need to download thumbnails of products and basic information about it using MySQL).
Problem is the lack of simple tools to create such a project. Recently I became interested in Unity. I just don't know whether its capabilities allow me to do this. What do you think about Unity 3d? Is a good choice for such a task?
Unity3D web player needs a plugin installed at the user's browser. This plugin is not available for iPhone and AFAIK for Android neither. Thus it is not possible to create a pure browser based online store solution.
What you can do with Unity3D as a workaround: Do the project in Unity3D and export it once as web version for desktop clients and then export it as app (i.e. a fat client that needs to be installed) for iPhone and again for Android. But even then you will have a lot of work providing different layouts for all target devices.
Although I like Unity3D very much, I would not recommend it for development of an online store.
I'm completely new to Windows Phone and the Windows galaxy in general as far as programming goes. For a project of a phone app that has to run on a windows phone, I started exploring the resources and I have some questions.
One of the problems I encountered is that things change very quickly. For example, answers to this question say that browsers in Windows Phone will most likely not support HTML5. However, there are many online tutorials (for instance here) introducing ASP.NET MVC 4 and how it is appropriate for mobile apps.
I would personally like to go the "HTML5+javascript" way instead of learning how to develop with Silverlight, which apparently has been discontinued by Microsoft. However, my first concern is evidently to be able to create an application that works!
So with that in mind, my questions are the following:
My impression is that HTML5+JS is being introduced in replacement of Silverlight and will be more used in the future. Is that correct?
Knowing that I have to build an app which should be able to play videos and audio, record audio, and connect to a library to do some speech processing in the background, should I use Silverlight or can I try using ASP.NET MVC 4? (From what I gather, Silverlight would be better than XNA)
Are there limitations to using HTML5+JS as compared to Silverlight or the other way around?
Can you package a web app (i.e. using HTML5+JS) to be used locally on the phone if there is no access to a distant server?
Any specific pointers or answers on these specific issues will be more than welcome! :)
Currently, Windows Phone 7.1 does not support full HTML5+JS as a replacement for Silverlight. In Windows 8 (NOT the next version of windows phone, but the next version of Microsoft's desktop OS), HTML5+JS is presented as an alternative to using XAML and C# (it's a little confusing because on Windows 8, "metro" apps do not run Silverlight, but they still operate using XAML and C#). But that's neither here nor there... To summarily answer your question(s): In the phone's browser, there is very limited HTML5 capability.
From what you've described, you definitely want to use Silverlight for your Windows Phone app. The answer to that part of your question has never changed, Silverlight from the beginning of WP7 would be your best option. XNA is exclusively designed for gaming development.
To answer all of your questions, point by point:
My impression is that HTML5+JS is being introduced in replacement of
Silverlight and will be more used in the future. Is that correct?
This has not been confirmed (as of this post), but speculation is that this will be the case in some future release of the OS (no word on when that may be). But no, this is not currently an option, and there is no promise from Microsoft that it ever will be.
Knowing that I have to build an app which should be able to play
videos and audio, record audio, and connect to a library to do some
speech processing in the background, should I use Silverlight or can I
try using ASP.NET MVC 4? (From what I gather, Silverlight would be
better than XNA)
Silverlight. Silverlight. Silverlight. :) ASP.NET + MVC will not work. XNA is intended to be used for building games. Attempting to build more standard user interfaces using it would give you a migraine to say the least, and would not look anywhere near good.
Are there limitations to using HTML5+JS as compared to Silverlight or the other way around?
and
Can you package a web app (i.e. using HTML5+JS) to be used locally on the phone if there is > no access to a distant server?
As answered above, there is no way to do this on the phone.
As for pointers on all of this. I strongly encourage you to simply google (or bing if you're into that kind of thing) "getting started with windows phone" or "windows phone tutorials". Best source I could point you to is the Windows Phone Developer website. It's got some great tutorials that don't assume you know lots about windows phone. Best to get this material from Microsoft. It'll be more reliable, more well written, and ultimatly more useful. I've been writing Windows Phone apps since before the phone was released, and I still use it for learning the basics of something new. Great place.
I've been looking into some mobile development frameworks lately. The app I want to develop looks more like a business app. I should be able to retrieve data from my MySQL database. As well just fetch normal data, but as well a log-in system.
I would set up a webservice in PHP that the mobile app could use to retrieve the data, but what's the most robust framework to make these kind of apps?
It's important that these frameworks are free.
I've taken a look at
JMango
At first sight, it doesn't look like it's able to do something like that really. It seems to have it's own scripting language, seems unlikely that it can meet such business needs.
Rhomobile
Seems like you need a license to even get it running, so doesn't seem an option either.
phonegap
Looks nice, but what frightens me is that all business logic is pumped into javascript.
I'd vote for PhoneGap (disclaimer—I have contributed to this (a bit)).
PhoneGap puts the business logic in JavaScript as this is the only cross platform programming language. Other solutions conver/recompile code for each app.
Alternatively you could look at the Mono family of tools (MonoTouch & MonoDroid) which when combined with C#/VS2010 can be used to create apps for Windows Phone 7, iPhone & Android.