Windows Store App Guidelines on editor applications - windows-store-apps

Most demos and webcasts that introduce and explain Windows Store App are about content consuming applications. Are there any design guidelines for creating editor apps?
Question I have include:
Is it advisable to take the Metro route here?
What to do with things like toolbars (think formatting, etc), as the appbar isn't that big, and you're not supposed to include toolbars

This really depends on how complicated of an editor application you have in mind.
I think anything heavy weight apps are meant for desktop only and not for metro. For example the Office suite is going to be ran on Desktop mode even on a mobile device according to Steven Sinofsky: "Within the Windows desktop, WOA includes desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, codenamed “Office 15”". Here WOA refers to Windows On ARM; Windows 8 is going to be tuned towards mobile touch-able devices based on ARM architecture.
Also, according to this article, you can only have Metro mode apps for ARM; only MS will be able to distribute desktop mode apps.
However, you can still write simple and light weight applications, such as a simple photo editor or notepad I guess. In fact, a google search turned up a commercial image processing library for Metro mode.

Related

Windows Desktop app or Windows Store app

My app, basically, needs to do the following:
getting GPS coordinates
calling web services (for accessing, sending info etc)
work in background with no UI for most of the time
The target device is a mobile tablet running with Windows 8.1.
I found out that for this OS I can develop both a desktop app or a Windows Store App.
Please, what do you suggest to use for my needs?
Also, because I dont know Windows Desktop App at all, Please can I get everything done using a desktop app?
Thanks
the main difference between those two is, whether or not you get a window in your old-school desktop (desktop app) or one of those fancy full-screen-app thingies that were introduced in Windows 8... Afaik you can't sell the Desktop apps on the Windows Store, but functionality-wise your average desktop app has no real downside as you can use .NET with all fancy features for both...
Here you can find a detailed comparison between both. But from your description you should be fine with the desktop app (:
Cheers D
I would go with the desktop app simply for the background tasks you mentioned. This is tricky to do in Windows Store apps as Windows tombstones (freezes) the apps if you navigate away for any length of time. As far as I know, only certain apps, such as music apps, can run in the background.
Desktop apps have no such limitation.

Windows Apps Universal, XAML or JavaScript

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.

Multi mobile OS simulator

I am trying to find Simulators for multiple mobile Operating Systems, but i am always getting Emulators instead.
What i need basically is maybe a Web Version of different mobile OS, not to run or test applications, just to navigate through their menu and settings (go at settings, change settings, setup email etc.)
The purpose for this is to guide through users on how to change their settings on their phones, without the need of the actual device or having multiple emulators.
UPDATE
After a lot of search around i managed to find an Android web simulator that suits my needs at Manymo.
It has versions : 4.2 , 4.1 , 4.0.3 , 2.3 , 2.2 , 2.1
Still in search for something similar for iOS, Windows Phone and Blackberry.
You could easily set up such emulators with a bit of CSS and jQuery (for the animations when changing screens).
From time to time I run into such "simulators" on cell-provider companies' websites. But they are very limited to a teaching a few functions, and are accompanied by text on the side.
You might want to hire a web developer, give him 3-4 days and then you have a nice simulator for the 3 popular OSes.
Just beware that having an Android simulator may not be enough; The OS changes with the devices, as manufacturers do whatever they want with the OS and compile for their specific device.
Have you considered creating a free account on http://deviceanywhere.com?
There are some 'fun' apps built for Windows Phone to emulate other phones
iFun - iPhone simulator
Fundroid - Android simulator
B7B - BlackBerry simulator
I haven't tried them out myself so I can't say how well they simulate phone settings, but is this kind of what you're looking for?
Something like http://www.mobilephoneemulator.com/ then perhaps. Or do you want it for apps rather than web pages? Then I don't think it's possible.
There are packages like jQuery Mobile that is designed to generate web apps that look like native mobile apps.

Any code changes needed to get WP8 app to run on Surface Tablet?

So, our Windows Phone developer left recently, and I primarily do Android development.
We had a question from a client about the possibility of installing our Windows Phone 8 app on a Surface Tablet. Namely, is it possible to do? As it stands, our WP8 app was not written with tablets in mind, so my question is:
Is there anything I need to do to the WP8 app to get it to install on a tablet, (should it work as-is (like Android apps do), is there some sort of flag I have to enable and then rebuild, etc.?)
As #AMR mentions, the biggest challenge will be the UI; however, depending on the device functionality being used, the "backend" may or may not be a challenge as well.
There is great guidance on the Windows Phone Dev Center about practices and techniques for building for both platforms, so depending on when the phone app was built and your former developer's awareness of the overlapping platforms, you could be in great shape or just so-so shape.
Additionally, the following resources may be of help in mapping from what you have already coded in Windows Phone 8 to what you'd do in Windows 8:
XAML controls comparison between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8
(much will be relevant to Windows Phone 7 too)
Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 platform comparison (shows common
APIs, storage, networking, etc.)
Lastly, the Windows Phone Runtime API documentation gives a listing
of APIs only on Phone 8 vs. APIs adopted from Windows 8.
Okay well first off yes, there will be a few things that change but nothing to serious.
HOPFULLY you have a good MVVM model. If this is the case then you should be able to just copy and paste 99.999% of your backend code right into your tablet app. There are a few things that are different but its just namespace stuff. Nothing too serious.
The Major change is going to be your UI layout and UI controls. Depending on what libs you are using you will probably have a lot of conflicts.
Your best bet is to just copy and paste your backend code in and then creating a new UI. I have tried to merge phone UIs in the paste into the tablet and its rediculous at times. I found it takes less time to just recreate it.
If you need any help you can hit me up at www.AnthonyRussell.info Maybe I can help with your transfer. Just make sure to leave your contact info.

Unity 3d in touch sensitive webstore interface

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.