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Where do I start ? Windows 8 Development

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If you are new like me to Windows 8 development, the biggest hurdle  in getting started is figuring out where to do I  begin.  When I joined Microsoft  this was something, I was rather puzzled by,  Windows 8 development gave me OPTIONS!    Now, keep in mind I am right out of school, and my options usually came down to which text editor I could use( WingIDE, Text Wrangler , Eclipse, and the list goes on), and any open source project available .

With Windows 8 as a developer I have the options to pick a language (HTML5 & JavaScript or XAML & C#), do cross platform development(Game Salad, Construct2 ) and use various templates that already inbuilt into Visual Studio. With development on Windows  8 a developer has the options to build their applications using HTML5 &  JavaScript  or XAML &  C# and you end up with the exact same product.  If  you are new to Windows App dev and you are comfortable with HTML5 & JavaScript you can jump right into, building fast and fluid applications.  For anyone else who is more comfortable with XAML or familiar to Window dev platform   XAML  & C# is great. If you are exploring try both.

 

Getting Started

 

My mentors have always told me start small, in other words…. HELLO WORLD.  If you are going to start  to learn from beginning, do not  immediately start  building from a product perspective before  understand your landscape first.  I mean to know your tools and how you would use them; believe me  I started the other way around.

Now, to begin your Windows 8 Apps development  the following tools are need to download: Windows 8 , and Visual Studio 2012. 

Downloads
Windows 8

Windows8 If you haven’t got it yet, try it out you are in for a  lovely surprise. Bob hunt did a great job document his experience at the launch here. 

Matt Warren in The Telegraph described it as, “It looks, for once, rather lovely, too. Windows 8 revolves around a new ‘Start screen’ rather than the traditional start menu….”.  I could  go on and on with my new found love for Windows 8 but just try :).

 

 

 

 

Visual Studio  2012 

VS

Visual Studio 2012 landscape is fun and really easy to use once you get install. When install is complete the first thing I would encourage to do is look at the templates; simply click on New Project  and start explore from the following categories: installed, samples and online.  If you are new to this I would suggest that you start with installed templates.

Early I mentioned that regardless of your programming language (HTML& JavaScript or XAML or C#)  you would end up with the same out put. Let’s put this to the test.  Create a new Application using the HTML5 & JavaScript  and select the Grid App template and run it.  Now do the same thing using a XAML and C#. 

Spot the Difference? Which one is which ?

imageimage

 

Blend for Visual Studio

Blends

My favorite tool of the entire suite ! Blend for VS is a great way to build an app with accurate design and edit your application before going to market. More on how to build an application using a Windows 8  in using HTML &  JS or XAML & C# click here.

 

 

Get started today !

 

Get ready!

Back soon!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 01, 2012
    What else we can do with Win8 apart from App development?

  • Anonymous
    November 01, 2012
    Thanks for  you question!   Well, everything you could do on Windows 7 you could do with Windows 8 just with more choices for development, and user experience customization.  If  you would like to give me a more specific answer I would be more than happy to answer

  • Anonymous
    November 13, 2012
    Thanks. Good blog entry. This would be complete if you could add or give info on which is the windows app store and again whats the developer fee and stuff. I know its redundant but would be great if its on the same blog.

  • Anonymous
    November 15, 2012
    @elenwe  Thank you so much for the comment .  For some quick info on the Windows App I would strongly recommend that you go to the msdn.microsoft.com/.../windows and click on signup under the heading Get a Developer account. The developer fee and stuff comes up to $49.00.   Every year.  I will put up a quick blog together on registration if that will help.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2013
    The comment has been removed