Table of Contents
Making the Transition from .NET (Part 1)
Making the Transition from .NET (Part 2)
Local Persistent Data
The App Bar
Notifications
Working with Files
Sharing
Searching
Settings
Location
Using the Camera
Responsive Design
Resources and Localization
Background Tasks and App Lifetime
Sideloading and Distribution
Making the Transition from .NET (Part 1)
In this chapter and the next we’re going to start looking at the work that we have to do to move our .NET skills over to WinRT and start building Windows Store apps. Unlike the other chapters in this book, which focus on a particular API feature area, this chapter and the next are more mixed and intermingled, mainly because the changes that we have to make in order to achieve a transition are also mixed and intermingled.
Given Microsoft’s history with .NET, you might have expected WinRT to be a direct evolution. In fact, it’s not. WinRT represents a major shift in strategy from the team within Microsoft that “owns” the Windows API. It’s coming to market at a time when considerable changes are happening within the broader world of software engineering.
This is the “post-PC” age. Microsoft rose to dominance in the microcomputer/PC age.
Why WinRT?
WinRT has emerged at the same time as Microsoft’s “reimagining” of Windows into two new operating systems—Windows 8 and Windows RT—although the timing that brings the launch of the new OSes and a new API model together is more luck than judgment. WinRT is about fixing the fundamental limitations of writing software na‐tively for Windows. Native applications in Windows are written using the Win32 API, which is a very old, non−object-oriented API. Alongside Win32 we also have COM, an object-oriented subsystem that allows for components to be plugged in and out of Win‐dows. If you’re a relative newcomer to writing software for Windows, there’s a good chance you’ve never used either of these, or you’ve used .NET. If you’re slightly longer in the tooth, there is a chance that you did use these technologies once, but—especially if you’ve selected this book—the likelihood is that over the past n years you’ve been using .NET to write software that targets Windows OSes.