Resources for Windows Phone Mango Developers

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Resources for Windows Phone Mango Developers

Posted on: Jul 08, 2011
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Last week we released Beta 2 of the Mango developer tools. Even more excitingly, we made pre-release images of the Mango OS for retail devices available to developers registered with App Hub. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to get started now building outstanding Windows Phone apps leveraging all of the new functionality we’ve added in Windows Phone Mango.

We didn’t just release the tools and images; we also released a very large number of online resources to help you get started leveraging Mango functionality today.

As anyone watching our page on Reddit or our Twitter tag knows, there are a very large set of resources being created on a weekly basis for Windows Phone developers. Since I’m the Product Manager at Microsoft responsible for Windows Phone Developer Educational Content, I thought I’d start a series of posts to highlight the ones I think are most interesting and useful. Today’s post is specifically about Mango developer resources. Here they are:

  1. Official Windows Phone Developer documentation on the MSDN Library. This is where we publish all of our official documentation. Quite a bit of new content was added here concurrent with our release of the new SDK, including:
    1. What’s new in the Windows Phone SDK
    2. Code Samples for Windows Phone; includes 26 new samples just for Mango
    3. Our ‘How To’ index. This is where we link to all of the specific pages within the documentation that explicitly spell out ‘how to’ implement a specific type of developer scenario. Many of these actually map to and spell out the execution of the sample code in the code samples. Some of the most interesting How To documents for Mango features include:
      1. SL & XNA together: How to: Combine Silverlight and the XNA Framework in a Windows Phone Application
      2. Profiler: How to: Improve the Responsiveness of Your Application Using the Windows Phone Profiler
      3. Fast App Switching: How to: Preserve and Restore Application State
      4. Database: How to: Create a Basic Local Database Application for Windows Phone
      5. Sockets: How to: Create and Use a TCP Socket Client Application for Windows Phone
      6. Sockets: How to: Create and Use a UDP Socket Client Application for Windows Phone
      7. Camera: How to: Create a Base Camera Application for Windows Phone
      8. Camera: How to: Extend the Pictures Hub with App Connect for Windows Phone
      9. Audio: How to: Play Background Audio for Windows Phone
      10. Periodic Agent: How to: Implement Scheduled Tasks for Windows Phone
      11. Motion API: How to: Use the Combined Motion API for Windows Phone
      12. Search Extensibility: How to: Extend Search with App Connect for Windows Phone
      13. Tiles: How to: Create, Delete, and Update Tiles for Windows Phone
  2. Windows Phone Mango Training Course. Now updated for beta 2 of the SDK. The Windows Phone Mango Training course, (like our previous training course for the initial release of Windows Phone 7), provides you step by step guidance, with complete sample code, demonstrating how to leverage the new developer scenarios in Windows Phone Mango to create a variety of real world applications. For the new training course, we decided to have the various labs all revolve around a single, more useful application, a task manager we called ‘Tidy’. You can get a video introduction to the ‘Tidy’ application here on Channel 9.
  3. The Inside Windows Phone Show on Channel 9. This show is our home on Channel 9, where we’ll provide you video walkthroughs of our new developer features, on a periodic basis. So far, we’ve conducted a number on Mango functionality, including the following:
    1. Inside the Mango Camera APIs
    2. Search Extras in Mango
    3. Sockets in Mango
    4. Inside the Mango Documentation
  4. App Hub Game Developer Resources, updated for Mango. This page is where we centralize all of our Windows Phone game developer resources, and we’ve updated it for Mango. Here you’ll find the following items, (among others):
    1. What’s new for games in Windows Phone OS 7.1
    2. Game State Management
    3. Migration Guide: From the Game Class to Silverlight/XNA
    4. Model Viewer Demo

This is but a small sample of the large set of resources we’ve currently got available. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be releasing more items targeted at helping you leverage all of the fantastic new developer features in Mango.

Larry Lieberman
Product Manager, Windows Phone App Platform

19 Comments
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  • billybob101 20 Posts
    July 08, 2011

    All fine and dandy unless you still can't load mango on your dev device because it is a Samsung Focus and not updateable.  I guess one day that will change when AT&T decide it is now "safe" to let me have the same update all the other  AT&T phones have had for 5 freaking months.

  • frankwick 37 Posts
    July 08, 2011

    A little off topic, but I want to make sure someone sees this.

    I'm running the ISV beta and the changes are astounding.  Words can't explain how impresed I am with this update.  There are a couple of glaring issues that I have found after just a couple of days of use:

    1.  Closing an app in the task switcher is not possible.  That doesn't even make sense.  Why not have a close "X" or a WebOS "throw it away" type of gesture?

    2.  When will we be able to group app icons?  My list of apps is very long.  The search helps, but I would also like to see grouping.

    3. Still no screen capture?  How can evangelize Windows Phone if I cannot captur screen shots and post to facebook?

  • Brandon Watson 34 Posts
    July 08, 2011

    @frankwick on two of your topics. The system is pretty good at managing memory and tasks, and believe it or not, for the vast majority of phone users, task management is not high on their list of desired features. We have screen capture in the dev tools, which means that you can cpature screens from apps you are building or can deploy via the dev tools.  It's not the 100% ideal solution, but hopefully enough foward progress for you.

  • Windcape 2 Posts
    July 08, 2011

    @frankwick "1.  Closing an app in the task switcher is not possible. " -- what's the point? It's not like we can use multitasking for non-audio applications.

    Performance heavy operations, like having a socket running in the background for a chat application (like IRC), is still not allowed with the current API.

  • Juan Pablo 6 Posts
    July 08, 2011

    Thanks for the info, no w I check all the links, and i wanna to know more about windows phone 7 "mango" & Office 365, bye bye.

  • phefner 1 Posts
    July 08, 2011

    Gotta disagree with you there, Brandon. Coming from Android, where everything basically runs wide open...all the time, task management and memory management are most DEFINITELY wanted. Windows Phone 7 (NoDo as it were) does a pretty good job of policing apps and memory, but I fear once you give more multitasking, we're going to run into the same issues that Android has.

  • piaqt 13 Posts
    July 08, 2011

    Who do I have to kill for full filesystem & registry access?

  • Leigh 89 Posts
    July 08, 2011

    You guys should understand that blog entry is Not The place for tech comments.   if you want to comment so that you'll be heard, do it in the dev forums or on Connect, if you're serious about it, and keep it professional!

    Thanks and Enjoy Windows Phone 7.1

    -e

  • cmorganmcp 1 Posts
    July 08, 2011

    I have a Samsung Focus with AT&T and had no trouble upgrading to Mango (or NoDo)

  • dwsteven 1 Posts
    July 09, 2011

    Is there any API coming for bluetooth development?

  • alex31 1 Posts
    July 10, 2011

    I am confused, where can I get contact that I can report some applications in the Marketplace with abuse contents. It is very hard get the support, feedback, or report abuse on zune, windowsphone7, and microsoft support website.

  • Sheeds 205 Posts
    July 11, 2011

    Hey WP7 Dev's - at the risk of a double-post from over in the regular Windows Phone Blog - thought it was relevant in a post re: all the tools and resources from MS for DEV's with Mango.

    Here's a couple of articles I have blogged on what can you do AFTER your App/Game gets into the Windows Marketplace.  No disrespect to Michael or Brian in the Marketing team for WP7 - however I think the MS support in this area is light on compared to all the DEV and DESIGN support MS offer.

    SO here they are - If you have any feedback (positive, constructive or just damning LOL - please consider leaving a comment on the blog/article, you dont have to join to do so)

    Part 1:

    Editorial – So your App or Game is in the WP7 Marketplace – What next? | Sheeds' Blog http://bit.ly/qUHqRd

    Part 2:

    Editorial – Sell, Sell, Sell – Self Promotion outside of the WP7 Marketplace. | Sheeds' Blog http://bit.ly/nzcYt5

    A specific question also for Brandon - will we get to see any stats/results/wash-up of the Spring Cleaning Initiative and how well it worked for Dev's or otherwise ?  Hope recovery is going well!

    Cheers.

    Sheeds.

  • barnyardtech 11 Posts
    July 11, 2011

    Thanks for this list of resources.  Very helpful.  Already started using some of them.

  • TheAppSack 1 Posts
    July 11, 2011

    Will it be possible to update to the final release of Mango from this beta build?  Thanks and sorry if this has been previously discussed elsewhere.

  • ncoulter 2 Posts
    July 14, 2011

    Could we get another 'development for absolute beginners' video series?  I need a resource that I can use.  My application, EdGenda, is a ToDo app that uses Isolated Storage fileName strings to source listboxes, but I would like to use the new Local Database stuff, but I don't want to use MVVM.  Can anyone point me to some beginner resources?  I mean, it took me a whole school year last year to learn Silverlight for windows Phone and develop EdGenda.  Can Anyone help me?

  • zhangzq71 1 Posts
    July 19, 2011

    Larry,

    Is it possible for a hardware designer to make a device that uses the Windows Phone as the control panel. Supposing a hardware designer made a device that control the lights in a room,  this device has no a monitor for a user to turn on or off a light, but has a USB device port. Is it possible to make connection between this device and Windows Phone 7, use the Windows Phone 7 as the monitor for that device?

    Regards,

    ZhangZQ

  • Paschal Abel TAY 3 Posts
    July 20, 2011

    How to: Build a Globalized Application for Windows Phone.

    I noticed VB - No code example is currently available or this language may not be supported.

    Please advise will VB going to be supported in the coming final relased of WP7 Mango development tools?

  • Dheeraj Kumar 1 Posts
    July 22, 2011

    ya new services has been added but of very little use, background services can run only in very limited condition , so we can't develop any such application with it that may require continuous or periodic processing as periodic task in Windows Phone 7 does not run for all ceases, in fact calender is exposed but does not give any unique identification of appointment like EWS gives again of no use cause no one can track changes in calender ...what Microsoft is doing

    comon , they gona compete with Android, Symbian   which give much better environment even at much lower performance , u cant just sell ur product just with a good UI but with of no good features

  • G.I. 1 Posts
    July 27, 2011

    Hello everyone, I am aware that Windows phone 7 does not support ASHX files. I wanted to know this time, if Windows phone Mango would support these type of files?  Your responses are greatlt appreciated. thanks!

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