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February 8, 2011
Windows Phone Developer Blog

Real Apps, Real Code



One of the most popular pages in the Windows Phone 7 documentation is the Code Samples topic. On this page you can find a series of code samples that demonstrate various features of Windows Phone 7. But somewhat hidden away at the bottom of the topic are links to some Starter Kits. These Starter Kits are fully functional applications – in fact, you can find these apps in the Marketplace and try them out on your phone. The complete source code for the entire application is available to download and tinker with. For each Starter Kit, there is a topic in the documentation that highlights some of the more interesting sections of code in the app. Also, Sean McKenna did a couple of presentations on these applications on Channel 9. You can find them at http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/LauraFoy/Windows-Phone-7-Apps–Tools and http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/LauraFoy/Accelerometer-Helper

The currently available Starter Kits are:

Translator Starter Kit

Translator Start Kit screen shot

As you can probably guess, this app lets you enter a phrase in one language and translate it to another language. The starter kit demonstrates how to call a web service, use an XNA Framework API from within a Silverlight application, play a sound, maintain a history list in isolated storage, and animate an image in a ToggleButton.

Translator Starter Kit topic

Translator Starter Kit download

Translator App in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace

Level Starter Kit

Level Starter Kit screen shot

This app lets you use your phone as a bubble level. The starter kit demonstrates how to make your application’s color scheme match the user’s theme choice, how to make your Silverlight application interact realistically with the accelerometer of the phone, and how to customize phone orientation sensing.

Level Starter Kit topic

Level Starter Kit download

Level App in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace

Unit Converter Starter Kit

Unit Converter Starter Kit screen shot

This app provides the user with the ability to convert values from one unit of measure to another. The starter kit demonstrates how to apply the Model-View–ViewModel design pattern in creating your Windows Phone 7 application, how to optimize your application start up, and how to create a context sensitive menu.

Unit Converter Starter Kit topic

Unit Converter Starter Kit download

Unit Converter App in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace