Book Image

Windows Phone 8 Application Development Essentials

By : Tomasz Szostak
Book Image

Windows Phone 8 Application Development Essentials

By: Tomasz Szostak

Overview of this book

<p>Windows Phone 8 replaces Windows Phone 7 devices with the Windows NT kernel found on many Windows 8 components. Windows 8 will give you more options to develop better and more visually appealing PC and Tablet applications.</p> <p>A practical guide that will show you how you how to create testable MVVM applications keeping in mind the best UI practices. You will learn how to integrate peripheral sensors and social portals like Facebook and Twitter into your applications. This book shows the advantages of using modern patterns instead of the traditional way of programming.</p> <p>Starting with a Windows Phone UI description, the guide then takes you through the world of fast and fluid design guidelines. After that, you will be shown the beauty of C# and MVVM advantages, finishing with clear descriptions of mobile-application integration with peripherals and social media. Clear and well-described examples throughout will help you become a WP8 developer.</p> <p>You will also learn how to test your applications using Unit Test cut dependencies in your methods using Mocks, and use the newest features of C# such as asynchronous methods. If you are more of a designer than a developer, then there is also an explanation on how to create a consistent look and feel for Windows Phone applications.</p>
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Principles for UI/UX


There are many dos and don'ts in Windows Phone UI development. It is good to remember that we have a screen with a limited size where the elements should be placed comfortably.

Being fast and fluid

This is the main goal of Windows Phone UX. Starting with the phone menu, we can switch between tiles and application lists; if we touch an element action it is performed very fast. We have to remember while creating our own software about providing responsivity to user interaction; even if we need to load some data or connect to a server, the user has to be informed about the loading. Going through our application, the user should feel that he or she controls and can touch every element. Many controls provide animation out of the box and we need to use it; we need to impress our users while seeing motion in our application. The application has to be alive!

The grid system

The following design pattern provides consistency and high UX to Windows Phone users. It helps in organizing...