Overview
I am always on the lookout for ways to improve code; short term benefits are nice but there is a great feeling in identifying potential problems way in advance, and putting in the framework early to make life easier later. Using a UriMapping when developing WP7 apps is one of the many ways you can help eliminate annoyances later.
So first of all, a brief description of how page navigation works in WP7, what a UriMapper is, and why it pays to use it. Scroll down passed these descriptions if you'd rather just see how to implement one.
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Micro Payments, Major Annoyance
Since when does paying £50 for a game mean you are only renting it nowadays?
The world has changed a lot in the last two decades, and probably in no greater way than in technology. Whilst the advent and subsequent popularisation of the internet is probably the single, greatest thing which has changed the way people live their lives in recent years, it has some damn subtle annoyances that come with it.
The world has changed a lot in the last two decades, and probably in no greater way than in technology. Whilst the advent and subsequent popularisation of the internet is probably the single, greatest thing which has changed the way people live their lives in recent years, it has some damn subtle annoyances that come with it.
Friday, 4 March 2011
WP7 Web Browser
After spending some time working with WP7 now, I really must comment on the embeddable web browser, the WebBrowser component. As a recent convert to WP7 as a user, I can't say I've too many complaints about the phone's main browser (Internet Explorer, as you may have guessed) and it usually does the job fine. In my heart, I know it could be much better, much smoother, support many standards better, be... much more like a Webkit browser really!
However, having found a requirement which could have been satisfied with either native components, or the use of the embeddable web browser, I opted straight for the web browser route. The reason for this, mainly, is that this solution has been used across iPhone, Android and BlackBerry with little or no tweaks needed on the server side when integrating the new platforms. Take all the content needing shown, use HTML to handle the layout (optimised for the requesting device, of course), wrap it all up and send to the device which can store it locally for offline viewing. Elegant, efficient, flexible... perfect. And best of all, changes to this layout requires no code changes, so can be edited even after the apps have went live. Beautiful, I must say, even though I can't take the credit for the original idea. Cue WP7 deciding to be a bit special.
However, having found a requirement which could have been satisfied with either native components, or the use of the embeddable web browser, I opted straight for the web browser route. The reason for this, mainly, is that this solution has been used across iPhone, Android and BlackBerry with little or no tweaks needed on the server side when integrating the new platforms. Take all the content needing shown, use HTML to handle the layout (optimised for the requesting device, of course), wrap it all up and send to the device which can store it locally for offline viewing. Elegant, efficient, flexible... perfect. And best of all, changes to this layout requires no code changes, so can be edited even after the apps have went live. Beautiful, I must say, even though I can't take the credit for the original idea. Cue WP7 deciding to be a bit special.
Monday, 28 February 2011
Windows Phone 7 Development
That's been almost a whole day now working with WP7 so long overdue to start making notes on it.
Getting the right packages downloaded isn't quite as obvious as I would have expected, but certainly didn't take too long to find. (http://create.msdn.com/en-us/home/getting_started). The site recommended getting the January update on top of the default tool set, advertising the much discussed copy-paste functionality. I had to sigh remembering it wasn't actually available on any WP7 devices. Anyway, too soon for negativity, stuck it on to download and install. Grateful there is no messing around with path variables etc... (something I'm entirely comfortable with, but still resent having to do with the comparable java set up).
Hello world app rattled out nice and quick, always a good sign. Found the compiled app (in .xap format) nestled nicely in my bin folder too, which allowed for easy testing on my WP7-hacked handset (a story for another time perhaps).
So everything seems reasonably nice enough to code in. My only issue at the moment is that because C# is fairly similar to Java, at the syntactic layer at least, I expect to be able to code much faster than I am. It is deceptively similar, much to my folly as I keep finding out. And because it is indeed so similar, I refuse to do much reading on the language itself, focusing exclusively on reading about the mobile platform which utilises it. There's also a distinct lack of smugness at getting something to work. Something you have a-plenty after figuring out just how many dozen ] to add to the end of my Objective C lines of code, but that is probably a good thing. One can have too much smugness.
The single biggest issue I have with the development cycle at the moment is caused by Visual Studio. Again, so deceptively like my IDE of choice (Eclipse), and yet the devil really is in the details. All those features, all those little shortcuts my fingers remember (despite contemplating it now, my brain forgetting) are gone. But that's ok right, just need to learn the new shortcuts. And then I find out that Eclipse isn't just an average IDE, it's a blooming great one! Anyone who develops in Eclipse exclusively; take a break from it for a while, and try something else. Not because there are better ones out there, but because you will almost certainly be taking it for granted. Makes me swoon for returning to Android apps, sadly. Sadly as I really want WP7 to be a success amongst developers and, therefore, Joe Public. If Visual Studio had been given the same love and care as Eclipse has had, it would be half the battle won in luring Android or iPhone developers. Mind you, it's still miles better than XCode.
Getting the right packages downloaded isn't quite as obvious as I would have expected, but certainly didn't take too long to find. (http://create.msdn.com/en-us/home/getting_started). The site recommended getting the January update on top of the default tool set, advertising the much discussed copy-paste functionality. I had to sigh remembering it wasn't actually available on any WP7 devices. Anyway, too soon for negativity, stuck it on to download and install. Grateful there is no messing around with path variables etc... (something I'm entirely comfortable with, but still resent having to do with the comparable java set up).
Hello world app rattled out nice and quick, always a good sign. Found the compiled app (in .xap format) nestled nicely in my bin folder too, which allowed for easy testing on my WP7-hacked handset (a story for another time perhaps).
So everything seems reasonably nice enough to code in. My only issue at the moment is that because C# is fairly similar to Java, at the syntactic layer at least, I expect to be able to code much faster than I am. It is deceptively similar, much to my folly as I keep finding out. And because it is indeed so similar, I refuse to do much reading on the language itself, focusing exclusively on reading about the mobile platform which utilises it. There's also a distinct lack of smugness at getting something to work. Something you have a-plenty after figuring out just how many dozen ] to add to the end of my Objective C lines of code, but that is probably a good thing. One can have too much smugness.
The single biggest issue I have with the development cycle at the moment is caused by Visual Studio. Again, so deceptively like my IDE of choice (Eclipse), and yet the devil really is in the details. All those features, all those little shortcuts my fingers remember (despite contemplating it now, my brain forgetting) are gone. But that's ok right, just need to learn the new shortcuts. And then I find out that Eclipse isn't just an average IDE, it's a blooming great one! Anyone who develops in Eclipse exclusively; take a break from it for a while, and try something else. Not because there are better ones out there, but because you will almost certainly be taking it for granted. Makes me swoon for returning to Android apps, sadly. Sadly as I really want WP7 to be a success amongst developers and, therefore, Joe Public. If Visual Studio had been given the same love and care as Eclipse has had, it would be half the battle won in luring Android or iPhone developers. Mind you, it's still miles better than XCode.
First post
I've been meaning to start writing in some form for a while, so I figure now, whilst waiting on my flatmate getting off his phone, would be a good time to at least add the functionality to the site. As soon as I start typing this, I'm already thinking that it would be good to have an app to use to write my blogs up so I may have to add that to the investigate/build to-do list.
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