Windows « Vincent Leung .NET Tech Clips

Native Extensions COM automation Library for Microsoft Silverlight

While Silverlight 4 supports accessing COM automation components from elevated trust OOB applications, many Windows platform features are currently not available through COM automation. This makes them inaccessible to such Silverlight OOB apps. Native Extensions for Microsoft Silverlight(NESL) is an effort to incrementally build a library of components that expose select Windows 7 features through COM automation, making them easily available to Silverlight 4 OOB applications running with elevated trust. The current version of NESL provides access to Windows 7 features like Sensors, Portable Devices, Speech, Taskbar and more. NESL is made up of a set of COM automation based runtime libraries, Silverlight wrapper libraries usable from Silverlight 4 OOB applications, sample applications with source, API documentation, and a developer’s guide.

A NESL is a set of libraries for Silverlight developers that allow them to access some really cool features of Windows 7 from their Silverlight applications.

Take advantage of sensors like accelerometers, light sensors, compasses, GPS etc.
Access content from connected portable devices like music players and digital cameras.
Capture and create video from webcams and screen output
Use speech recognition and text to speech capabilities.
Integrate with the Windows 7 taskbar (Jump Lists, Icon Overlays, Taskbar Progress etc.)

Head over to http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/nesl to start developing with it.

December 17, 2010 Posted by Vincent Leung | Silverlight, Windows 7 | 1 Comment

How to set up an Authenticated Web Service for Windows Phone

Setting up an authenticated web service is recommended, as communication occurs over an HTTPS interface for better security. Authenticated web services do not have a daily limit on the number of push notifications they can send. Unauthenticated web services, on the other hand, are throttled at a rate of 500 push notifications per subscription per day. Additionally, authenticated web services are able to register a callback request, as described in How to: Set up a Callback Registration Request for Windows Phone. more here.

Learn more about Push Notification:

December 17, 2010 Posted by Vincent Leung | Phone, WCF | Leave a Comment

Using the ASP.NET Membership Provider and Authentication Service from Windows Phone 7

Those of you who have been building ASP.NET applications for a while now are no doubt familiar with the provider model, which includes provider abstractions for membership (authentication), roles (authorization), profiles (user data), and session state. These providers make it incredibly easy to provide a secure framework for your application. In fact, with an ASP.NET application template right out of the box, you can have a fully functioning authenticated, secure website in minutes.

What a lot of people have less familiarity with is the notion of provider services. You can actually create a WCF service head that sits on top of the ASP.NET membership system. This allows client applications (WP7) to authenticate against your ASP.NET website using exactly the same authentication scheme that your users use. This means that a user who has access to your website should also be able to have access to the client application seamlessly.

If you already have an ASP.NET application that is using the membership provider, role provider, and profile provider you can quickly, easily, and securely expose services to a mobile (WP7) client that allow that client to have secured, remote access to services exposed by that site. In short, any user of your existing web application can use their existing credentials to log in from their WP7 device and access any services you decide to make available.

ASP.NET provider services, coupled with WP7 and the fact that Silverlight has access to WCF client proxy generation, means you can very easily prep your site for a rich WP7 experience.

OData client libraries for .NET 4, Silverlight 4 and Windows Phone 7

http://odata.codeplex.com/releases/view/54698

ODataNetFx4_SL4_WinPhone7_Client.zip – contains a Visual Studio 2010 solution with the source code for the OData .NET 4, Silverlight 4 and Windows Phone 7 Client library. To use, unzip the file locally and open the solution in Visual Studio 2010.
ODataClient_BinariesAndCodeGenToolForWinPhone.zip – contains just the OData client assemblies and code generation tools for use on Windows Phone 7.
ODataClient_WinPhone7SampleApp.zip – contains a sample Windows Phone 7 application which uses the OData client library for Windows Phone 7

November 3, 2010 Posted by Vincent Leung | .NET 4, OData, Phone, Silverlight | Leave a Comment

LongListSelector plus LowProfileImageDownloader

http://blogs.claritycon.com/blogs/kevin_marshall/archive/2010/11/03/wp7-using-longlistselector-and-lowprofileimagedownloader-for-better-scroll-performance.aspx

[Download Code]

Performance Improvement

November 3, 2010 Posted by Vincent Leung | Phone | Leave a Comment

New Controls in Windows Phone Toolkit – Nov 2010

New Components

AutoCompleteBox – Very similar to the Silverlight AutoCompleteBox
ListPicker – Like a ComboBox
LongListSelector – Like a ListBox and supports more advanced scenarios such as really long lists
Page Transitions – Provides professional looking page transitions

Existing Components

GestureService/GestureListener
ContextMenu
DatePicker
TimePicker
ToggleSwitch
WrapPanel

download here: http://silverlight.codeplex.com/releases/view/55034

More about the controls:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/delay/archive/2010/11/02/mo-controls-mo-controls-mo-controls-announcing-the-second-release-of-the-silverlight-for-windows-phone-toolkit.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/delay/archive/2010/11/03/listpicker-i-hardly-even-know-er-a-detailed-overview-of-the-windows-phone-toolkit-s-listpicker-control.aspx

November 3, 2010 Posted by Vincent Leung | Phone | Leave a Comment

31 Days of Windows Phone 7

Day #1: Project Template
Day #2: Page Navigation
Day #3: The Back Button Paradigm
Day #4: Device Orientation
Day #5: System Theming
Day #6: Application Bar
Day #7: Launchers
Day #8: Choosers
Day #9: Debugger Tips
Day #10: Input Scope (on-screen Keyboard)
Day #11: Accelerometer
Day #12: Vibration Controller
Day #13: Location Services
Day #14: Tombstoning
Day #15: Isolated Storage
Day #16: Panorama Control
Day #17: Pivot Control
Day #18: WebBrowser Control
Day #19: Push Notification API
Day #20: Map Control
Day #21: Silverlight Toolkit
Day #22: Apps vs. Games
Day #23: Trial Versions of Your App
Day #24: Embedding Fonts
Day #25: Talking to Existing APIs (like Twitter)
Day #26: Sharing Your App With Other Developers
Day #27: Windows Phone Marketplace
Day #28: Advertising SDK
Day #29: Animations
Day #30: Gestures
Day #31: Charting

November 3, 2010 Posted by Vincent Leung | Phone | 1 Comment

Windows Phone 7 Monitoring and Analytics

Runtime Intelligence for Windows Phone.

Microsoft and PreEmptive Solutions have partnered to provide Runtime Intelligence for Windows Phone – FREE development tools and a managed service to monitor and protect Windows Phone 7 applications till March 31st 2011. Both companies are committed to working to ensure that come March 2011, there is an affordable (read: less than $10 per month) service for developers who want access to rich and deep customer insight.

Application monitoring and analytics

Number of application sessions
Number of unique users
Feature usage counts and duration
General system and stability statistics

To get started, simply visit PreEmptive’s site, get a Runtime Intelligence account, and download the code. If you want to see a nice, quick tutorial, watch this video. If you want a deeper dive, here is a Channel9 video exploring Dotfuscator.

November 3, 2010 Posted by Vincent Leung | Phone | Leave a Comment