Office Hours

I hold weekly Office Hours on Wednesdays from 12pm to 2pm. On the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of the month I hold them at the Microsoft store in the Galleria mall. On the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays I hold them online.

 

What are Office Hours?

Simple, it’s a time where I’ll be available for folks who are working on Windows 8 apps to come by and ask questions, show off apps in progress, and in general get help getting their apps in shape for publishing to the Windows Store. I’ll also will be able to help with Windows Phone 8 apps and Windows Azure questions… I just may have to do additional research before I can get you an answer.

 

Schedule

 

Please sign up for a slot via the ohours.org button above so that I can manage my time more effectively, and let me know if you’re coming to get some questions answered (and a heads-up on the questions will give me some time to do any needed homework) or just to spend some quiet time coding. Feel free to email me at jbienz [at] microsoft.com.

Windows 8 App Madness

 

We’re excited to announce the new Windows 8 App Madness Challenge for Students. With this challenge we hope to excite and motivate thousands of students to build Windows 8 apps over the next 2 months!

Overview:

· $100/app for up to five Windows 8 apps students publish to the Store.

· Accelerator: 4 sprints during the challenge. The student who publishes the most apps during the sprint wins a trip for 2.

o Facebook poll of students will determine the trip destination. Get voting!

· Timing: From February 12^th – April 11^th.

 

Here’s the link to get started:

http://aka.ms/Windows8AppMadness

Two Nokias for the Price of One

Wiliam Fink wrote in to share: “While this is not specific to developers, Nokia is running a buy-one 920, get the second 920 for free.  On AT&T this comes out to two Nokia 920s for $99.  For people wanting to develop for Windows Phone 8, this deal might be the icing on the cake.”

Link: http://www.nokia.com/us-en/products/phone/lumia920/

Ends: 2/21/2013

Student Store Accounts FREE

Students, did you know that you can get your Windows Phone and Windows 8 developer accounts for free?

Here are all the details, step-by-step:

How to get your free student Windows 8 store account

How to get your free student Windows Phone store account

Incentives for App Developers

There are so many incentive programs for our developers right now that I needed a list just to keep track of them all. Below is what I have so far, thanks in large part to Jeff Blankenburg and Ryan Lowdermilk.

I’m sure we’ve missed other incredible opportunities, so if you know of anything that should be on the list please e-mail me and let me know.

 

Student Store Accounts (Students Only)

Students, did you know that you can get your Windows Phone and Windows 8 developer accounts for free?

Here are all the details, step-by-step:

How to get your free student Windows 8 store account

How to get your free student Windows Phone store account

 

Generation App

Generation App is an ongoing loyalty program for developers of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 store apps.

Link: bit.ly/winappsupport

Platforms: Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8

Ends: Ongoing

Phone: 1-800-895-4212

Hours: M-F 6:30 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific

Incentives:

• Up to 30 minutes with a Windows 8 design expert to review your app and provide guidance on creating a stunning user experience.
• Up to 30 minutes with a Windows 8 architect to assist with building on Windows 8.
• More incentives to be announced soon…

Windows 8 App Madness (Students Only)

With this challenge we hope to excite and motivate thousands of students to build Windows 8 apps over the next 2 months!

Link: http://aka.ms/Windows8AppMadness

Platforms: Windows 8

Ends: 4/11/2013

Incentives:

• $100 gift card per app! (limit 5)
• Accelerator: 4 sprints during the challenge. The student who publishes the most apps during the sprint wins a trip for 2.
• Facebook poll of students will determine the trip destination. Get voting!

Ultimate Experience

Ultimate Experience has some cool prizes and it’s more like a raffle than a competition.

Link: generationapp.com/ultimateexperience

Platforms: Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8

Ends: 2/28/2013

Incentives:

• 1 App: Store account fees reimbursed and a copy of Halo 4
• 1+ Apps: Every app increases the chance of winning one of 12 XBOX consoles with Kinect
• 1+ Apps: Every app increases the chance of winning one of 3 trips to visit Microsoft Game Studios

WP Next App Star

Your chance to be on TV, win devices and more!

Link: bit.ly/wp8appstar

Platforms: Windows Phone 8

Ends: 3/5/2013

Incentives:

64 Winners Receive:

• A Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone
• Featured promotion in the Windows Phone Store
• Exposure via online media
• A 1-year free Dev Center subscription

Grand Prize:

• All of the above, PLUS Featured placement of your app in a Windows Phone primetime TV ad in the U.S

Nokia DVLUP

This Nokia developer loyalty program keeps the fun and prizes coming year round. This program is currently in beta and a code is required to join, so you can e-mail me and I’ll see if I can get you a beta code.

Link: dvlup.com

Platforms: Windows Phone 8

Ends: Ongoing

Incentives:

• Get credit for old phones (any make and model) toward a new Nokia
• Submit applications to challenges and win experience points
• Cash in experience points for prizes like Nokia phones, gift cards (Amazon, Starbucks, etc.), XBOX consoles and more
• New challenges and new prizes every month

Nokia Buy 1 Get 1 Free

While this is not specific to developers, Nokia is running a buy-one 920, get the second 920 for free.  On AT&T, this comes out to two Nokia 920s, for $99.  For people wanting to develop for Windows Phone 8, this deal might be the icing on the cake.  — Thanks to Wiliam Fink for the tip!

Link: http://www.nokia.com/us-en/products/phone/lumia920/

Platforms: Windows Phone 8

Ends: 2/21/2013

Incentives:

• 2 phones for the price of one!

Social Good Contest

Windows 8 Apps for Social Good invites both new and seasoned developers to create an app for “social good”.

Link: bit.ly/win8socialgood

Platforms: Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8

Ends: 2/28/2013

Incentives:

• Best Overall Windows 8 App: $15,000 + Windows Phone
• Best Overall Windows Phone 8 App: $15,000 + Windows Phone
• People’s Choice: $10,000 + Windows Phone

---

Dev support, design support and more awesome goodness on the way: bit.ly/winappsupport

---

Advanced Text Formatting in Windows Store Apps

A developer asked me recently how to format text in Windows Store apps. Specifically he wanted to add bullet points to some article text he was displaying.

 

The sample templates like GridApp include a special class called RichTextColumns under the Common folder. This class wraps a normal RichTextBlock (which would run off the screen if its text got too long) to splits it into multiple columns by generating more RichTextBlocks for any overflow. There’s a property on RichTextColumns where you specify the content to be displayed called RichTextContent. It’s where any child markup in Xaml gets stored at runtime. So, in order to format the text, we need to change the content of the RichTextContent property.

 

It turns out the RichTextContent property is a RichTextBlock, so anything you can do with a RichTextBlock can be spread across multiple columns. That makes sense. The trick is usually to convert from some standard markup you know (let’s say HTML) to the child elements supported by RichTextBlock. There are several ways to do this but my favorite is to make a new control called HtmlRichTextColumns that inherits from RichTextColumns and can parse HTML content. Here are the steps:

 

1. Remove sealed from RichTextColumns so we can inherit from it.
2. Change ResetOverflowLayout to protected instead of private so we can call it from our inherited class.
3. Create a new class called HtmlRichTextColumns and inherit from RichTextColumns.
4. Add a dependency property called Markup with a type of string. Use the version of PropertyMetadata that calls a method whenever the value changes and have it call a private method MarkupChanged.
5. In MarkupChanged, parse the text into Runs, Images, etc. and add them to the RichTextContent property. Then call ResetOverflowLayout to generate the columns.

 

Parsing the HTML itself is outside the scope of this article (maybe I’ll cover it in a later post). For now I’ll point you to the forum thread How to Convert Html to a RichTextBlock content. To the specific question about bullet points, well unfortunately the List tag isn’t supported in Windows 8. Shane Melbourne found a decent workaround by using indented paragraphs and symbols. You can read how he did it in the forum thread RichTextBlock Bullet list.

---

Dev support, design support and more awesome goodness on the way: bit.ly/winappsupport

---

Personal Win 8 Developer Help

Interested in some 1:1 help to get your Windows 8 app to the finish line? Let me offer some assistance!

 

If you live in Houston or surrounding areas, consider joining me and other local developers for Coffee and Code at the Microsoft office. This will take place on 12/12 from noon to 4:00 PM Central time.

Register for Houston Coffee and Code

 

Not in Houston? Don’t want to wait till December? I hear you! Join me online on 11/22 from 10 AM to 4 PM Central for 1:1 help over Lync. We can whiteboard, share desktops, send files, etc.

Register for Online Assistance

 

Hope to see you there!

How to Share Your Windows 8 App with Friends for Testing

Sometimes you’d like to share an app with friends or family for testing purposes before submitting it to the store. And many times those friends or family won’t have Visual Studio installed. This blog post walks you through the steps for building and shipping your app to another person for testing purposes.

 

First, make sure to change the project build to ‘Release’ instead of ‘Debug’. This can be done from the Visual Studio toolbar.

 

Now, under the Debug menu, clean and then rebuild the solution.

 

After the build completes, right-click on the project in the Solution Explorer window and choose Store –> Create app packages…

 

When prompted if you want to build the app for the store, say no.

 

When the app packages are finished building you’ll be presented with the option to run the certification kit.

Do NOT launch the Certification Kit. Instead, click OK.

 

After dismissing the dialog:

1. Go into your project folder
2. Then into the AppPackages folder
3. Then into the <AppName>_<AppVer>_<AnyCPU | ARM | x86 | x64>_Test folder
4. Select the .ps1, .appx and .cer files and add them to a zip file
5. Send the zip file to your friends and family
6. Ask them to unzip the zip file into its own folder (under My Documents is fine)
7. Ask them to right-click the .ps1 file and choose Run with PowerShell (just double-clicking the .ps1 file may not work)
8. Ask them to follow the on-screen prompts and accept the installation of the developer certificate (installing a developer certificate will require a Windows Live ID)
9. The application should now appear on their Start Experience, ready to test
10. . When they’re done testing they can uninstall the app like any other Store app (just right-click and choose Uninstall from the Start Experience App Bar)

How to Test Your Windows 8 App Before Submitting to the Store

It’s always a good idea to test your application before submitting it to the store. The Windows Application Certification Kit (WACK) tool can save you from failing the early automated tests.

 

The first thing you’ll want to do is uninstall any existing build of your application. This is important because the WACK tool may fail if a previous debug build is still installed on the system. To uninstall your app, find it on the Start experience, right-click and choose ‘Uninstall’.

 

Next, make sure to change the project build to ‘Release’ instead of ‘Debug’. This can be done from the Visual Studio toolbar.

 

Now, under the Debug menu, clean and then rebuild the solution.

 

After the build completes, right-click on the project in the Solution Explorer window and choose Store –> Create app packages…

 

When prompted if you want to build the app for the store, say no.

 

When the app packages are finished building you’ll be presented with the option to run the certification kit.

If this option isn’t available, double-check that your project was actually built as ‘Release’ and not ‘Debug’.

 

Before you launch the App Certification Kit, close down other programs and set aside about 5 minutes for it to run. As the screen reminds you, when you see your app appear on the screen do not interact with it.

 

When the tests are done, if all is well you’ll see a successful report like the one below.

Resources for Game Developers

As we’re doing game development labs at colleges and universities, I wanted to share some of the awesome free resources that are available to game developers.

 

Icons

Metro Studio – 600 free metro style icons from the cool folks at SyncFusion.

The Noun Project – Hundreds (if not thousands) of icons for just about anything you can think of, all free. These icons will download in Scalable Vector format (SVG) and will need to be converted to PNG at the size of 48 x 48 pixels. Either InkScape or Expression Design can be used to do the conversion.

BRKR Design Icon Pack – This pack costs $20 but it includes 350 of the most commonly used icons already sized and ready to go. This single package includes all 350 icons for Windows Phone, iPhone and Android.

 

Images

Every Stock Photo – Search thousands of images, many of which can be used in apps and games.  Click on advanced search, then click the Licenses dropdown and check ONLY the boxes for Public Domain and Custom Free.  When you find the image you’re looking for, be sure to follow the search result back to the original site and read the license to make sure it can be used in your application.

 

Sound Effects

Soundjay – Hundreds of sound effects that are licensed for use in apps and games. Most (if not all) of these sound effects should play as-is on Windows Phone. You can use a tool like Audacity to convert any sounds that don’t play into ones that do.

Freesound – Thousands of free sound effects. Carefully check the license for each sound effect because not all sound effects can be used in commercial applications. Some sound effects may also require you to give attribution (credit) to the author in your application. Not all sound effects on this site can be played on Windows Phone. You can use a tool like Audacity to convert sounds that don’t play into ones that do.

Audio Micro has a free music and sounds tab on their home page.

 

Music

Incompetech – Hundreds of high quality songs available for use in apps and games. They’re even organized by genre, "feel" and keyword. Many of these songs require attribution (listing in credits) or can be purchased for royalty-free use.

FreePD – Another great resource for finding free music in the public domain. Their FAQ states that all of the songs listed are available for use without attribution. Double-check that the page shows "CC Zero" at the bottom.

 

Sprites

Open Clipart (.org) – Hundreds if  not thousands of free images, most don’t even require attribution!

HasGraphics Sprites – 10 sprite sets free for commercial use. Some require attribution, some do not.

Video Game Sprites – Actual sprites from original games, not able to use in commercial games

Lost Garden – Game graphics, asks for acknowledgement.

Open Game Art – Graphics, sprites, icons and sounds. Asks for donations.

Textures

CGTextures – Amazing, pretty exhaustive collection of tillable textures that can be used for free in commercial games. Attribution is appreciated but not required.

HasGraphics Textures – Two large tile sets free for commercial use.