Professional Visual Basic 2012 and .NET 4.5 Programming

Chapter 13

Creating XAML Applications for Windows 8

What's in this chapter?

Differences in Windows 8 XAML from earlier XAML platforms

UX and UI conventions in Windows 8

New elements and new features in Windows 8 XAML

The Visual Studio 2012 designer for XAML

Application templates in Visual Studio 2012 for XAML apps

Implementing Live Tiles

Implementing contracts to work with Windows 8 charms

Wrox.com Code Downloads for this Chapter

The wrox.com code downloads for this chapter are found at www.wrox.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=9781118314456 on the Download Code tab. The code is in the chapter 13 download and individually named according to the names throughout the chapter.

In chapter 12, you looked at XAML in a general way. That chapter covered capabilities and syntax that work exactly the name, except for minor details, on all three XAML platforms: WPF, Silverlight, and Windows 8 / WinRT. This chapter looks more deeply at XAML in the Windows 8 environment. The objective of the chapter is to build on general XAML expertise so that it can be applied to the creation of Windows 8 apps.

This chapter is aimed at those who have already absorbed enough about XAML to at least write simple applications on earlier XAML platforms. Chapter 12 was designed to assist those who have not yet used XAML in production on earlier platforms by presenting foundational XAML concepts. This chapter assumes that, at a minimum, the reader is familiar with all the concepts presented in Chapter 12.

For the benefit of ...