Windows 8 and the Future of XAML

From the author: It’s my goal in this series to introduce you to what we know at this point about Windows 8 and how we as (XAML) developers will need to adapt to the new platform.

Since you’re probably a XAML developer like I am, we are going to see things from a XAML point-of-view. In this ebook, I’m going to describe you how you can leverage what you already know in XAML when Windows 8 will be ready. I’m also going to spend time looking at how you can convert existing Silverlight applications to Windows 8 Metro apps, so that they follow the rules of the OS. We will also be spending time of course on digging into the developer framework making the development on Windows 8 easy: Windows Runtime or shorter, WinRT.

Contents:

Chapter 1: An overview of the Windows 8 platform

Let’s BUILD… and all the panic
BUILD hardware and software announcements
Exploring Windows 8 and Metro-style apps

Chapter 2: The Windows Runtime (WinRT)

Hello World… sorry, WinRT
WinRT architecture
Windows Metadata
Language projections
The runtime broker
Being async
What’s in WinRT

Chapter 3: Using WinRT

Hello World… This time for real
Hello Visual Studio
Hello C++
And why not… Hello JavaScript and HTML
More WinRT
Selecting files on the local file system using the FileOpenPicker
Accessing the picture library and Capabilities

Chapter 4: Contracts in WinRT/Windows 8

Contracts: what are they
The Search contract from the developer perspective
Adding the declaration for search
React to search activation
Reacting to submitting queries

Chapter 5: More contracts in WinRT/Windows 8

We love sharing
The share contract
Making your application a share source

Chapter 6: Tiles, toasts and badges

The concepts of tiles
Tiles: basic ones and live ones
Basic tiles
Live tiles
Secondary tiles
Badges
Notifications

Chapter 7: The application lifecycle of Windows 8 applications

Breaking with a tradition
The process lifetime in detail
Launching an app in Windows 8
Launching the app through searching
Launching the app through sharing
Running code in the background
Ebook summary