Windows 8.1: New Features for C#/XAML Developers

User Experience Changes with Windows 8.1
Hi and welcome to module 3 of this Pluralsight course on the new developer features in Windows 8. 1. My name is Gill Cleeren. You can contact me on Twitter via @gillcleeren. In this third module we are going to discuss the UX changes that Microsoft has done in the new version of Windows. As you may recall from module 1, there are quite a lot of breaking changes when it comes to the UX. Well after watching this module, you'll have a full understanding of what changed and how you can take advantage of these changes from your code. Let's get started by looking at the outline for the module. We'll kick off the module by looking at the new tile sizes. Windows 8. 1 follows Windows Phone and introduces a number of new options in terms of tile sizes. Also some changes were made to the existing tiles and we'll talk about that as well. Another perhaps even bigger change, are the new screen sizes or window sizes. In Windows 8. 1 it is possible to have more apps running at the same time and let these apps be of varying sizes. Another thing we'll discuss here is the path you'll need to follow if your app currently has a snap view built in. We will finish off the module by looking at the changes that happened in the area of the contracts. Contracts were a very big deal in Windows 8 and are still important in Windows 8. 1. However, there are quite a few important changes that happened with the contracts. We'll take a look at the search contract, which basically is removed from the OS. The share contract is still there. In fact, it has been extended and we'll discuss what has been added here.

Service Improvements in Windows 8.1
Hi and welcome to the sixth module of this Pluralsight course on the new developer features in Windows 8. 1. My name is Gill Cleeren, and you can contact me on Twitter via @gillcleeren. In this module we are going to focus on some more classes that were added or updated in the WinRT API. However, all these classes have to do with service communication so between apps and services, which is the reason they have been grouped in this separate module. Talking with services is very important for many apps since it is very often the only way they can connect to up-to-date data. Let us first start by taking a look at the agenda for this module. We're kicking off this module by discussing the new HTTP API that comes with Windows 8. 1 This is a very welcome improvement making HTTP calls in WinRT easier. Along with the new API comes the ability to create fields as I will look at these too. Up next is geofencing, an entirely new concept in Windows 8. 1 to allow apps to trigger when they are at a certain location. We'll also discuss the extensions made to the background transfer API, which aren't that long, but are still worth the mention. Finally, we'll look at some improvements made to the WebAuthenticationBroker class. This class already was a preferred way of logging into web accounts, such as Facebook, and in Windows 8. 1 it has been improved. But I will start the module with a discussion of the new HTTP API, probably the biggest and most important change in the area of working with services in Windows 8. 1.

Store and Packaging Improvements
Hi and welcome to the seventh and last module of this Pluralsight course on the new developer features in Windows 8. 1. My name is Gill Cleeren, you can contact me on Twitter via @gillcleeren. In this final module of the course, we will be discussing some topics that you'll encounter near the finalization of your application. More specifically, we will discuss what changes were made to the ways the applications can be packaged and deployed in the store. But let's first take a look at the agenda for this module. Before talking about how we can deploy our apps, we will take a look at the new Windows 8 Store. The store has been greatly improved and it's us, app developers, that will benefit from this. I'll explain why that is in just a minute. To deploy our apps to the store, we need to package them. Previously, we didn't have a lot of options here, but Windows 8. 1 brings a number of interesting changes to the way we can package our apps. We'll finish the module by looking at some other improvements. We'll see mostly in a demo how we can have both a Windows 8 and an 8. 1 version of our app in the store. I'll talk about how apps can get updated and I'll finish by looking at working with consumables. This too has changed in Windows 8. 1.