Building Applications for Windows Phone Mango Jump Start, Day I

First of all, I would like to present a list of resources to get you started developing WP7 Mango apps.

• Visual Studio Service Pack 1 (prerequisite for installing the other tools)

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=23691

• WP7 7.1 SDK

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27153

• August 2011 Silverlight SDK – some amazing new controls are available, be sure to check the available samples

http://silverlight.codeplex.com/releases/view/71550

One of the controls that really got my attentions and I think it’s gonna be useful in many scenarios is the HubTile – an dynamic icon similar to the ones on the start screen which can display an image and additional text information which you can change.

Here are some images:

The emulator got a bunch of new features like the ability to change the location, the accelerometer parameters and to take snapshots:

• 
• 
• 

These functions can be accessed the double-arrow pointing right  icon  (last on on the bottom) on the side menu

An here is a list of things I’ve learned today about the new WP7 Mango platform:

• TextBox now has a InputScope property which dictates the keyboard layout once the control is activated.
• NavigationService.RemoveBackEntry() allows to remove pages from the navigation stack.
• Fast App Switch – on application activated handler you can not check if the handle with app switch or complete reactivation

if (!e.IsApplicationInstancePreserved)
{// tombstone}
else
{ // switch}

• On the project properties, on Debug page, you can choose if the emulator should switch between apps or close them when debugging
• Phone contacts access by using the “Contacts” class which offers handy methods for contact retrieval, look-up etc.
• Real time camera capture without leaving the app context
• Further integration with Bing services

Good luck with these new tools and features, and remember (quoting Rob Miles):

“Doing stuff is the best way to be successful”