Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Public Beta 2 release
Posted on June 30, 2011
29.06.2011 was released wp7.1 sdk Beta2.
The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 makes significant strides forward, and enables you to build many classes of applications that were not previously possible.
The following lists what’s new in the Windows Phone SDK:
Visual Basic Support
Visual Basic is now available for both Silverlight and XNA Framework applications. Visual Basic is fully integrated into the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2; you do not need to install it separately.
Conceptual documentation: Most code examples in the documentation now appear in both C# and Visual Basic
Advertising
The Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone enables you to monetize your apps and games by including ads from Microsoft Advertising. The Advertising SDK is now fully integrated into the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2; you do not need to install it separately.
Conceptual documentation: Advertising in Windows Phone Applications
Multi-targeting and App Compatibility
You can use the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 to create Silverlight® and XNA Framework projects that target either Windows Phone OS 7.1 or Windows Phone OS 7.0. When you create a new project, you are prompted to select the version that you want to target. You can also upgrade existing Windows Phone OS 7.0 projects to take advantage of the new Windows Phone OS 7.1 features.
All your apps and games that work on Windows Phone OS 7.0 phones will continue to work seamlessly on Windows Phone OS 7.1 phones.
Device Status
The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 now gives you expanded programmatic access to a user’s Windows Phone device through the DeviceStatus class. You can now determine whether the device is using the battery or external power, whether a keyboard is available or deployed, the device manufacturer, and more.
Conceptual documentation: Device Status for Windows Phone
Managed API documentation: Microsoft.Phone.Info
Isolated Storage Explorer
The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 now includes a command line tool that enables you to list, copy, and replace files and directories in the isolated storage.
Isolated storage enables managed applications to create and maintain local storage. Isolated storage in Windows Phone is similar to isolated storage in Silverlight. For a Windows Phone application, all I/O operations are restricted to isolated storage and do not have direct access to the underlying operating system file system or to the isolated storage of other applications. This improves security and reduces chances of unauthorized access and data corruption.
Launchers and Choosers
The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 introduces several new Launchers and Choosers. From your applications, you can now choose an address, invite players to a game session, or save a ringtone. You can also show a location on a map at a preset zoom level, or show directions between two points on a Bing map.
The following are the new Launchers and Choosers:
- Address Chooser Task
- Bing Maps Task
- Bing Maps Directions Task
- Game Invite Task
- Save Contact Task
- Save Ringtone Task
- Share Link Task
- Share Status Task
Contacts and Calendar
The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 now gives you read-only access to the user’s contacts and calendar data. You can now differentiate your applications by querying and interacting with the user’s data in ways such as letting the user choose from a list of their contacts and sending them emails, searching for contacts’ birthdays, and others.
Encrypted Credential Store
The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 now provides access to a set of cryptography APIs. For applications that require login credentials, these APIs enable you to store the credentials in an encrypted way. Now your users do not have to log in anew each time they use your application.
Camera
The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 now gives you programmatic access to the camera on Windows Phone devices, including real-time access to raw frames. This enables you to create scanning and augmented reality applications. You can also access the flash and adjust the focus in your applications.
OData Client
The Open Data Protocol (OData) is an open web protocol for querying and updating data. The protocol allows for a consumer to query a datasource over the HTTP protocol and get the result back in formats like Atom, JSON or plain XML, including pagination, ordering or filtering of the data.
The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 now include the Add Service Reference dialog that enables you to generate a client proxy class. You can also use LINQ queries to access OData resources, and perform client authentication to secure OData services with a login ID and password. There is also improved performance when saving client state.
You can download SDK 7.1 Beta 2 from here
Retrive radio station list
Posted on June 16, 2011First of all we need to get an list of radiostation. There is a lot of services that already collect this information for us. For me it’s :
http://www.moskva.fm/stations for Moscow radio station
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- edited with XMLSpy v2008 sp1 (http://www.altova.com) by LolitaRB (EMBRACE) --> <xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" elementFormDefault="qualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified"> <xs:element name="StationList"> <xs:complexType> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name="Station" maxOccurs="unbounded"> <xs:complexType> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name="name" type="xs:string"/> <xs:element name="url" type="xs:anyURI"/> <xs:element name="freq" type="xs:string"/> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> </xs:element> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> </xs:element> </xs:schema>
In each url the number is station id. For example http://www.moskva.fm/play/4001/translation 4001 it’s ID
As result we gat an list of station in XML format next you can see part of it:
<StationList>
<Station>
<name>Relax FM</name>
<url>http://www.moskva.fm/play/4014/translation</url>
<freq>90.8 FM</freq>
</Station>
<Station>
<name>DFM</name>
<url>http://www.moskva.fm/play/2002/translation</url>
<freq>101.2 FM</freq>
</Station>
<!-- ... !-->
</StationList>
In the next post i’ll show you how to generate a class from xsd schema
Tools we needed
Posted on June 08, 2011- Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
- Windows Phone Emulator
- Silverlight for Windows Phone
- XNA Game Studio 4.0
- Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone
| Tool name | Cost | Description | link to download |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phonen | free | Free tools for developers building applications for Windows Phone using .NET, Silverlight and XNA.
Supported Operating Systems:
Windows Vista (x86 and x64) with Service Pack 2 – all editions except Starter Edition Windows 7 (x86 and x64) – all editions except Starter Edition Windows Phone Emulator requires a DirectX 10 capable graphics card with a WDDM 1.1 driver |
Download for free |
| Windows Phone Emulator | free | Windows Phone Emulator is a desktop application that emulates a Windows Phone 7 or a Windows Phone 7.1 device. It provides a virtualized environment in which you can develop, debug, and test Windows Phone applications. It also provides an isolated environment for early application prototypes. By using the emulator, you can proceed through the common application development scenarios without a physical device. This can reduce the cost of developing applications for Windows Phone.
The Windows Phone Emulator is designed to provide comparable performance to an actual device, and to meet the peripheral specifications typically required for application development. However, before you publish your applications to the Windows Phone Marketplace, you should test your application on an actual device.
|
|
| Silverlight for Windows Phone | free | Silverlight is the application development platform for Windows Phone 7 and 7.1..
Silverlight for Windows Phone supports core Silverlight capabilities in managed .NET code with XAML including:
High quality video and audio using a wide range of codecs, DRM and IIS Smooth Streaming Deep Zoom for enhanced reading and photo browsing experiences Vector and Bitmap Graphics and animation Silverlight can also access the unique capabilities of the phone including:
Silverlight can also utilize the XNA Framework for Audio capture and playback, Media Library Access, and even accessing Xbox LIVE.
|
|
| XNA Game Studio 4.0 | free |
XNA Game Studio 4.0 is a programming environment that allows you to use Visual Studio 2010 to create games for Windows Phone, the Xbox 360 console, and Windows-based computers. XNA Game Studio 4.0 includes the XNA Framework 4.0, which is a set of managed libraries designed for game development based on Microsoft .NET Framework 4.
|
|
| Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone | free |
Expression Blend, Visual Studio, Silverlight and .NET provide the most compelling and seamless design and development workflow on the market today. Rapidly iterate on both the user experience and core architecture, evolving your ideas quickly from initial prototype through to completed project.
Key components of Expression Blend, including Behaviors, Visual State Manager, transition effects, and SketchFlow (Expression Blend 4 includes SketchFlow in Expression Studio 4 Ultimate product only), coupled with the speed and flexibility of this modern workflow challenge you to push boundaries and work beyond the limits of what you thought possible.
|
What we are going to do…
Posted on May 31, 2011Below you can see the concept idea of existing infrastracture that we would be using in our WP7 application.
WP7 Radio
- FM Radio – this is almost~60 radio station wich audio source would be used.
- Media Database & Online Media Service – server that translate media content to network.
- WP7 device – target client device.
So the idea is simple WP7 app that can stream radio from 60+ station.
But there is one additional feature that i have mention : possibility to “travel in time” . Later i will describe it.