Cross Platform Apps with Windows 8 & Windows Phone 8
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Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 now run on the same kernel. What does that mean for you, the developer? Two platforms, one codebase! With a little planning, much of your app code can be re-used between both platforms. In this session, we’ll take a look at useful patterns, tips, and tricks to get you writing one codebase that works across both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.
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Cross Platform Apps with Windows 8 & Windows Phone 8
- 1. Cross-Platform Apps with Windows 8 & Windows Phone 8 Brent Edwards Associate Principal Consultant BrentE@magenic.com @brentledwards brentedwards.net https://github.com/brentedwards
- 2. What We Will Cover • MVVM • Solution Structure • Dealing with View Differences • Dealing with Code Differences • Navigation • Application Settings • Secondary Tiles
- 4. Charmed Framework • Open source, cross-platform MVVM support library – Windows 8 – Windows Phone 8 • https://github.com/brentedwards/Charmed
- 8. Why is MVVM Cool? • Separates Presentation from Functionality • Promotes Testability • Works great with Data Binding • Easy collaboration with Designers • Makes it easy to change out the View layer!
- 9. Solution Structure Laying the Foundation
- 10. Solution Structure • Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 – Same Kernel – Compile Differently – Different Project Types
- 11. Solution Structure • My Approach: One Solution with Several Project Types
- 12. Solution Structure • Leverage “Add As Link” Feature
- 13. Dealing With View Differences
- 14. Dealing With View Differences • What can be re-used across platforms? – Presentation Logic Code (C#) • What can’t be re-used across platforms? – Presentation Code (XAML) • Why? – Different flavors of XAML • Different styling concepts supported – Different controls available • GridView and ListView on Windows 8 • LongListSelector on Windows Phone 8
- 15. Dealing With View Differences • What can be re-used from the presentation? – Some design assets • How is that possible? – Windows 8 Snap View: 320px fixed width • Why 320px? – Mobile designers are used to it • Windows Phone 8 Design -> Windows 8 Snap View
- 16. Windows Phone Design Re-Use [Demo]
- 17. Dealing With Code Differences
- 18. Dealing With Code Differences • What is different? – Navigation • Same URI-based navigation scheme • Accept parameters differently – Application Settings • Different classes – Secondary Tiles • Same concept, fundamentally different implementations
- 19. Dealing With Code Differences • How can I deal with platform differences? – 3 techniques • Compiler Directives • Abstraction • Compiler Directives + Abstraction
- 20. Compiler Directives • Usage – Windows 8 • #if NETFX_CORE – Windows Phone 8 • #if WINDOWS_PHONE • Pro – Easy • Con – Can be messy
- 21. Abstraction • Usage – Abstract platform-specific functionality into abstract class or interface • Pro – Clean • Con – Can be complex
- 22. Compiler Directives + Abstraction • Usage – Move compiler directives behind abstraction layer • Pro – Can keep the mess out of view models • Con – Still can be messy
- 23. Navigation
- 24. Navigation • Both platforms use URI-based navigation – They differ in their use of parameters • Windows 8 allows 1 parameter – Can be anything • Windows Phone 8 uses query string – Can have many parameters, must all be strings • Neither implementation can be easily mocked for unit testing
- 25. Navigation • Solution – Provide consistent interface which takes 1 parameter • Serialize that parameter to a string
- 28. Application Settings • Both platforms have very similar functionality – Different classes involved • Neither implementation can be easily mocked for unit testing
- 29. Application Settings • Solution – Provide consistent interface • Use compiler directives in implementation
- 31. Secondary Tiles
- 32. Secondary Tiles • Both platforms have similar concept, but fundamentally different implementations • Windows 8 – Requires user approval to pin/unpin tile – Always launches through App.xaml.cs – Asynchronous • Windows Phone 8 – Doesn’t need user approval to pin/unpin tile – Can launch directly into a specific page – Synchronous
- 33. Secondary Tiles • Solution – Provide consistent interface with platform-specific implementations – Configure Windows Phone 8 to always launch through same page
- 35. What We Covered • MVVM • Solution Structure • Dealing with View Differences • Dealing with Code Differences • Navigation • Application Settings • Secondary Tiles
- 36. Questions?