New course on development for Windows Phone, Windows Phone Center Update and all-all-all ...

Every time I am going to write an article, especially if it is part of a course, I try to understand who will need it and how it will be used. And when my colleagues suggested that I start writing a small introductory course on developing for Windows Phone, the first thing I did, I looked through all the available materials that claim to be a training course or a book. Despite the fact that the Windows Phone platform is quite young, there are a lot of materials on it, both Russian-speaking and English-speaking.

Most of them, in my opinion, have the same problem: the lack of balance between the “theoretical” part, the practical part, plus examples of applications that are too complicated because they are trying to show us the use of technology in a supposedly real environment. Therefore, those who are going to understand a certain part of the technology have to either blindly copy pieces of code, or spend time trying to figure out technologies that create the “reality” of the examples. This is of course good. In theory. And in practice, this means that instead of following the path of learning, it is required to deal with technologies that it would be better to begin to deal with later.

Considering the above, I started writing a new Russian-language course on developing for Windows Phone, the first 6 articles of which are already available on MSDN:
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1. Development tools, templates and first application
2. Layout options, basic controls and input context
3. Using platform features
4. Local data storage and HTTP operation
5. Application life cycle, background services and multitasking
6. Alerts, Live Tiles and Push Notifications

I used this course as a basis for the Windows Phone development course during the Windows Phone evening school , which took place every Thursday in September at Microsoft’s Microsoft office and which anyone could attend was absolutely free. By the way, we plan to continue this initiative, and in such a way that the school becomes available not only to Muscovites, but also to finish school, as in normal, you receive a certificate after the final exams :)

For the convenience of developers, 6 articles are divided into topics that can be accessed directly from the home page of the Windows Phone Development Center :

• The first acquaintance with the platform
• Project template, pages and navigation
• Standard Markup Options
• Pivot and Panorama Controls
• Basic controls
• Text fields and input context
• Launchers tasks
• Choice Tasks (Choosers)
• Map control
• WebBrowser control
• Accelerometer operation
• Positioning
• Work with HTTP
• Work with isolated storage
• Introduction to the local database
• The life cycle and state of the application
• Scheduled Background Services
• Background file upload / download
• Background music playing
• Alerts
• Live tiles
• Push notification

Besides the fact that the Windows Phone development center significantly changed the presentation of materials, instructions were added to publish applications in the Marketplace , an article on the design of applications for Windows Phonr in Metro style , an introduction to the development of games on XNA under Windows Phone .

I received quite a lot of positive feedback on this course and wishes for its continuation and addition. Work continues. I plan to write at least 4 more articles and supplement the articles with brief video demonstrations.

By publishing this article in Habré, I want to use the opportunity to get feedback from those who use or plan to use this or a similar course. Write your wishes, suggestions and comments, I will try to take them into account when writing the following course articles.