Universal Apps Q and A from BUILD 2014 Day 1

One by one I’m watching all the BUILD 2014 sessions, writing up some notes for myself that I might as well share with you . I know its hard to find time to watch it all, so hopefully these notes can help somewhat. I enjoyed a salad (I lied, nobody enjoys a salad) at O’Hare airport while watching two back to back Q and A sessions on Universal apps. Here are some of the questions that came up, I’ve added some extra information on some of the answers. Should be fairly correct, but let me know if you see something that isn’t. I was rather tired during this write up.

Image from my arrival back in Gothenburg after a quick detour in Stockholm where I had the honor to be a guest jury member on NextUp competition for teenagers (a competition to encourage more ‘kids’, girls in particular, to go for a career in tech). What a great way to get back home <3

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How does the shared project work?

In the background the Shared project links files and does what we have done manually before to be able to share resources. It makes it way easier for us!

Re-targeting

Upgrade the project in VS, this will give you full access to all the APIs

You can also keep the app as is and use reflection to check OS version and use APIs where needed.

Universal App from WPF

The XAML in Universal Apps has some changes that will require some manual work, and you will see that in particular when you go from WPF to Universal App- but changes exist for all platforms.

PCL and Universal App difference

PCL’s are for code mainly correction: you can share XAML, localization files and more in PCLs as well when targeting UA platforms (thank you @davkeanfrom MS for keeping an eye on my write ups! )

Performance

Make sure you use the diagnostic tools which have been, and continues to be improved. More on this will be announced in a few days.

App packages

Separate app packages for submission as they produce different binaries.

Using third party JS libs in Windows Phone

The aim is that third party js libraries should work well with IE

Availability

RC SDK has been released but RTM will be released later

Will Universal Apps work on Windows 7?

No, they will only work on 8.1 and up

Live tiles changes?

Yes, improvements with background notifications and there are new templates.

Desktop Apps, are they being phased out?

No, but we are however trying to make it easier for you to leverage the newer technologies and have your app across several platforms.

BCL supported in Universal Apps?

Yes, if you use a language that supports that, such as C#

Xbox One – will we get XAML?

Yes, its in the works

Universal Apps Q and A from BUILD 2014 Day 1

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