1. Create a Windows 8 App based on the Visual Studio 2012 Templates
2. Extending Windows 8 functionalities
• Search
• Share
3. User Data
• Local Data
• Roaming Data
4. Tiles
5. Notifications
6. App Bar
7. Integration with Windows Azure Mobile Services
• Tables
• Authentication
• Push Notifications

In order to use Windows 8 Share capabilities you must understand that there are two ways of integrating Share capabilities in your App. Your App can be a Share Target or a Share Source. In this specific example I'll focus on the Share Source since it is what makes more sense in the context of our Windows Store App. If you want to learn more about integrating Share with your App behond the context of this blog series you should check out the following links:

• Guidelines for sharing content
• Sharing content source app sample
• Sharing content target app sample 

The objective of this blog post is to integrate Share in our App in a way that will allow us to share SampleDataItem's as text to other Apps that are configured as Share Target. In order to do so we will use the DataTransfer namespace that contains all the methods needed to share: text, link, HTML, image or files.

First of all just open the ItemDetailPage.xaml.cs file since this is the page that will have the content we want to share. Just add the following code to the LoadState method.This code will allow you know everytime the Share charm is tapped in the context of this page. As you might see dataTransferManager is a global variable so you must declare it in the beginning of the class declaration instead of inside this specific method.  

You must remove the event handler when you exit this page and this is done in the SaveState method. Just copy the following code to the SaveState method and you won't have issues with this anymore.

The next step is to implement the method OnDataRequested that will be fired when the Share charm is tapped by the user. This is a very simple method that will do one of two things: Provide content to the Share Target App or display an error message for the user.

If you look closely to the method above you will see that the work of providing content to the Target App is done through a method called GetShareContent which receives the request as an argument. This method is where all the real work is done and the way it may be implemented is the following. In order to share text there are two things that you must provide which are the Title and the Text. As you may see I also provide the description but this is an optional field. So basically what I've done was to use the DataPackage in order to send the information to the Share Target App. Pretty easy!

Remember that this code is the implementation for the method to share text. If you wish to share images, links, HTML or files you must look at the links I posted before in order to get more information on this.

 With this you should be able to share the content of every SampleDataItem individually to the Share Target App you select. You are now able to see something like this...

This might be the usefull in most cases but for more complex scenarios you should explore other solutions and for that I recommend that you look at the links I posted in the beginning and choose the one that fits your purpose best. Hope this post is usefull to you and remember this is another great feature that will give greatness to your App.

See you in the next post where I will show you how to handle User Data...

1. Create a Windows 8 App based on the Visual Studio 2012 Templates
2. Extending Windows 8 functionalities
• Search
• Share
3. User Data
• Local Data
• Roaming Data
4. Tiles
5. Notifications
6. App Bar
7. Integration with Azure Mobile Services
• Tables
• Authentication
• Push Notifications

If you remember from the first post you will have to declare the search capability for your App in order to integrate it with the App but...If you do it the right way Visual Studio 2012 will do it for you. :)

Instead of opening the App manifest in Visual Studio and adding the Search declaration manually...

...you may create a new Search Contract and all of this will be automatically created for you. This and a bunch of code that you would have to create by yourself.

So, for doing it the easy way just right click your project and Add a new Item. In the Wizard select Windows Store on the left side of the screen and scroll down until you find Search Contract. When you do select it and add this new item to your project

When you do this you'll have:

1. SearchResultsPage.xaml in your project
2. Search declaration enabled in the App manifest
3. Code in App.xaml.cs that will allow your App to know when the Search charm is being called

The first two points have nothing much to explain but the third point is very important. There are basically two ways in which your App can be warned that there is Search request: with App running or with App closed. This is what is handled for you in the OnSearchActivated method below. You should look at this method with more attention but for the purpose of this blog post I'll explain it very lightly. What this method does is check what was the state of your App previsouly to the running state. So if your App was terminated it will try to load state using SuspensionManager (class that allows you to store and restore App state seen on the first post). Otherwise, if your App is already running it will navigate to the SearchResultsPage passing the query as a parameter.

So you have a class that will handled Search activation and navigation for you but will it handle data loading?! The answer is not really but it makes your job a lot easier!

In order to handle data loading you have two separate methods in SearchResultsPage.xaml.cs (LoadState and Filter_SelectionChanged). This is done in two steps:

1. When you navigate to the SearchResultsPage the LoadState method is called. In this method you should load the search filters and the number of results for each feature.
2. When you change the selected filter you should load the right results to the result pane

As I wanted to keep our App working with SampleData and still prepare to receive real data I created two methods in the SampleDataSource class. One that will return a dictionary with the filter name and the number of results in that filter and the second one that will return my results knowing which filter was selected.So you should add to the SampleDataSource class the following methods.

Of course the search system is pretty basic but you can always improve it. I'm only explaining you the basic steps so you can work your magic in it! Now that we have all the helper methods we need the only thing that we are lacking is integrating this in the SearchResultsPage. So if you go to the SearchResultsPage and navigate to the LoadState method just replace your existing code for this one. Be aware that I changed the query variable in order to be global since I'll need it later when I get the results for the selected filter. This code will add the filters returned by the SampleDataSource into the SearchResultsPage.

Now that we have the filters in-place the last thing we need to do is to react to the filter selection changing. Remember that we previously created a method that will help us do this so just add this line of code to the TODO section in your existing code.

So, with this you're good to go. Just press F5, cross your fingers and use search that Windows 8 provides right in your App!

Just one last thing...you will notice that when you click your results nothing happens, right? That's because you haven't enabled it to do so. Go to SearchResultsPage.xaml and find resultsGridView. You need to had the ItemClickEvent to this GridView.

This will create a method in the code-behind and all you need to do in order to navigate to the result's content is the following:

And that's it!! Hope you found this interesting. Glad to have your feedback on this one and see you on the third blog post about integrating your App with Sharing capabilities.

This blog post is actually the first of a blog post series where I'm going to explain you all you need to know in order to create a great Windows 8 App. Most of you won't even need all that I will be showing you but it's always good to know it if you need sometime. The subjects that I'll show are:

1. Create a Windows 8 App based on the Visual Studio 2012 Templates
2. Extending Windows 8 functionalities
• Search
• Share
3. User Data
• Local Data
• Roaming Data
4. Tiles
5. Notifications
6. App Bar
7. Integration with Azure Mobile Services
• Tables
• Authentication
• Push Notifications

This blog post will cover the first topic on how to create a Windows 8 App based on the Visual Studio 2012 templates. I'll also explain the basic anatomy of a Window 8 project.

So, in order for you to create a Windows 8 App you just need two things: Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012. Visual Studio 2012 already comes with some Windows Store Apps templates:

• Blank App: A single-page project for a Windows Store App that has no predefined controls or layout.

• Grid App: A three-page project for a Windows Store App that navigates among grouped items arranged in a grid. Dedicated pages display group and item details.

• Split App: A two-page project for a Windows Store App that navigates among grouped items. The first page allows group selection while the second displays an item list alongside details for the selected items.

For the purpose of this blog series I will choose the Grid App template since it is the one that has all the controls and styles we need. Just select the Grid App template and you'll see the following project structure.

 Now that we created our App let's explore the project's anatomy a little bit further. I'll focus here on some of the files that will be important for this blog series.

• StandardStyles.xaml: This where you will define all your styles for your App. The template that we choose already comes with a lot of styles for buttons, text, scrollviewers, etc...

• SuspensionManager.cs: This helper class contains some methods that will help handle Application lifecycle. You should use the methods in this class to save the user state when the App is suspended and then load the user state when the App is resumed. If you do this you'll give the user a better experience.

• SampleDataSource.cs: This class is a sample datasource that will be used to populate your App with information. This will allow you to test your App before using real data. If you intend to use the GridView control you might want to keep this file and use this class' structure as it represents exactly what GridView expects. This will be explained on a later blog post when we connect our App to real data.

• GroupDetailPage.xaml: This is the page that will show all of the group's items.

• GroupedItemsPage.xaml: This is the main page where our grouped items will be displayed inside a GridView.

• ItemDetailPage.xaml: This page will show the item details.

• Package.appxmanifest: The manifest file is where you define what are your App's capabilities and declarations such as search and share. This is also where you define you app logos.

Now that you know what is the anatomy of a Windows 8 App just press F5 and navigate in your App to understand how it goes.

See you on the next blog post where I'll explain you how to integrate Search in your App...

This requires a few steps:

1. Setting up the tools on Surface
2. Configuring the Remote Debugger on Surface
3. Lauching the App on the remote Debugger from the local machine

1. Setting up the tools on Surface

 In order to get the tools just follow this link and select the ARM version. After downloading this file just install it and you're done for the first step.

2. Configuring the Remote Debugger on Surface

 The first time you enter the Remote Debugger you will be requested to allow some firewall rules. Choose whatever fits your needs and then proceed.

In the Remote Debugger there are basically two things you have to care about: TCP/IP Port and Authentication. You can leave the default port. The authentication is what you have to worry about. By default the Authentication mode is "Windows Authentication" but you might want to disable it in some specific scenarios.

Windows Authentication in the Remote Debugger requires you to have the same account configured in both devices. In my case my laptop is domain-joined so I can't have the same account in both devices. This will work if you have your Microsoft account connected with both devices.

If this is not the case you should allow "No authentication" and check "Allow any user to debug".

Whatever your scenario may be if you follow these rules you are good to go.

3. Lauching the App on the remote Debugger from the local machine

Now just go to Visual Studio 2012, open the project that you want to debug and change the debugging options to "Remote Machine".

 The first time you make thins change you will see the "Remote Debugger Connections" wizard. If everything went well on the previous steps you will immediately find your Surface device in the "My Subnet" tab. Just select it and you have done all the configurations needed in order to do Remote Debugging.

The final step is just to press F5 in order to run the App and you should see the App running on your Surface. Also notice that a connection was established to the Remote Debugger console. The first time you connect to your Surface you will have to get a developer account for the Surface device in order to unlock it for App testing. Just fill in your Microsoft Account and that's it.

Now you can test your Apps in your new Surface. Hope this was helpfull!

First of all you need to reserve a space for you app in the Windows Store. Just go to https://dev.windows.com and sign in. Go to Dashboard and click submit an app. Then you have to choose a name for your app (see image below) and reserve it. Now you are ready for the next step. 

Next you will need to install the Live SDK for Windows Store Apps. Just follow this link in order to do so. 

Once you got the SDK installed just open Visual Studio 2012 and create a Windows Store App based on the Grid Template. We will use this sample template without making much changes to the template or the datasource.

Now we have a very simple project based on the Grid App template which will allow us to have the Skydrive folders and the respective images inside in a few steps.

The first step we will do is to associate the app with the Windows Store App account we created previously. For that just right-click on the project folder, "store" and then "associate App with the store" (see image below). Just follow the wizard steps and you will have your app associated with the store. This step will populate the App's manifest file with information like Package Name, Package Display Name, Publisher ID and Publisher Display Name.

The next step is to add LiveSDK reference to the project in order to be able to use the Live Services to authenticate the user and request access to Skydrive.

Now we have to add a button to the main page. So lets go to the "GroupedItemsPage.xaml" page, open the Toolbox and drag a button over there (see the following image).

Of course that right now this button doesn't do anything so we need to configure what we want it to do and we do that by configuring the scopes. In this context the scopes are what we want permission to so we are requesting permission to have single sign-on, the users basic information and access to skydrive. Another thing that is very important is the event handler for session changed because the SignInButton will only make the connection and request the Session Token. We will then have to use the token to make the request to Skydrive.

 The next thing we will do is implement the SessionChanged event (see following picture). The result of the SignInButton gives us two essential values: Status and Session. As you can see in the image below we are using the status in order to check if the user gave us authorization to access his information. If the result is "Connected" then we have succeeded and we may proceed with what we want to do next. In this particular scenario what we want to do is save the session in first place. I will save the session in a global variable because we will need access to it later on.

Then we will create a LiveConnectClient and give it the current session as a parameter. This will allow us to query the Live services accordingly to our level of permission. Next we will get the basic info from the user using the GetAsync method and passing the string "me" as a parameter. Then, just to give the user some feedback, I will set the page title equal to his name as you might see below.

The final step is to call a method that will load the photos from the user's Skydrive.

 In order to keep the coherence with the project template we will use the same approach to load data as it was before. And for this one to work we will need to go to the LoadState method and clear the content of it because we only want the user to see the info when he is signed in.

So, the real job to load the photos will be done in the SampleDataSource class. Go to this class and more concretly to this class constructor and clear all the content. This content will be replaced by a method that I will call "LoadData". This is the method that will get the user's pictures from Skydrive.

This is an asyncronous method and the way we will do this is very simple. If you know the structure of the DataGrid in the main page you know that this control receives groups that contain items inside so we have to keep the same structure. In first place we need to create a LiveConnectClient in order to be able to retrieve the user data. In order to get the Skydrive photo albums we do an async call to the Live Services passing "me/albums" as a parameter. This will give us all the folders that are defined as picture folders. We then create our groups based on this information. Then we have to make another call to the Live Services where we pass a string as parameter that is composed by the album id and the string "/files". This call will return information about every item inside this folder. We will use this information to create our items and put them inside every group.

If you look carefully when creating groups and items there are some fields left blank. This is because I wanted to keep this post as much simple as I could so I didn't changed the way this classes are created.

Now, if you run the sample you should be fine to get all the pictures from your skydrive. You will be prompted to garantee access to Skydrive and then your albums and pictures will be loaded to the screen.

Be aware that there are some guidelines that should be followed in order to have your app approved in the store. In this post I didn't focus on this but you should look for it in this document.

Have fun!