Windows Phone Library projects - dll

I am complete newbie to the windows phone development and just starting to write a module that i hope to deploy as library project that could be referenced from with in a windows mobile application and could access the UI components etc. I have been looking to find a way to do that but no luck so far. Basically what i am looking for is an alternate of a an android library project or a jar file for windows phone apps. I'd really appreciate an informed opinion about it.

In order to create a library project, when creating the new project select the Windows Phone Library project template:

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Xamarin Forms code sharing

I'm working on a xamarin forms (PCL) project (A basic customer care chat app which is meant to run on Android and iOS only) that has just two xaml pages, custom renderers and few dependencies. This project is meant to be implemented into another existing project (which I don't have access to its source code) such that an action would be binded to a button on the existing app to show a page on my own project.
There is need for me to share my chat project with my client's developer but without exposing my source codes, perhaps compiling to dll or nuget package that would be added to the existing project to access my project's functions and pages. I have searched through the xamarin forum and here on stackoverflow but can't seem to lay my hands on a solution.
Is this possible at all? If yes, what am I missing? If no, is there any better option to use?
Please do note that the chat app completely done, so I'm hoping perhaps there's a way I could directly convert the project to a Nuget package.
Thanks in anticipation!
If the host application is a Xamarin Forms one:
-Move your cross platform shared code into a PCL or .Net Standard (ContentPages, ContentViews, Classes).
-Move your Renderers and platform specific code to Android and iOs Class Libraries.
Your client will have to reference your first assembly (dll) in their XF assembly in order to instantiate/manipulate your views/classes and platform specifics one on their Back-end side (taking into account your renderers, effects, etc ...)
A lot of Xamarin Controls Libraries Open Source hosted on Github are working like that. For example this one: https://github.com/jamesmontemagno/Xamarin.Forms-PullToRefreshLayout
If the host application is a native application, take a look into Xamarin forms embedding
Finally, I seem to solve the problem by enabling visual studio to build Nuget packages for the chat app project (summing up to 3 nuget packages) on project build.
Thanks #Rudy Spano and #Micah Switzer for your contributions

What is the difference between an appx application and an appxbundle application?

I am new to Windows Phone development and have a quick question, it may be very simple to answer but I have had no luck whens searching.
What is the difference between an appx application and an appxbundle application?
Single appx app targets specific architecture, appxbundle contains all architecture support mentioned while creating package.

Windows 8 Metro App Side Load Deployment

I am currently developing a Windows Store App that will eventually be targeted at the ARM devices when they are available. For now, I have been developing and testing from Visual Studio on my desktop computer and everything works fine. However, when I try to create an app package that I can pass along to others within my company for testing purposes, the application will not run properly.
The solution includes two projects. The first is a C++ project that is set to build a dll file. The purpose for this is to expose the Direct2D and DirectWrite libraries that seem to be unaccessible to a C# project. The second project is the C# project that references this dll for drawing functions and includes a XAML interface and most of the program logic. All of this works flawlessly on my development machine from within Visual Studio (and also when installing the package).
When I send the package files to other individuals within the company, the installation appears to work fine by installing with the PowerShell script. The tile appears in the start screen and the program will launch for a few seconds. The C# and XAML interface appears, but the DirectX portion of the application is not visible and the entire application shuts down within a few seconds. This makes me believe that the dll may not be installing or referenced correctly upon installation. I have checked the package file, and the dll file is included in the package after the build process is complete.
I have packaged a few different test programs (MSDN Samples) that have all installed on their machines, but we get the same results that they will not run (again, all samples run fine on my development machine when building them). The only test project that worked properly was a simple C# project that did not use DirectX at all. Any of the DirectX samples that I tried have all failed (including the native C++ samples that do not use C# at all).
To be clear, the process I use for building is going to Project -> Store -> Create App Packages and choosing the No option for uploading to the Windows Store.
Does anyone have any ideas on what might be going wrong with the build or installation process?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Does it work with the Metro Sideloader? I am not sure if it just adds a UI to the Powershell script, but it works for my team and me for testing...
Good luck!
Are you side loading a Debug version of your DirectX app onto a machine that does not have the Windows SDK installed? Visual Studio's default DirectX projects and the samples on MSDN both request the D3D11_CREATE_DEVICE_DEBUG flag when creating the D3D Device. Device creation will fail if the Windows SDK is not installed on the machine running the code.
Here are a few different options that will allow you to unblock yourself. Any one of these should give you the desired result:
Create a Release package and deploy that instead of a Debug package.
or - Go to DirectXBase.cpp and remove the D3D11_CREATE_DEVICE_DEBUG flag from the code.
or - Install the Remote Debugging tools for Visual Studio on the target machines. This will install the necessary SDK components to allow creation of D3D Debug devices. The other cool thing about this option is that once you're set up you won't have to create packages manually and side load them anymore. Just tell Visual Studio the name of your ARM machine and press F5 to deploy it remotely. More information here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/bt727f1t.aspx
How are you deploying the native DLL with your project? Are you using project-to-project references? Can you verify that your DLL is ending up in the final package, in the root of the package application directory?
I recommend using Sysinternals Procmon to watch your application load on the target machine. If it crashes or fails, you can look in the log history for which DLL it is trying to load and failing. Typically this will show up as a repeated series of DLL load probes (it will try and load the dll from the application directory, and then proceed to try a number of other paths).

MonoDevelop: same project for MonoMac and GTK# possible?

Perhaps my question is totally naiive and this is the reason why I couldn't find any information with Google or something else - but nonetheless, I think it is worth asking here.
I want to develop a C# application which behaves naturally in Mac and Windows (Linux would also be nice, but is not directly needed). My main operating system for development should be Mac OS X and therefore I want to go with MonoDevelop.
I can setup a project for MonoMac - works fine.
I can setup a different project for GTK# - works fine.
My question is now, what I have to do to get a project with a possibility for a MonoMac and a GTK#-frontend. So I will go with the MVC pattern and want to work in one project. As a result, building my project would result in a Mac executable (based on the MonoMac stuff) and one windows executable (based on GTK#).
Am I completely wrong with my approach?
What do I have to do to achieve my goal?
Yes, for a multi-platform app with the best possible look-n-feel on each platform, you would need one executable per platform. Using an MVC approach is the best way to do this - you can have a solution containing a library project with all the shared code - models, processing code, business logic, etc - and a project for each "frontend" executable containing the platform-specific views and shell.
If a really good native experience on Windows is higher priority than Linux support, I'd recommend using WPF or Windows Forms instead of GTK#. This would mean you'd have to split development between Windows and MacOS - you would need to open the same project in Visual Studio, SharpDevelop or MonoDevelop on Windows, and edit the WPF/WinForms project and the shared library there.
OTOH, GTK# has the advantage you could start off writing a single frontend that would work on all three platforms, and then write the platform-specific ones afterwards.

Can I use roslyn with Windows Metro or RT apps?

I am wondering if it is possible to create a Metro style (or even Windows RT on ARM) app that makes use of the Roslyn libraries?
The roslyn libraries are not listed in the namespaces available to metro, but can I just include the roslyn dlls with my app? (Or do they use APIs that aren't available from metro?).
Currently Roslyn is using API's that are not available to Metro apps. However, it is an interesting idea. The Roslyn team has not yet even tried to make the codebase Metro friendly.
From Metro Apps you can use modules that use the restricted APIs. But the Windows App Certification Kit would fail the certification process because of which you would not be able to upload the app to the Windows Store. Distributing such apps would require the user to install a developer license in order to run the app.