windows phone - iterating through .resx - xaml

I am in the process of learning how to write apps for Windows Phone 7/8. I am working on a simple cookbook application. At first, I hard-coded all the values, but I then moved the data to .resx in order to localize the recipes. Now, what if I wanted to implement a search function? I don't think iterating through .resx is the desired approach. Can I use some sort of a database? Can I still localize that database?

I can only assume that you're talking about localizing an application. If that's the case, start with the official guidelines on building a localized application for Windows Phone.
You might also be interested in: Localization Best Practices for Windows Phone.

Related

Report and Invoice UWP Application

I design a UWP application.
In this one I am asked to make many reports that they are invoices or print delivery for example.
These can therefore have different models and these can be fixed or dynamic.
I explore different ideas:
   - In the old application in WPF, we used an old version of DevExpress but it's really not easy to make reports simply and scalable ways easily
   - There are indeed things like Telerik, ComponentOne but it's really expensive for what it does and I can not find an open source component.
   - I looked to be able to make the models in XAML and be able to print them which would be ideal, however it works well with text but with tables (listbox, listview, datagrid ...) I can not manage the pagination.
Do you have any ideas? I do not know Power Bi Embedded well but maybe be an idea? I would like something scalable and simple to implement and without having to pay exhobirating sums for this kind of component.
use all in one DataGrid for enterprise LOB apps on uwp platform, it offers you editing, filtering and sorting etc as well : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/communitytoolkit/controls/datagrid
use Print helper to print stuff from your uwp app. : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/communitytoolkit/helpers/printhelper
Also please do look through other controls and helpers within windows community toolkit you might find some other stuff as well to help and simplify your uwp app developing experience :)

Migrating a Compact Framework 2.0 App to Windows Phone

I have a Compact Framework 2.0 application written years ago in VB.NET using VS2005. The application uses a local SQL compact database (.sdf) file. The application has been running on HP iPAQs for years.
I want to look at making this available to Windows Phone users. Any suggestions for the easiest way to do this? When I say easy I mean quick I suppose, the client is not interested in paying for it, so if there was a crude way to implement/achieve it I would be prepared to go that route.
The alternative is building a new Windows Phone app, my first. Which would be fun, but not very good for the balance sheet! Thanks all.
Probably the only option available is going to be a wholesale rewrite of the application. If you were strategic in your original design and kept the business logic and UI separate, then that code will transfer pretty easily, but the data access code will have to be rewritten and all of the UI code will have to be rewritten.

Best practice for Java EE application development using extjs and Sencha Architect

I am a newbie to extjs and kind of new to javascript world also. I have developed applications in jsp/servlet, JSF etc.
We are planning to use extjs along with Sencha Architect to develop UIs for our application.
Being new I have several questions for which I am searching answers
Q1. How should we use Sencha Architect in multi developer environment in terms of versioning. Shall we checkin the Architect project into svn and ask each developer to work on same project.
Q2. What should be the structure of Sencha Architect project (Basically how to make sure each developer is working on his/her individual module without affecting others component).
Is there any best practice for this.
Q3. What is the best practice for developing an application which contains several pages along with navigation. Should we create a single html file (with lot of javascript to modify the body) or should we have multiple html?
yes, it should certainly be in source control. you will want developer-specific settings to not be in source control however.
the best way is to create an application "shell" with menu bars, and load in modules/plugins and have them register with the application, adding their own menus etc.
definitely a single page application. security remains on the server though (for example in your REST API). security is irrelevant on the client as they have control over source code. you should just hide functionality that a user should not use.
How to load different views into viewport?

Is there any way to write a WinRt (Metro) app that will also work on Windows 7 and Vista?

We can’t just leave our customers that are not able to upgrade to windows 8 for a long time in the larch. However there is demand for a “tablet”/”touch” version of our app.
So how can we support both touch with Metro on Windows 8 and our current customers from a single code base?
When WPF come out, after a lot of “Pushing” Microsoft saw since and make it work on Windows XP – has anything like this been talked about for WinRT.
(I am not expecting any solution to work on XP, as XP support is being wound down.)
See Also: Can the ARM version of Windows 8 only run Metro (WinRt) style apps?
The best answer is that you do not want the same application to run on Windows 7 and Windows 8 Metro style. The UI that works best for mouse and keyboards (windows 7) will not work well for a touch-first presentation and visa versa. It is important to re-imagine the UI for the two different worlds.
That said, you have 2 options if you want to share a lot of the code:
1) Write it largely in JavaScript/HTML5. This will let you re-use many of the assets (especially the business logic parts).
2) Write it in (desktop) Silverlight. The Silverlight XAML is closest to Windows XAML. WPF is further away and will require more re-work later.
In either case, you should look at and follow the principles used when writing cross-platform code. Understand the platform dependencies and isolate them behind indirection boundaries. You want to localize all of the code that will have to change. For instance, you don't want calls to the .Net System.IO.File APIs which you know will have to change to Windows.System.Storage calls being scattered throughout your code. Instead, you want it localized in one function that can be modified later.
The only way I can think of is to implement your application in HTML5/CSS3/JS, and avoid using WinRT APIs inasmuch as possible - this may be feasible depending on what, exactly, your app needs to do (e.g. portable 2D graphics is easy with HTML5 canvas).
Then, for Win8, you'll package this as Metro web app. For Win7 and below, you write a simple app that embeds your browser of choice (not IE9, since it doesn't work on XP - so Firefox or Chrome) with all chrome hidden, and loads your HTML5 app inside that embedded browser.
As others have noted, you would not want to have exactly the same application working in Win8 Metro and Win7 / Vista Desktop. If you structure your application properly, using a suitabel design pattern, it is possible to share quite a bit of code between the various version that you would require. For the Win8 version, you will be using WinRT, for Win7 / Vista you have a choice of Silverlight or WPF.
I have published a couple of articles that demonsrate how this can be done, they include quite a bit of code as well:
XAMLFinance – A Cross-platform WPF, Silverlight & WP7 Application - while this article does not cover Win8, it does share code from WPF to Windows Phone 7, which is a very similar problem.
TweetSearch – A Cross platform Metro UI WinRT and Silverlight Application - this article shows how to use the same techniques to share code between WinRT and Silverlight
It is unlikely that we'll see Microsoft push the Metro-style
application framework back to past releases due to the level of
re-architecting that went into Windows 8.
I agree with Zac on this point. It appears Microsoft is definitely pushing both the technology and usability forward with the introduction of Windows 8 (and Windows Runtime).
The Metro UI is a different UI paradigm. If your using the current
Win32 controls (which includes WPF controls), your application will
look really dated in Metro. The only way to fix that is to
re-implement the UI (your View classes in an MVVM design) using Metro
controls. However, C# and majority of the .NET APIs are first class
citizens in this new environment. The rest of your application should
be fine.
As you already have what I assume a rather large application your best solution would be separate your view from your model-viewmodel. Then you can continue to develop both Windows 8 Metro full-screen touch-friendly awesome interfaces and the "classic" window interface (what we have done for the last x number of years). With good separation, design, and an excellent source control solution (i.e. Perforce) you will able to share a lot of the code base.
In addition to the answers given to your recent question on Windows Runtime Bill Wagner (one of the many C# bloggers that I follow) has posted summary on WinRT and managed languages conference sessions; it is an good read and recommended if you have a few minutes. One of the things that his summary clarified (in the FAQ at the end) was that the future of .NET as the branding for the framework we use is going to be replaced with Windows Runtime.
Another piece from Bill's blog post:
Some of the .NET APIs are changing for WinRT. I don’t have an
exhaustive list, and I’m not sure there is one yet. Other APIs are not
exposed via WinRT. (They are still available as .net APIs, just not as
Metro / WinRT APIs.)
It is unlikely that we'll see Microsoft push the Metro-style application framework back to past releases due to the level of re-architecting that went into Windows 8.
Like Pavel said, if you kept your application from using as much of the WinRT libraries as possible, it is possible but then again, you're now building a regular web app.

Are There Any Good Open-Source Mac Application Templates

I am looking to make a Mac version of one of my iPhone apps and was looking for a good ay to hit the ground running. I know how to code in Objective-c and Cocoa, and I know how to piece something together from scratch if I have to, but I am looking for an easier way.
Are there any open-source templates for coding Mac desktop applications that I might be able to pick up and use to get started off without reinventing the wheel?
EDIT:
I guess what I am looking for is an easy way to get started on an app that has the "iTunes Look and Feel". If there are some bare-bones version of this layout as some sort of template project, that would be great. Also, why has somebody down-voted this question? Have I asked something that is not appropriate for SO?
Apple includes lots of project templates with Xcode (vanilla application, document-based application, Core Data document-based application, etc.). I don't really know how much more you would want in a template. They're generally pretty good for getting you started, I think. If you're looking for something more than these offer out of a "template," maybe you could elaborate.
If you're just looking for a starting point for the interface, then check out BW Toolkit:
http://brandonwalkin.com/bwtoolkit/
He has some nice videos on his site showing how to create a Mail-like interface very quickly.
Besides the project templates included with Xcode, you should browse the application exmples in /Developer/Examples. Most of these examples are "full" applications that demonstrate one or more Cocoa-related concepts. Many could serve as the starting point for a similarly orriented app of your own.