The built-in Bengali keyboard layout in Windows 8/ Windows RT is not user-friendly at all. So using an IME is the only option for most users. There are quite a few Bengali Input Method Editors in Win32. They work fine in Windows 8.
But for Windows RT there are no solutions at the moment. Is it possible to write IME's using purely WinRT APIs?
A good information of writing IME is given in this MSDN Link
I putting some traits from the article which is important
Requirements for Windows 8 IMEs
A third-party IME must meet these requirements:
•Must be digitally signed.
•Must be Text Services Framework (TSF) aware, and proper IME flags must be set to run properly in Windows 8.
•Must follow UX guidelines for Windows Store apps and be compatible with Windows Storeapps.A third-party IME that doesn't meet these requirements is blocked from running in the new Windows 8 UI, but it can still run on
the desktop.
Also, Windows Defender removes malicious IMEs from the system. Because
of this, it's important that you familiarize yourself with the IME
coding requirements for Windows 8. For more info, see Guidelines and
checklist for IME development.
The next LINK shows the Guidelines for developing IME
As you can make an app for Windows Store you would be able to access the IME app in WinRT via Windows Store.Check if any Bengali IME app is available in windows store
Related
Is Universal Windows Platform the replacement of WinRT of Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps?
I mean, there was a WinRT platform to develop metro apps exclusively for Windows 8. Now, that is replaced by UWP, isn't it?
That is correct, UWP is the new platform for ALL Windows devices going forward (Win 10+). However WinRT is not replaced by UWP but is instead an extension on top of it, making UWP a much broader set of APIs that can be used across even more devices. As Microsoft themselves state:
With this evolution, apps that target the UWP can call not only the WinRT APIs that are common to all devices, but also APIs (including Win32 and .NET APIs) that are specific to the device family the app is running on.
The UWP platform supports the "Universal Device Family" class of APIs which is then supported on ALL windows platforms (Xbox, Phone, Desktop etc). There are some extension families that you can use that will limit the apps reach, such as a "Mobile Device Family".
These specific device family APIs can however be checked for and used at runtime gracefully. For example you could show your own position using GPS on a phone, but not enable that functionality on a Xbox.
I hope this answer helps you, if you have any more questions about this I recommend reading this article about the UWP platform:
Source: https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/dn894631.aspx
Have a wonderful day!
This is a bit confusing because in Windows 8.x, "Windows Runtime" was actually used to refer to a few different things:
A new pattern (and supporting code/OS components) for defining and consuming Windows APIs, meant to largely supersede "Win32" (i.e., flat C-style) and classic COM for new APIs in most scenarios. This was/is really about language interop: allowing the Windows team (and potentially others) to create components in C++ that expose APIs that don't depend on GC or a runtime like the CLR, but still feel relatively natural to use from C# or JavaScript without needing manually written wrappers.
The set of Windows APIs that follow the above pattern.
A new platform/environment for building and running a new type of Windows app, which are meant to have some of the characteristics of mobile and web apps in terms of causing fewer potential problems with system security, reliability, performance, battery life, etc. This is what evolved into UWP with Windows 10.
In the Windows 8 days, these apps were called "Metro style apps" during most of 8.0's public preview period, and officially dubbed "Windows Store apps" just before RTM. The platform/environment for these apps ... officially didn't really have a name (other than "platform for Metro style apps"). Unofficially, people (including at Microsoft) sometimes referred to it as "Metro" (a whole can of worms in itself) or ... "WinRT".
So what's the relationship between WinRT "proper" (definitions 1 and 2), and unofficial WinRT definition (3) aka UWP aka the formerly-nameless "platform for Metro style apps"? Well, since WinRT and the new app platform were both introduced in Windows 8, most of the WinRT APIs at that time were specific to the new platform. The app platform (and Store policy) at the time was also much more restrictive about which legacy Win32 APIs were allowed for use in apps - for the most part this was less about any technical limitation and more about the team hoping to use the new apps as an excuse to clean up the bloated Win32 API surface. But technically, WinRT is meant to be the common pattern for new Windows APIs in general, whether used in UWAs or not, and "UWA vs. classic app" and "WinRT vs. Win32" are mostly independent; over time, they've gradually enabled more WinRT APIs for use outside UWAs and also relaxed their policies on using a lot of legacy Win32 APIs in apps (and also continued to introduce new flat C-style APIs for certain use cases).
So to summarize, it's not technically accurate to say that "UWP replaced WinRT", though understandable since this stuff is pretty confusing. UWP replaced the nameless app platform (3); essentially it's just an updated version that's been ported to other device types and integrated with the classic desktop UI. WinRT, in its proper definition (1), continues to be the basis for new Windows APIs for use in UWAs and even outside them.
Windows Universal Platform is the development platform going forward for devices running Windows. Previously, development was separate for Desktops and Tablets vs Phones. With UWP you are now able to target any device running Windows 10, could be phone, desktop, tablet, xbox. The beauty is that you can now use one Binary for all of these platforms and has brought us much closer to a truly to a universal Windows app.
So, to answer your question, yes, UWP is the platform going forward for any device which runs Windows 10
I am new to Windows 8 development, I am having one application which is already running in the i-pad (ios). I want to convert same application into Windows Store apps as this is the client requirement. So do i need to follow the design guidelines for such legacy application? Or I can just follow the same UI which is been developed in i-pad. Is this accepted by Microsoft for Windows Store apps certification ?
Thanks.
According to Microsoft's guidelines, it should not be accepted.
However, some such applications have appeared in the Windows Store in the past, so it's not completely impossible. I would not bet on it though.
And if your app is a game, the guidelines are less strict.
All the user experience (including design) guidelines are referenced here.
And there is a UX checklist to make sure you confort to them.
AFAIK, only Metro style apps can run on Windows 8 ARM, and Metro style apps can only be written with WinRT APIs.
According to this thread Can we access Windows 8 WinRT API from desktop application and Windows Phone 8 app? If so, are they in different namespaces?
Windows Phone 8 use ARM architecture, too. So if our app is written with WinRT APIs, it can run on both Windows 8 x86, Windows 8 for ARM and WP8, right ?
Not exactly. The situation with WinRT and Windows Phone Runtime is similar to WPF/Silverlight. There is overlap, but not 100% coverage. To address this issue Microsoft encourages using Portable Class Libraries to target multiple platforms (since each platform has its own runtime). More information on PCLs: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg597391.aspx
Also, even if you manage to have most of your classes working under a Portable Class Library, you'll still have to write separate User Interfaces for each platform (the PCL does not support sharing UI). While this may seem upsetting, it actually is more necessary than you think. Here's a link on what Microsoft suggests in terms of sharing XAML UI.
This shouldn’t be seen as a complete roadblock for sharing between
Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. The clear guidance is to design and
build your UI separately for each platform, embracing the design
guidelines for each. It is technically possible to circumvent these
obstacles. You could create your UI during page initialization from
code. You could load platform-specific XAML from resources at runtime
and inject it as a string into the page. However, none of these
techniques scale and they make the construction of your core asset—how
your app looks to your user—a tedious and error-prone task. Your code
sharing investment will give you a much larger return further down
your app stack, by trying to share app logic, data models, viewmodels,
etc.
Basically, Microsoft is saying design your user interfaces specifically to the platform, because an application running on the phone (smaller screen) should have a different user interface than one that runs on a tablet/desktop (larger screens).
As far as running WinRT apps on different platforms... Yes, you can. Microsoft has stated that applications written in WinRT can run on Windows 8 and WOA (Windows on ARM). Here's a link from Microsoft talking about this. But, the first portion of my answer still stands... if you want to target different runtimes (WinRT/Windows Phone Runtime)... then use Portable Class Libraries. Selecting "Windows Store" and "Windows Phone 8" will allow your code to run on Windows 8 x86/x64/ARM, and Windows Phone 8.
Windows Phone implements a subset of the Windows 8 WinRT API, dubbed WinPRT (P == Phone). You can find a good overview here with an exact list of support Win(P)RT APIs to be found here.
Word of caution - the XAML on Win8 is similar, but different, to the XAML on WP8 so expect to have to rewrite a lot of your UI for WP. What you really want to do is read this Getting Started guide that steps you through a lot of the considerations and techniques involved in developing apps between these platforms.
I planned to create a Windows 8 Store App but reluctantly had to switch to desktop application. I found that Windows 8 Store Apps fail to detect second screen, which is necessary for me.
The intention still is to mimic the behaviour of Windows Store App as much as possible. Partly to educate myself but also to use a modern nice design.
I use WPF with very similar design (App bars, Navigation bar, snappy await-async pattern, etc)
Now I come to the point where I need to store settings!
I would really like to use the very convenient central storage available through Microsoft Live login. Is that possible even if I don't have Windows Store App?
Clients might be Windows 7 or Windows 8.
Can I make the user login to Microsoft Live and use these facilities?
Many WinRT APIs are available from desktop applications, in addition to Windows Store applications. Windows.Storage.ApplicationData appears to support desktop apps. Look under the "Requirements" section in the documentation:
Minimum supported client: Windows 8 [Windows Store apps, desktop apps]
Someone at Intel posted on how to use WinRT APIs from desktop apps. The post is from September, 2012, and the screenshots appear to be for an older version of the MSDN documentation. Just keep that in mind.
Dave Bennett of Microsoft has a useful blog post which will introduce you to roaming your app data.
I may have misunderstood you, but I think what I mention above is what you want instead of using the Live Connect APIs.
I want to evaluate the new sandboxing mechanism in Windows 8/Windows Server 2012. I searched MSDN site for any resources but the documentation is extremely scarce. In comparison with FreeBSD Capsicum documentation, the one provided by Microsoft is just unusable.
How are we supposed to build robust sandboxed apps? Are the sandboxing APIs intended for metro style apps only?
I'm not sure what you mean by "sandboxing APIs". All "metro" (Windows 8 UI Applications) are sandboxed. I'm not aware of any way to sandbox desktop applications in the same way. See here.
Metro apps are pretty tightly sandboxed, and apps submitted to the
Windows Store need to declare many types of capabilities that they use
— not unlike Google Play's permissions list.
. . .
Windows 8 features a specific SDK for Metro style apps . . .
A quick explanation of capabilities: There are certain potentially sensitive things that you can do on a user's machine, such as access the Pictures library or use the webcam. If an app wants to do these things, the developer must declare a capability in the app's manifest. Then, when users download the app from the Windows Store, they can clearly see if the app is using any of this functionality. More info and a list of all of the capabilities is provided at App capability declarations.
Regarding sandboxing, there is some information at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/hh673561(v=vs.85).aspx. Yes, Metro-style apps are sandboxed in a way that desktop apps are not.
There is a whitepaper discussing security in Windows Store apps built with HTML5 at Secure development of Metro style apps with HTML5. There are also some common security scenarios documented.