I’ve been doing some Windows Phone 7 development and research into what is and is not available in the beta. A fellow coworker of mine and I stumbled upon the sad realization that there isn’t a calendar control at this time! Is this really true Windows Phone 7 team!?!?
Even Bing says no control. 🙁
Windows Phone 7 Calendar Control Search Results
Does anyone else out there in the blogosphere or twitterverse know if there is something available, or that may be available very soon?
This is something that absolutely needs to be in the RTP of the Windows Phone 7 SDK when it is released, and am honestly surprised it isn’t available now.
“We knew this would be the case given what we heard at MIX10, but it doesn’t stink any less now. The former really doesn’t make any sense to us, especially since Microsoft did a good job of nailing text editing and selection (at least in Word, and really… you guys make Word), and it looks like it would only be a short walk to a contextual pop-over for copy and paste functions. The latter is practically inexcusable in this day and age — even Apple (which has been a complete laggard in this area) now supports basic multitasking. When we heard in our meeting with Microsoft that the phone wouldn’t even support something as simple as Pandora background streaming, our minds were a little blown. It’s doubly irritating given the fact that just like in iPhone 1.0, the first-party apps are free to background all they want (mail loads, the browser pulls down pages, music plays in the background, etc.), so there isn’t any technical reason why they couldn’t extend some of this functionality to other applications. We’re hoping that by some magical twist of fate these two items get addressed before launch… but we’re not holding our breath.”
I’m all about the Windows Phone 7, the interface, the features, the possiblities of a cleaner, easier to develop against phone is really high on my “Cool to Have” list. But no multi-tasking (at all, is there a background something?), and no out of box copy and paste is a really really bad idea on behalf of the phone’s release. Windows Phone 7 should have EVERY feature of any iPhone plus more – because it is entirely feasible to do so. But I too, am not holding my breath.
The other crux I noticed in the article is a lack of background streaming support for apps like Pandora? I could have sworn that I saw it was supported, but now am reading it isn’t. That could be a purchase killer for me, i.e. no phone until I get streaming music – PERIOD.
I’m curious if anyone else has heard good bits, bad bits, or otherwise in relation to the Windows Phone 7. Ping me in the comments, via Facebook (my page), Twitter (@adronbh) or what have you.
I’ve got some Windows Phone 7 work lined up so thought I’d run through the most recent setup for SDK, Toolkit, and other such items needed for development.
I’m working based on the assumption that Visual Studio 2010 is already installed. I’m also assuming the following items are installed, if not, install these before moving to the next items. I’m not 100% sure they’re needed, but I installed them first to make sure and for previous Silverlight 4 Development.
Next make sure uninstall any existing Windows Phone 7 SDK or other software you might have already installed previously. It is usually best, even if MS suggest no need to uninstall existing software, to do it anyway.
Next check out the major download for Windows Phone 7 development;
Install each of these in order. To verify that you have installed them successfully you can check the Programs and Features. To do a final verification I always like to start a project with each of the templates installed and do a build of each. That way, without doubt the appropriate assemblies and other items have been installed and registered in the GAC.
Windows Phone 7 Project Templates
Open up Visual Studio 2010 and verify that these project templates are available (Click on the image for a full size screenshot). Click on new project from the menus and look at the template on the left hand side. Under the Silverlight for Windows Phone there should be three new templates:
Windows Phone Application
Windows Phone List Application
Windows Phone Class Library
Under the XNA Game Studio 4.0 there should be the following project templates:
Windows Phone Game (4.0)
Windows Phone Game Library (4.0)
Windows Game (4.0)
Windows Game Library (4.0)
Xbox 360 Game (4.0)
Xbox 360 Game Library (4.0)
Content Pipeline Extension Library (4.0)
Empty Content Project (4.0)
Windows Phone 7 XNA
Out of all of these XNA templates, the only truly phone related items are the first two. But the others come along with the installation.
To get a feel for what is installed, select the Widnows Phone List Application. This is a great starter just to get an idea of how the IDE works.
Windows Phone 7 List Application
Once you’ve entered you project name and everything take a look at the solution explorer. Inside the project you will see that there is a break out of the ViewModels, Images, and SampleData into folders. Below that is the standard Silvelight File App.xaml. By default this project template also lays out a MainPage.xaml and a DetailsPage.xaml. To the far left hand side of the screen you can see the actual list application interface, and in the center the xaml code or C# is displayed.
Once you’ve checked that out give it a run, click on F5. You’ll see the following application starting come up.
Windows Phone 7 Application StartingApplication List Main Screen
The first screen on the phone to popup should be the list application itself. If you click on the windows button at the bottom of the phone screen emulator you’ll get back to the startup screen with the IE browser prominently displayed. If you click on the arrow to the right of the screen you will see an application list. There you can click on the application list to return to your list application. Check out the screen shots below, as always, click on em’ to get the full size screenshot.
Windows Phone 7 Main ScreenWindows Phone 7 Application Screen
That’s it for this entry. I’ll be adding some more Windows Phone 7 development how-to, random blurbs, and my 2 cents in the coming weeks.
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