Understading UAP and Building Universal Apps with Blend 2015

This article will be dedicated to Development of Universal Apps . Leveraging Universal App Platform and VS 2015 Blend.


Universal App Platform



This is a collection of Contracts and Versions which are a set of  low level APIs which is exactly against which a developer will be writing their Apps.Everytime one has Windows 10 installed they can go ahead and check out this file which will give them an idea about what UAP versions are supported to him.

Windows as a Service

This is exactly where the fun begins. The APIs in UAP are a converged set of APIs which are going to be the same irrespective of the platform of Windows or the Version of Windows the developer is trying to deploy.The APIs are nothing but the superset of the same which we used in Windows 8.1 . Now, since “Windows as a service” will have regular updates the developers will not have the issue to migrate their solution every now and then. They can simply, build against UAP and which is going to fit in just fine with all the upgrades .

Layout of Apps

The fundamental of  the laying the application has not changed . Although, there are few new tags but the Package.appxmanifest remains unchanged. There is just one single HEAD project, because since in Windows 10 we will targeting multiple platforms against one single Windows Core; there is no family specific binary for each of them.But yes, developers can choose to have multiple Heads can can easliy to go the shared project style , they totally can do that.

Laying out the Interface

The Xaml based UI remains exactly what it used to be. There has been major focus on

1.Reusibility
2.Quality
3.Value
4.Scalable
5.Accessible

Lets start by making a sample application using Blend and making the full use of UAP .

Figure1. Choosing the UAP and Changing the Name.

 Figure2. The XAML file

Figure 3. Choosing any device where I would love to run the App.


 

Figure 4. Adding an Sample Data Source to the App.


 

Figure 5. Dragging it to design where It can run on a runtime


 

Figure 6. The Sample Data source has been added and is ready for building and deployment



 

Figure 7. App is running on a Simulator 

Figure 8. App running successfully!

Exploring Blend and Merits of UAP
1.Blend now uses the same Visual Studio shell which enables the developers to have the exact same capabilities in terms of intellisense , auto complete inside and much more.
2.Blend has Data Management , Resource Management which are a few Unique things which Blend has to itself which have been brought forward to Visual Studio 2015.
3.UAP has made it possible to have one single binary across all the platforms of Windows.

Setting up Windows 10 For Development

Setting up Windows 10 For Development

Windows 10 is one of the most flexible and robust development platform ever given. Windows Core and UAP has enabled developers to build experiences once and then target it to any device which runs Windows 10 be it a Xbox or Desktop.

In this article I will talk in depth about how one can setup their own dev environment.  Platform without facing much of a hassle.


Lets begin our journey with a clean build of  Windows 10 . I am using  Windows 10 Insider Pro Preview Build 10074.

·       For all the people who are new to development and are very new to Windows 10. Its will be very helpful to go through the Architecture of Windows 10 before , before getting hands dirty with setting up dev build.

People who are very familiar with App Dev and Web Dev on Windows 8/8.1 . Here is how you set up VS 2015 Community RC.

Installing Visual Studios 2015 Community RC

·       People who don’t have VS 2015. It’s a easy task and and requires patience while you are doing it for the first time.
1. Start off by downloading VS2015 Community RC from [https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/visual-studio-2015-downloads-vs.aspx]
2.It will download an exe file named [vs_community.exe]
3. When you are trying to install select “Custom in setup, and then select the Universal Windows Apps Development Tools.”
4.Then it will complete installing , this might take 4-5 hrs depending on your network speed and the system.
5. You will get this after the installation is done.

·       People who have already installed Visual Studio 2015RC Community without custom can still get to the same page in a jiffy by downloading the tools and updating the Windows SDK
1. People can follow this link [https://dev.windows.com/en-US/downloads/install-dev-tools-visual-studio-2015]
2. Click on Add Tools and you guys will get an exe file downloaded.
3. On Executing the .exe file you will get the following screen and after its completion you will be all set to go.

Enabling the Windows 10 Developer option.

When you try to open any new project Windows 10 , you will be prompting you  to enable your device with a dialog. (You also need your device to be enabled to use the designers and debug your app.)


You need to follow these following steps sequentially when you are enabling the developer mode.

1.Open a cmd prompt with administrator privileges.

2.Run Gpedit.msc.

3.Go to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > App Package Deployment

4.Edit the policies to enable the following:

◦Allow all trusted apps to install (Enables your device for sideloading apps)

◦Allows development of Windows Store apps and installing them from an integrated development environment (IDE) (Enables your device for development from Visual Studio)

5. Reboot your machine.


After you are done with all the steps you will now be able to build apps and leverage the power of Windows Universal (UAP) . To mark the successful completion of the process you will have the following screen when you open Visual Studio 2015RC .

I will be writing more about the Application Dev taking in the whole power of UAP and much more in the forthcoming articles.

Windows 10 Architecture

Architecture of Windows 10

In this article I will try to put in a nutshell what are the fundamental differences in Windows 10 compared to prior releases of the same. I will give a small overview of the concept of how Backward Compatibility of the Apps are possible inn Windows 10 and the Converged Kernel Approach to Windows 10.

Windows Core

 This is worth pointing out that finally we have reached the point where Windows core has a common set of APIs which provide , for the first time a true binary compatibility with loads of different platforms.Microsoft  has been shipping whole bunch of OS (s) for a decade now and their were many commonalities between those viz Windows Phone, Windows CE and Windows RT mostly these were same but the underlying layer was different. The Windows Core now is that common refactored core which is common for all the Windows Releases be it for Mobile or Desktops.

This Windows Core is very small and reduced subset of all the windows. This is done to keep in mind that Windows can now be having one single codebase rather than a shared codebase  and also the usage on a whole range of different devices which range from IoT to Desktops .


 The Convergence Journey                                            
                                                         



The converged Kernel approach was all which made a significant difference in shaping Windows 10. The Xbox 360 and Windows 7.5 started having the new look and feel which later got modified in Xbox One(inclusion of a dashboard etc.)and with Windows phone 8 the look feel was fully embedded but there was a big difference underneath which led the users and developers to Windows 8.1 for Mobile and Desktops which created the Converged App Model and resulted in possibility of development of “Universal Apps”. But now with Windows 10, we not only have the Kernel common but also all the fundamental pieces of OS. Also, the Applications which were Universal Apps were having two separate binaries now with Windows Core have one single binary across all platforms.


Universal App Platform

The UAP is a collection of Contracts and Versions.This is the new platform on which the developers will be writing their Applications. The UAP is built on Windows Core which is a collection of Low Level APIs which are arranged in the form of Contracts.

Contracts
Contracts are a kind of assurance given by Microsoft to App Developers stating that they can now start building against the UAP and Microsoft will ensure that no matter what windows platform and device the user are on they will be able to run it and Microsoft will ensure that the App runs smoothly on the back compatibility as well.









This essentially means that no longer the developers will write the Application targeting  Windows rather they will write it against UAP and Microsoft will take guarantees for the Application to run of all Platforms.


How does the UAP help the developers?

So for all those developers who get tired testing their applications for the ever evolving build of Windows.The can now safely rely on UAP which ensure that no mater where ever they target and whichever version they target they are going to have the Application running. So, developers don’t have to worry much about which particular windows to test on.

**The values above are fictitious.

The very idea is to target a platform and set a Min version which is basically the version it was written on and a Max version of where it was tested on.

This is the very basic fundamental change that is happening in the Architecture. I will be documenting few more post on Azure and Windows 10.Also, one dedicated post on UAP and how to start writing Apps in Windows 10.

Global Azure Boot Camp 2015,Bhubaneshwar By MSDC , Odisha

This post is about one of our best experiences in a nutshell. This is about the 25th of April 2015 , Azure Boot Camp Bhubaneshwar by MSDC Odisha. The Azure bootcamp focuses on gathering real technical experts who deliver talks and demos on Windows Azure.

Session and Speakers


Ankit Mohanty  gave a talk on "About the community, Cloud, Azure, Mobile-first Cloud-first world" where he gave an intro to cloud computing and how its easy to set up a site in minutes with Azure. He talked about pricing and how cloud helps to minimize. It was nice to find that the audience took deep interest in understanding the basics of Azure to get a better idea on how the whole day would benefit them.


Tadit Dash started off with the second talk on Mobile Website Dev and this is where he showed how to use Azure and build cool webpages. The coolest part was when he was demoing how to host a website and connect it with Github to pull the resources and the mapping it with the Domain Name. Tadit took the same website which is [http://bhubaneswar.azurebootcamp.net/] and tweaked it by adding a new team member in the speaker listing!



Abhishek Sur took the third and the biggest session on Windows Azure Storage. In his session he focused on different ways how to store data in Azure and the security of data. He talked about how to use resources in proper manner by tuning CDN. He also explained Azure SQL and Blobs. He showed the codes for Azure Blobs and many more.

Pooja Baraskar  was one of the key focus people for today. She not only did an excellent job by giving a kickstarter to IoT but also showed people a pathway and a demo about how to proceed with IoT. She talked in depth about the Intel Galileo Gen 2 board which she used to connect with Visual Studio 2013 and Arduino. All of you can read more about it here.





The next up was Abhishek Nandy and he brought to life a whole new world of computing over the Cloud which is gesture computing . The gesture computing were mostly facinating because in the demo the camera could take 3D image of Abhishek's face on the screen! This was amazing and we can have a look as what that looked like. Machine learning was another beauty in actions as we saw how the things worked.                                                                        

Nirmal Hota  presented on Azure mobile Services and he explained the inherent concept of Front End and Back End. Also, he showed how to build X Platform apps with Xamarin and much more.He is also the App Developer , who developed the app of Azure Bootcamp Bhubaneshwar.He also talked about code being reused in a mass scale.

Sumantro Mukherjee presented on how to Backup and Restore and much more. He explained the work of Upgrade Domains and Fault Domains and also how the Backup of data takes place. He also talked about Fabric Controller and he finally concluded by how the game changes when you put all the hopes on Azure !

A Seminar on Cloud Computing and Big Data @ The Neotia University

 This post is to document what we witnessed on 24th of April at Diamond Harbour . The Event was mostly about Cloud Computing and Big Data. Abhishek Nandy , Debashree Chanda , Kishlay and Sumantro Mukherjee from Geek Monkey Studios, wholeheartedly participated in this event making it a grand success.

The event poster

What happened

The a decent amount of students from the engg. depts of the college gathered up to learn two new most widely used and upcoming technologies from both the academic and industry  perspective.The main aim was to empower students and get them the Kickstart to Cloud Computing and Big Data with some implementation and case studies and finally distributing Dream Spark Keys  and  Certificate of Appreciation  to all who attended the seminar.

Who did what
There were some Professors from Jadavpur University, who gave the participant the pathway from the academic point of view while the Abhishek from Geek Monkey Studios gave the introduction from the industry view point.

Sessions and Speakers
11.00 - 11.50 : Cloud Computing By Dr. Samiran Chattopadhyay.
12.00 - 12.50 : Computational Intelligence By Dr. Jamuna Kanta Sing.
2.00 - 3.20 : Cloud Computing with Azure and IOT By Abhishek Nandy.
3.30 - 5.00 : Big data With IBM Bluemix Data Integration By Abhishek Nandy.

More Into Geek Monkey Studios Talk

The day started with the warm welcome from the Director of the college.The second half by the Geek Monkey was a mind boggling as Abhishek started by giving demos using Machine learning in Azure and Adding up Bluemix in the scene and explained all the concepts vividly and demoed Apps. Also, He went ahead and kicked it up a notch by bringing Real Sense into the scene and integrating it with Azure.

Demos
1.Azure with ML Demo
2.Real Sense with Azure [Face Detection]
3.IBM Bluemix Hadoop

Video Game Fest 2014 , Bangaluru!

The Experience of a Game Dev !

Last week , I and  Abhishek Nandy traveled all the way to Bangalore to attend Video Game Fest 2014.The very first and one of its own kind . Video Game Fest- a massive ensemble of hundreds of gamers across the country and many enthusiastic game developers who showcased their games as individuals or as startups and finally followed by a game dev session and hands on . Video Game Fest  2014 was sponsored by Microsoft and Dumadu Games.

 

 DOTA ,Call of Duty and much more waiting to be played.

Xbox and Xbox One.. Dance Central 3 //Out Of The Box Experience//

Upon Arrival

We collected our game developer passes [pass of VGF2014] and walked right into the gaming realm. The place was full of different startups booths  and a giant Microsoft gaming platform.We quickly rushed in  and grabbed a place (Again,thanks to Dumadu games for the help) where we started off setting up our systems to showcase our game "Barbarian Assault".

The Exposure

In a short while, we literally had no room to breath . Abhishek and me got the crowd engaged with the game and the experience.The people were thrilled with the awesome graphics of the game and finally the press interview followed. We got Interviewed by The New Indian Express and Deccan Herald.

Abhishek demoing the game

 
Cover of  New Indian Express

http://tinyurl.com/covernie

Cover of Deccan Hearld
http://tinyurl.com/covervgfdh

The interview was followed by a round of discussion with Ujjwal Kumar who asked all of us to move toward the game dev conf section where the dev conf were about to begin.So we rushed in to another big conference all with about 50+ people who were there to hear and get hands on experience of porting labs.

The Game Dev Conference

The game dev conf began with Ujjwal Kumar, Technical Evangelist at Microsoft talking about "Gaming In India" where we went in depth about how game dev is catching up as an career and Microsoft is taking the leading front in making this industry more vibrant one.After Ujjwal, Abhishek went up the stage and talked about his experience as game developer, went deeper with game dev with Project Anarchy and how to develop Cross Platform games.Followed by Vidyasagar, Microsoft MVP for Games for Windows.Followed by Unity Porting labs hands on. After a lip smacking dinner the video game fest came to an end.Video Game Fest ,Bangalore 2014 , You were a complete package.

Session on cross platform game dev

Demoing Intel XDK and Anarchy

Me and Ahishek Striking a pose

The First Week Progress Bar

To start with Geek Monkey Studios submitted their proposal for IDF'14 where the main emphasis was on how more and more fuctionality can be given to an application using the Intel RealSense SDK and Processing incorporating Intel Real Sense.The work to this time was not that much because we had only 4 days to sum up all that we could have done.

The targets and Big picture aims

1.Implementing Voice in Processing using Intel RealSense SDK 

2.Evolving the Existing RPG in Project Anarchy by implementation Intel Real Sense from Intel RealSense SDK .This will result in accepting gestures as an input of the game and also voice.

Roadblocks:

The device our team has are not enough capable of rendering game engine like havok and the intel Gesture camera is being supported in i3 2nd Gen + .So which is also becoming a bottleneck point.

The technical roadblock in case of Anarchy is the non existing Sample Application which is being described as a part of RealSense SDK documentation on Havok.We will be coming up with another detailed post on this with the exact LOC and screenshots in the later half of this month.

Preparation for Upcoming challenges:

we are brainstorming about what to do in the upcoming IOT explorer and the RealSense challenges.Major focus is on breaking the predefined behavior of interaction better the game and the player by implementing voice and  gesture controls. Lua,Cinder and Processing are the prime area of focus.Besides, this we are trying to build new stuffs on top of existing demos of Anarchy.

The proposal video will give a better picture of how fast we have been growing and though its our first time submitting the IDF proposal but we still promise to take our work to a whole different level with the kind coordination from Intel.