Today, the UWP Community Toolkit graduates to version 2.0 and sets the stage for future releases.

There have been seven releases since the UWP Community Toolkit was first introduced exactly one year ago and version 2.0 is the first major and largest update to date. The developer community has worked enthusiastically to build something that is used by thousands of developers every month. Today, there are over 100 contributors, and developers have downloaded the packages over 250,000 times. This would not be possible without the strength of the community – Thank You!

For developers, and designers alike

Beginning with the v2.0 release, the UWP Community Toolkit is making efforts to align with the latest Windows 10 Fall Creators Update to enable developers to take advantage of the new APIs and the new Fluent Design System.

The Fluent Design System defines several foundational elements that will make new designs perform beautifully across devices, inputs and dimensions. To prepare for the general availability of the Fall Creators Update later this year, the community has committed to update all UWP Community Toolkit controls to adopt Fluent Design. Over the coming months, new and existing controls will be updated to support light, depth, material, motion and scale. The sample app will also be updated to take full advantage of the new foundational elements to demonstrate what is possible.

Updating the Sample App

The UWP Community Toolkit Sample App showcases toolkit features for developers by providing tools to get started using the toolkit in their apps, and it continues to get better. In the largest update since the initial release, developers can now edit XAML directly in the sample app and instantaneously view the results side by side. This is a very powerful addition that allows developers to get started with development immediately by simply downloading the app from the store.

But that’s not all. Taking inspiration from the Fall Creators Update, the sample app has been updated to use an improved and redesigned navigation model. The navigation has moved to the top and it’s now much easier to get to any sample. In addition, a new landing page has been added to make it easier to find what is new and keep track of favorite samples.

Beyond UWP

The UWP Community Toolkit has received feedback about the importance of supporting cross-platform development to enable developers to share more of their code across platforms. Version 2.0 introduces two new packages: Microsoft.Toolkit and Microsoft.Toolkit.Services with the commitment to support more cross platform APIs in future releases. These packages are built with .NET Standard and support any platform with .NET Standard 1.4 and above. The Bing Service is the first API to go cross-platform and there is currently work underway to move more services to the new packages.

What else is new?

As with every release, the community has worked together to share their ideas, build new controls and helpers libraries and improve the UWP Community Toolkit for everyone. This release is no different.

There are several large additions and updates to highlight here, but make sure to visit our release notes for all additions and improvements:

• Added InAppNotification control – a control to show local notifications in app
• Added TextToolbar control – text editing control that enables easy rich text and Markdown formatting
• Updated Expander to support all orientations and added LayoutTranformControl from the WinRT XAML Toolkit
• Updated Menu to support underline characters, orientation and many other improvements

This is just the start

We learned a lot in the past year, and the community has worked together to make toolkit APIs as easy and flexible as possible. Few APIs and packages have been restructured to make them more convenient for developers and allowed more flexibility for future additions and updates. For example, the Microsoft.Toolkit.UWP.Connectivity package was added to unify all connectivity APIs such as Bluetooth and networking. Likewise, all extensions and helpers are now unified under a single namespace and are consistent across API.

As a reminder, although most of the development efforts and usage of the UWP Community Toolkit is for Desktop apps, it also works great on Xbox One, Mobile, HoloLens, IoT and Surface Hub devices. You can get started by following this tutorial, or preview the latest features by installing the UWP Community Toolkit Sample App from the Windows Store.

If you would like to contribute, please join us on GitHub! To join the conversation on Twitter, use the #uwptoolkit hashtag.

The post The UWP Community Toolkit v2.0 appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

Interstitial videos are a highly engaging ad format that, if used right, have much higher monetization potential as compared to more traditional ad formats. Interstitial videos are typically 15-60 seconds long and take up the full screen space, getting the user engaged in the brand or app being advertised and result in much better conversions compared to standard ad formats.

Here are some do’s and don’ts for using interstitial videos in your app for maximum yield:

DO’s

1. Have a clear user experience defined in the app or game to the point where the video ad is shown – Since the video ad overlays the app screen completely, it must be used with caution and should never disrupt the user during game play or app usage. Typical examples of usage of interstitial ads are in between game levels or switching to a new tab in a content app.
2. Set the ad unit mediation configuration to ‘Automatic’ – This allows Microsoft to determine the best waterfall order of ad units for every incoming ad request, giving developers maximum revenue potential from their apps.
3. Maintain good viewability of the video ad – The Media Ratings Council defines video viewability as, “At least 50% of the pixels in the ad are on an in-focus browser tab on the viewable space of the browser page; the pixel requirement is met for at least two continuous seconds or more at any point in the ad.” Many advertisers only pay when the impression is viewable, for better yield and to avoid fraud. Make sure that when you display the video ad in your app, it plays fully and is not hidden under any other screen in the app.

DON’Ts

1. Pre-caching for long time periods – Video ad demand is transient by nature. An ad that is available at a given moment may not be available to play a few seconds later from the same ad provider. Given this, app developers should minimize the ad pre-fetch to less than 8 seconds before they are ready to display the ad in the app.
2. Fire multiple requests repeatedly – In case of a No Ad response, it is recommended that the developer should not fire multiple ad requests constantly. By firing multiple requests and not showing an ad when available, the ad unit becomes more likely to get marked as low quality, further decreasing the chances of getting an ad in the future. Make the next ad request only when it is aligned with the user flow in the app or game and you are ready to show an ad again.

We are working closely with our partner ad networks to bring the best demand to Windows apps and improve fill rates and monetization for our publishers. To know more about adding video ads in your apps, read the article here. Stay tuned for more announcements in this space!

The post Best practices for using video ads in Windows apps appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

We are excited the share with you that Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (CNTK) 2.1 has added support for model evaluation on UWP applications. This means you can harness the power of deep learning in your Windows apps delivered via the Windows Store! Read on to find out how can infuse your apps with the power of AI.

The Virtuous Intelligence Cycle

Cloud-connected devices can perform operations locally or delegate them to the cloud. The virtually unlimited compute power of the cloud makes it a good choice for running tasks that need significant compute power but don’t require low latency. In machine learning, model training is an example of such a task. It might require hours or days to train a model, but once the model is trained, deploying it closer to where the data is generated has some very useful properties. First, it reduces the roundtrip latency inherently unavoidable in cloud communication. This is critical for time-sensitive deep learning scenarios like self-driving cars and industrial equipment failure detection. Second, it can unlock insights from data that were previously discarded due to network transmission costs. And finally, it allows machine learning solutions in scenarios with intermittent network connectivity like search & rescue, agriculture and others.

We refer to devices with non-trivial compute power that are in closer proximity to the data source as “intelligent edge” devices. Intelligent edge devices can vary broadly depending on scenario as shown in the figure below.

In the virtuous intelligence cycle, deep learning models trained in the cloud are deployed and evaluated at the edge. Additionally, the edge feeds valuable data back to the cloud where the models are improved and redeployed to the edge, hence completing the virtuous cycle.

The improvements described in this post allow UWP applications to be part of the intelligent edge where deep learning models can be evaluated.

Image Classification Example

Let’s look at an example where an image classification machine learning model is built into an UWP application. The app allows you to pick a CNTK compatible model to perform image classification on an image. Several pre-trained models to use for this purpose are available at this link.

The code for the entire solution is available in the CNTK Github repo.

Currently, only C++ CNTK UWP bindings are supported. However, the sample demonstrates how a C# based UWP solution can perform model evaluation by referencing a WinRT library that wraps the UWP-compatible CNTK native components available on NuGet.

packages.config specifies the NuGet packages the library uses, and points to the UWP-compatible package:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<packages>
  <package id="CNTK.UWP.CPUOnly" version="2.1.0" targetFramework="native" />
</packages>
 

This NuGet package provides UWP-compatible CNTK components, including the OpenBLAS math library, for CPU-based model evaluation. ImageRecognizerLib exposes Create and RecognizeObjectAsync methods used to load the pre-trained CNTK model and classify the specified image input as an array of bytes.

The rest of the solution is a few simple XAML UI elements to accept input from the user. Here is a quick animation of the app in action:

Now it’s your turn!

We’ve demonstrated how you can use the newly added UWP support in CNTK to bring the next level of intelligence to your Windows applications. We can’t wait to see the awesome apps you will build with this exciting new technology!

The post Cognitive Toolkit Model Evaluation in UWP appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

When we launched the Dream.Build.Play 2017 Challenge in June, we had big plans for not just a contest, but a way for indie game developers to connect with each other and show off their skills and experience. We didn’t set out to replace existing communities, but maybe we could create a little something that would complement other systems. Our goal is always to help indie developers be as successful as possible, and Dream.Build.Play 2017 Challenge is just one thing we thought up.

Before I begin, I do want to say that this article is long. I’ve got a lot of cool and important information to share, and rather than break it up into individual posts and have you search for it in multiple places, I’m throwing it all down in one place. Come back and refer to this page as often as you need to. Ok, let’s get started!

State of Play

By the look of it, that contest is generating some great interest from you all. To date there are over 2,000 indie developers from all walks of life signed up on the competition site, and we know there are more to come. And what do I mean by “walks of life”? Well, we have students, we have professional developers trying their hand at building a game, we have dedicated indie studios who want to showcase their talents.

But it doesn’t stop there. We have indie developers from all over the world too. My home country, Australia, is represented, as is the US and the UK. But how about Bangladesh? Yep. Austria? Yep. Greece, Sweden, France, Brazil… The list goes on. Dream.Build.Play is turning out to be a truly global experience.

That’s all great and all, you say, but what about these big plans you mentioned?

Glad you asked.

The Big Plans

This month, we launched phase two of the Dream.Build.Play website. It takes the contest and amps up the stuff you can do with it in a big way, but we’ve tried to do it in a thoughtful way that will help you out for other things too.

As of now, you can log into the Dream.Build.Play website and check out the community of developers who have created profiles. And you can create your own too. Each profile comes with name, country, photo and a brief bio description. But then it can be enhanced with what I consider the special sauce of Dream.Build.Play. Besides that basic biographical info, you can add all the ways people can connect with you, plus all the skills you have, plus all the games you’ve worked on.

Yes, all. First, take connections and networks. You can choose from Xbox, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and so on, but you can also add your DeviantArt or Bandcamp accounts, or GitHub, Unity, Unreal or Stack Overflow accounts. And a whole lot more. And if there’s something missing, we’ve got you covered with a Personal Website link. Add as many as you want. Add none. It’s up to you.

When it comes to skills, it gets event better. We’ve built an extensive list of skills, from a variety of programming languages, to middleware and game engines, to more softer skills like game design. But if you want to advertise a skill that’s not listed, just add it in, and as long as it passes our moderation queue, it’ll show up in your profile.

Adding games is where the magic really starts to show through. You can add every game you’ve worked on, and each one comes with its own set of information. From the game’s name and genre, to cover art, screenshots and even a trailer video. And then add a description, and what platform category it belongs to and you’re almost there. Every game entry can have its own set of connections. So if you have a website for your game, a YouTube link, a Twitch channel and a Facebook page, add them all so people can check it out.

Why is this important?

We created the community like this for a very important reason: so you can all connect with each other. Let me give you an example.

Dave is building a game in Unity, but he doesn’t have a single audio engineering bone in his body. But he really wants to enter the Dream.Build.Play 2017 Challenge and potentially win big cash money. I can relate.

Dave heads to the Community page and filters the Skills list for Audio Engineering. In the results pane, he sees a few other members who have that skill. He clicks on Grace’s profile. Dave sees that Grace not only has Audio Engineering as a listed skill, but she also has Unity. Great! She’ll likely know how to incorporate sound into his Unity game.

He can then check out the games Grace has listed, heading to their websites, or videos, and check out the audio that she has created previously. He likes the sounds he’s hearing and decides that he wants to see if Grace would like to join him on his epic journey. He can then return to Grace’s profile and click on any of the Connections she has added and get in touch.

Cool!

Cooler, if they agree to join forces, the Dream.Build.Play website allows them to do just that. All Dave has to do is head to his game page, edit it and add Grace to join his team. Bam! Both will now be listed as being part of the cool game that they’re collaborating on.

I love this community

One of my favorite things about the game developer community, is the willingness of everyone to help out and give people tips, feedback and advice on how to improve or fix their creations. I wanted to flag one great example of that that came out this week: Simon Jackson’s post on Unity and Visual Studio.

Simon and fellow indie dev Jim Perry brought to my attention a small issue between Visual Studio, Unity and Xbox Live. They thoughtfully investigated and figured out a workaround, and for all of you who are actively building UWP games in Unity who want to integrate Xbox Live, Simon has written up their findings on his blog: https://darkgenesis.zenithmoon.com/resolving-build-issues-for-uwp-packages-with-unity/

Also, I also want to highlight that Simon has created a special area on DevPost for Dream.Build.Play here: https://devpost.com/software/dreambuildplayresources. If you’re looking for additional info or resources, or you want to contribute back to the community, please head there and take a look.

Quick recap so far

A quick summary of where we are:

• Phase two of Dream.Build.Play has launched. Woo!
• You can now add your personal profile, complete with skills, connections and games.
• Games can have their own connections, as well as screenshots, videos and more.
• Games do NOT have to be for the Dream.Build.Play 2017 Challenge. They can be used to showcase your experience.
• You can search the community based on skill.
• You can form teams.

One special note. As I mentioned right at the beginning of this post, we’ve had (to date) over 2,000 people register to compete. If you look on the Community page and see less than that, that’s because only those people who have created a profile will show up on that page. So get in there and create your profile and make sure your friends and colleagues are heading back to Dream.Build.Play and updating theirs too, so the community fills out.

But wait, there’s more!

I hope you didn’t think we were stopping there. I’ve got some exciting news to share! We’re announcing a new contest as part of Dream.Build.Play: The Developer Diary Contest.

The Developer Diary contest challenges Dream.Build.Play creators and developers to document their journey in building a game. It has some minimal requirements such as needing to do at least five posts or videos, across at least a month in duration, but it’s really about encouraging you all to share your stories with each other.

Talk about a pain point you encountered and tell people how you fixed it. Or maybe something you were pleasantly surprised by when you started exploring UWP. Or how about how Azure made your life easier with some kind of cloud coolness.

Here’s a great example from Tarh Ik who we shared this with just a couple of days ago: https://tarhik.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/antimatter-instance-dev-log-entry-1/

And yes, the game he’s blogging about is indeed on Dream.Build.Play! https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/Windows/dream-build-play/game/7

You’ll have until December 31^st to create your Developer Diary and be in the running to win $5,000 cash and the adulation of your peers. Get to it!

Need help?

To finish off this article, I know that creating a game can be tough. But we’re here to help. Not only can you post questions to our Windows Developer Twitter handle or Facebook group, but you can grab a whole bunch of documentation, all conveniently located in one place: The UWP Game Development Guide!

Until next time, good luck, create your profile and add all the games you’ve worked on, and see you in the Dream.Build.Play community!

Oh, and keep your eyes peeled. We may have some other announcements soon.

The post Dream.Build.Play 2017 Challenge Updates appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

Today, we released a new Windows 10 Preview Build of the SDK and the Mobile Emulator to be used in conjunction with Windows 10 Insider Preview (Build 16278 or greater). The Preview SDK Build 16278 contains bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface area.

The Preview SDK and Mobile Emulator can be downloaded from developer section on Windows Insider.

For feedback and updates to the known issues, please see the developer forum. For new developer feature requests, head over to our Windows Platform UserVoice.

Things to note:

• This build works in conjunction with previously released SDKs and Visual Studio 2017. You can install this SDK and still also continue to submit your apps that target Windows 10 Creators build or earlier to the Windows Store.
• The Windows SDK will now formally only be supported by Visual Studio 2017 and greater. You can download the Visual Studio 2017 here.

Known Issues:

• Compilation fails on non-Windows 10 platforms

When building apps with the minimum target platform version set to 10.0.16278.0 you get the build error:

“The program can’t start because api-ms-win-eventing-classicprovider-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix the problem.”

This will occur if the minimum target platform version is set to 10.0.16278.0. To work around this, edit your project file and change the version to a previous released SDK. For example:

<WindowsTargetPlatformMinVersion>10.0.10586.0</WindowsTargetPlatformMinVersion>

Breaking Changes

• ecmangen.exe removal from the SDK: Ecmangen.exe will no longer ship with the Windows SDK. Developers who rely on ecmangen for event manifest creation are advised to install the Windows Creators Edition of the SDK to obtain the file. Developers may also use notepad or other XML editor of choice for manifest creation. A schema file is available on MSDN to aid in manifest creation, for tools that support it.

API Updates and Additions

When targeting new APIs, consider writing your app to be adaptive in order to run correctly on the widest number of Windows 10 devices. Please see Dynamically detecting features with API contracts (10 by 10) for more information.

The following are the API changes since the 16267 Preview SDK, please reference that list.

Additions APIs since Preview SDK 16267

namespace Windows.Storage.Provider {
  public enum StorageProviderHardlinkPolicy : uint
  public enum StorageProviderHydrationPolicy
  public enum StorageProviderHydrationPolicyModifier : uint
  public enum StorageProviderInSyncPolicy : uint
  public enum StorageProviderPopulationPolicy
  public enum StorageProviderProtectionMode
  public sealed class StorageProviderSyncRootInfo {
    StorageProviderHardlinkPolicy HardlinkPolicy { get; set; }
    StorageProviderHydrationPolicy HydrationPolicy { get; set; }
    StorageProviderHydrationPolicyModifier HydrationPolicyModifier { get; set; }
    StorageProviderInSyncPolicy InSyncPolicy { get; set; }
    StorageProviderPopulationPolicy PopulationPolicy { get; set; }
    StorageProviderProtectionMode ProtectionMode { get; set; }
  }
}

Removal of APIs since Preview SDK 16267

namespace Windows.Storage.Provider {
  public enum HardlinkPolicy : uint
  public enum HydrationPolicy
  public enum HydrationPolicyModifier : uint
  public enum InSyncPolicy : uint
  public enum PopulationPolicy
  public enum ProtectionMode
  public sealed class StorageProviderSyncRootInfo {
    HardlinkPolicy HardlinkPolicy { get; set; }
    HydrationPolicy HydrationPolicy { get; set; }
    HydrationPolicyModifier HydrationPolicyModifier { get; set; }
    InSyncPolicy InSyncPolicy { get; set; }
    PopulationPolicy PopulationPolicy { get; set; }
    ProtectionMode ProtectionMode { get; set; }
  }
}

The post Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 16278 and Mobile Emulator Build 15240 Released appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

Kevin Gallo will be hosting Windows Community Standup on Channel 9 with Seth Juarez again on September 14th, 2017 at 10:30am PST! We’ll be streaming live and answering questions afterwards.

A few of the topics Kevin and Seth will be discussing are the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update SDK, what we’ll have at the Microsoft Ignite conference, modernizing your application and some exciting programming demos.

We learned a lot from our first Windows community standup and will hold monthly Windows community standups to provide additional transparency on what we are building out, and clarity on why we are building them. These stand ups may be tied to an event like Microsoft Build or on Channel 9. We’ll be testing different streaming technologies and interaction models to see what works best. We would love feedback on this as well.

Once again, we can’t wait to see you at 10:30am PST on September 14th, 2017 over at https://channel9.msdn.com.

The post Windows Community Standup on September 14th, 2017 appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

We’re extremely excited to announce the Windows Template Studio 1.3.

In this release, we added in app scheme launch, finalized our work for localization, massive improvements in accessibility and started our work for Visual Basic support.

What’s new:

For a full list of adjustments in the 1.3 release, head over to WTS’s Github.

New Feature:

• Scheme to launch app (aka myAwesomeApp://myDeepLinksIntoMyApp?foo=bar)

Template improvements:

• Default Windows theme support added to template
• Files are now UTF-8 with BOM to make sure all cultures are supported
• Accessibility support in templates

Improvements to the Wizard:

• Accessibility support in Wizard drastically improved
• Lots of under the hood bug fixes and code improvements
• All needed parts for localization are built-in now (looks like we missed window to get actual localized files)
• Initial VB engine work was added in.
• Bug fixes

Process improvements:

• StyleCop enforcements across Template and Wizard code bases
• Appveyor added for pull requests to be sure we have proper continuous integration checks
• Required work for .NET Foundation

How to get the update:

There are two paths to update to the newest build.

• Already installed: Visual Studio should auto update the extension. To force an update, Go to Tools->Extensions and Updates. Then go to Update expander on the left and you should see Windows Template Studio in there. Click “Update.”
• Not installed: Head to https://aka.ms/wtsinstall, click “download” and double click the VSIX installer.

What else is cooking for next versions?

We love all the community support and participation. In addition, here are just a few of the things we are currently building out that will be in future builds:

• Fluent Design in the templates
• Ink templates
• Improved Right-click->add support for existing projects
• Localization in the wizard
• Visual Basic support
• Caliburn.Micro support
• Prism support

With partnership with the community, we will continue cranking out and iterating new features and functionality. We’re always looking for additional people to help out and if you’re interested, please head to our GitHub at https://aka.ms/wts. If you have an idea or feature request, please make the request!

The post Windows Template Studio 1.3 Released! appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

Windows Developer Day is back! Join us on October 10, starting at 9:30 AM PDT via live stream, or attend a viewing party in your area (location list below), as we explore what’s new in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update for developers.

The day’s schedule features an introductory keynote by Kevin Gallo and members of the Windows engineering team, a live-streamed Q&A session and several streaming sessions diving deeper into the current Windows 10 update.

Learn what’s new for developers in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

No matter what you’re working on, you’ll find plenty of new features and improvements to make your software more compelling:

Game devs

• Game Mode and new performance enhancements improve the gameplay experience for most of your players.
• Xbox Live Creators Program lets you integrate Xbox Live into your game and publish to both Xbox One and Windows 10.
• Mixer is the only next gen streaming service that offers viewers real-time influence and participation in your players’ live streams.
• Windows Store improvements help you promote your games with video trailers and control timing and pricing more precisely.

Commercial devs

• .NET Standard 2.0 adds more than 20,000 new APIs and lets you share code across all your .NET code base.
• Xamarin lets you use your existing C# and .NET skills to build truly cross-platform apps for iOS, Android and Windows 10 devices.
• Desktop Bridge improvements to tooling and more make it much easier to convert your existing Win32 and .NET software to Windows 10.
• Windows Mixed Reality delivers new levels of immersion to help you enhance the visual experience of your users.

Consumer devs

• Microsoft Graph and UserActivity API make your end-to-end experience seamless by connecting screens and experiences across devices and platforms.
• Fluent Design System helps you engage your users continuously across all their devices with beautiful, expressive experiences.
• Tooling improvements within Visual Studio make it easier to create, convert and deploy your software.
• .NET Standard 2.0 adds more than 20,000 new APIs and lets you share code across all your .NET code base.

Live Stream Viewing Parties

Join other developers from your local developer community and attend a Live Stream Viewing Party hosted by a Microsoft Windows Development MVP. Enjoy refreshments, watch the live stream, participate in the Live Q&A alongside your peers and make new community connections!

Here is a list of the locations: 

• Amstelveen, Netherlands
• Bonstetten, Zurich, Switzerland
• Boston, MA, USA
• Chicago, IL, USA
• Cologne, Germany
• Dresden, Germany
• Durban, South Africa
• Ghent, Belgium
• Manchester UK
• Mexico City, Mexico
• Milan, Italy
• Milwaukee, WI, USA
• Moscow, Russia
• Munich, Germany
• Paris, France
• Penang, Malaysia
• Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
• Singapore, Singapore
• Stockholm, Sweden
• Vienna, Austria
• Zagreb, Croatia

Learn more about Windows Developer Day and sign up here!

The post Windows Developer Day Returns! appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

Since the advent of consoles, developers have asked for ways to create games for one platform that you could run anywhere. With the release of the Expanded Resources feature in the Windows Fall Creators Update, we are taking the industry closer to that goal than it has ever been before. Now, developers will automatically have access to 6 exclusive cores, 5 GB of ram and full access to the GPU!

When Windows 10 launched in July 2015, Windows and Xbox converged to a single operating system for game development and introduced the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) application model.

UWP apps created for Windows 10 PCs and Xbox games created for Xbox One could be bought and run side by side on consoles, but only in a specialized environment created for lightweight entertainment experiences.

Coming this fall, UWP games published through the Windows Store to Xbox One consoles such as Fallout Shelter by Bethesda Softworks, games in the ID@Xbox program, or games in the Xbox Live Creators Program will be able to access the expanded resources. UWP game developers get both a performance boost and a much larger sandbox in which to Dream, Build, and Play.

Team Xbox is excited to see how creators take advantage of this extra power to bring even more variety and creativity to Xbox One. ANYONE can become a creator for Xbox One, get started here.

*D3D12-Based UWP Games get access to the full power of the GPU

The post More Resources for Universal Windows Platform Games with Fall Xbox One Update appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

Thanks everyone for attending and asking some fantastic questions. We strive to answer all questions and be transparent with both what we are building and why we are building them. Kevin’s next Windows Community Standup will be on October 10th, 2017 at Windows Developer Day!

Kevin showed off how .NET Standard 2.0 works in a Universal Windows Platform Application by showing SqlClient code being used directly from a classic WinForm application, dragging those files into the UWP app’s code base and just running the application!

Kevin also showed off some of the advances inside Windows Ink that developers can take advantage of today. Shape recognition and much more!

The post Thanks for attending September’s Windows Community Standup appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

As part of our continuous efforts to help Windows developers monetize better through ads, we are very excited to announce the launch of the Windows Premium Ads Publishers Program – a curated collection of ad enabled apps that are best in class in terms of usage, engagement and experience. These apps use one or more ad formats from among banner, interstitial banner, interstitial video and native ads to monetize. There are more than a million apps in the Windows Store and these premium apps represent the best of inventory that advertisers can target for the highest ROI on their campaigns.

Apps in the Windows Premium Ads Publishers Program satisfy a wide range of criteria, from having a minimum guaranteed daily ad request volume to maintaining high viewability standards, not having any fraudulent activity in their apps and following IAB standard ad sizes and placement methods. These are top apps and games with a globally distributed audience that is highly engaged, have identifiable users and are viewability certified​. The full list of qualifying criteria is as follows:

• Minimum guaranteed daily ad request volume
• High viewability rate for impressions
• Good quality clicks contributing to a minimum CTR across all ad formats
• Only IAB standard ad sizes and no hidden ads
• Clean placement of banners – not adjacent, no using ad units across multiple apps
• Clear defined user flow to the point where the video and/or interstitial banner ad is shown, no pre-caching
• Controlled ad refresh behavior so that the ads returned from the mediation server are always played
• Great Store presence with clear app descriptions, high fidelity screenshots and icons uploaded to the Store along with a video trailer (preferable)

How do apps become a part of this program?

Apps that meet the qualifying criteria are put through a rigorous manual review process to check for a smooth, well defined user experience and to make sure ads are well placed to avoid unintentional clicks. Apps that clear both the automatic and manual screening process are then added to the program.

Can apps get removed from the program?

Apps in the program are monitored on a frequent basis to ensure they continue to meet the qualifying criteria. Make sure the app usage does not drop significantly over time to sustain a minimum daily ad request volume – a great way to do this is by running regular promotions.

Can a developer provide additional marketing material to showcase their app in the program?

Any content uploaded as part of the Store submission is automatically used to showcase premium apps. In addition, if you would like to use more app or game screenshots, game trailers and rich descriptions, please reach out to aiacare@microsoft.com.

Advertisers from all partner ad networks can identify these apps separately and serve premium, high yield ads exclusively on these apps. The pool of apps in the program are continually reviewed to ensure they meet the quality bar and new apps that qualify are automatically inducted into the program. Early results have shown very promising improvements in ad monetization yield for apps in the Windows Premium Ads Publishers Program. This is currently an invite only program and merely meeting the qualifying criteria does not automatically entitle an app to become part of the premium program.

Developers who are interested in knowing more about improving their app experience to qualify for the program, please reach out to aiacare@microsoft.com. Details regarding the program are available here. To learn more about enabling ads in your apps using the Microsoft Advertising SDK, read the article here. More announcements coming very soon in this space!

The post Announcing the Windows Premium Ads Publishers Program appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

Today, we released a new Windows 10 Preview Build of the SDK and the Mobile Emulator to be used in conjunction with Windows 10 Insider Preview (Build 16288 or greater). The Preview SDK Build 16288 contains bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface area.

The Preview SDK and Mobile Emulator can be downloaded from developer section on Windows Insider.

For feedback and updates to the known issues, please see the developer forum. For new developer feature requests, head over to our Windows Platform UserVoice.

Things to note:

• This build works in conjunction with previously released SDKs and Visual Studio 2017.  You can install this SDK and still also continue to submit your apps that target Windows 10 Creators build or earlier to the Store.
• The Windows SDK will now formally only be supported by Visual Studio 2017 and greater. You can download the Visual Studio 2017 here.
  

Breaking Changes

• ecmangen.exe removal from the SDK:  Ecmangen.exe will no longer ship with the Windows SDK. Developers who rely on ecmangen for event manifest creation are advised to install the Windows Creators Edition of the SDK to obtain the file. Developers may also use notepad or other XML editor of choice for manifest creation. A schema file is available on MSDN to aid in manifest creation, for tools that support it.

API Updates and Additions

When targeting new APIs, consider writing your app to be adaptive in order to run correctly on the widest number of Windows 10 devices. Please see Dynamically detecting features with API contracts (10 by 10) for more information. 

There have been no changes since build 16278 to the API surface.

The post Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 16288 and Mobile Emulator Build 15240 Released appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

We are excited to announce that Time Travel Debugging (TTD) features are now available in the latest version of WinDbg Preview. About a month ago, we released WinDbg Preview, which provides great new debugging user experiences. We are now publicly launching a preview version of TTD for the first time and are looking forward to your feedback. 

What is TTD?

Wouldn’t it be great to go back in time and fix a problem? We can’t help you go back in time to fix poor life choices, but we can help you go back in time to fix code problems.

Time Travel Debugging (TTD) is a reverse debugging solution that allows you to record the execution of an app or process, replay it both forwards and backwards and use queries to search through the entire trace. Today’s debuggers typically allow you to start at a specific point in time and only go forward. TTD improves debugging since you can go back in time to better understand the conditions that lead up to the bug. You can also replay it multiple times to learn how best to fix the problem.

TTD is as easy as 1 – 2 – 3.

1. Record: Record the app or process on the machine which can reproduce the bug. This creates a Trace file (.RUN extension) which has all of the information to reproduce the bug.
2. Replay: Open the Trace file in WinDbg Preview and replay the code execution both forward and backward as many times as necessary to understand the problem.
3. Analyze: Run queries & commands to identify common code issues and have full access to memory and locals to understand what is going on.

Getting Started

I know you are all excited and ready to start using TTD. Here are a few things you should know to get started.

• Install: You can use TTD by installing the WinDbg Preview (build 10.0.16365.1002 or greater) from the Store if you have Windows 10 Anniversary Update or newer at https://aka.ms/WinDbgPreview.
• Feedback: This is a preview release of TTD, so we are counting on your feedback as we continue to finish the product. We are using the Feedback Hub to help us prioritize what improvements to make. The Windows Insider website has a great overview on how to give good feedback https://insider.windows.com/en-us/how-to-feedback.
• Questions: We expect you will have some questions as you work with TTD. So feel free to post them on this blog or send them in the Feedback Hub and we will do our best to answer. We’ll be posting a TTD FAQ on our blog shortly.
• Documentation: We’ve got some initial documentation at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/time-travel-debugging-overview and will be improving our content based upon customer feedback and usage. You can give us feedback or propose edits on the docs.microsoft.com documentation by hitting “Comments” or “Edit” on any page.
• Blogs: Watch for more in-depth TTD updates and tips in the future on our team’s blog https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/windbg.

How to use TTD

You use TTD directly in the WinDbg Preview app. We have added all of the key TTD features into WinDbg Preview to provide a familiar debugging experience, which makes it intuitive to go backwards and forwards in time during your debugging session.

Record a Trace

WinDbg Preview makes it easy to record a trace. Simply click File >> Start Debugging and point to the app or process. You will have an option to Record during attach and launch. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/time-travel-debugging-overview for more information.

Replay a Trace

Once the Trace is complete, we automatically load and index the Trace for faster replay and memory lookups. Then simply use the WinDbg ribbon buttons or commands to step forwards and backwards through the code.

Basic TTD Commands

You can use the ribbon or enter the following TTD commands in WinDbg Preview. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/time-travel-debugging-overview for a complete list of TTD commands.

Final Thoughts

We are very excited to get TTD into the hands of our developers; but there are a few things to remember.

• TTD is a preview, so we will be regularly improving performance and features
• This only runs on Windows 10 since WinDbg Preview is a Store app
• See docs.microsoft.com documentation for TTD known issues and compatibility

Welcome to the world of time travel. Our goal is to improve the lives of developers by making debugging easier to increase product quality. Please send us feedback and feature requests in the Feedback Hub to let us know how we are doing!

The post Time Travel Debugging is now available in WinDbg Preview appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

Microsoft recently announced the public preview of the Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service. The Device Provisioning Service is a new service that works with Azure IoT Hub to enable “zero-touch” device provisioning to an IoT hub. Using this service, devices can be created with a common image, and when booted for the first time in the field, the Device Provisioning Service will automatically provide the device specific provisioning information, including the correct Azure IoT Hub location and identity where the device can be further provisioned and customized using Azure device management. The Device Provisioning Service is designed to support very high device volumes, enabling the provisioning of millions of devices in a secure and scalable manner, automating what historically has been a complex and time-consuming process for customers handling high volumes of connected IoT devices. You can read more about the Azure IoT Device Provisioning Service in this blog post and on the Device provisioning documentation center.

The Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service aligns well with our Windows 10 IoT device scenarios and features. Along with the Device Provisioning Service public preview, we are also providing sources for a complete Windows 10 IoT client that implements a client service with the required functionality to quickly enable a device to use the Device Provisioning Service, requiring only minimal configuration information. When used in conjunction with the existing Windows 10 IoT Azure Device Management client, it forms a complete device provisioning and management solution, covering the complete lifecycle needs of an IoT device.

The Windows 10 IoT device provisioning client is provided as a source that can be used as is, to provide basic scenario functionality, or customized if desired. The implementation as provided requires a supported Windows 10 IoT TPM to be present, which is used to securely store device identification and authentication information. The same configuration information is used by both the device provisioning and the device management client samples, enabling both to work in concert with one another.

The Windows 10 IoT client for the Azure IoT Device Provisioning Service is located at https://github.com/ms-iot/iot-azure-dps-client, including a step by step process for building and using the client service with the Azure IoT Device Provisioning Service public preview.

Microsoft is committed to providing the most productive and secure IoT platforms and services enabling you to quickly and confidently bring your IoT solution to market. Visit the Microsoft IoT page for more information on Microsoft’s complete IoT solution offerings!

The post Windows 10 IoT enables the complete IoT lifecycle appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update provides a developer platform that is designed to inspire the creator in each of us – empowering developers to build applications that change the way people work, play and interact with devices. To truly fulfill this platform promise, I believe that our developer platform needs to be centered around people and their needs.  Technology should adapt and learn how to work with us.

As we showed at Microsoft Build in May, the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update SDK delivers thousands of new capabilities and improvements that support this promise. Today, at Windows Developer Day in London, we’re celebrating three areas that help you, our developer partners:

• Create inspiring experiences using the next revolution in technology – Mixed Reality
• Modernize applications for the modern workplace
• Build and monetize your games and applications

I’m pleased to share with you that you can get started now by downloading the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update SDK. Windows 10 adoption has been incredible – with more than 500 million monthly active devices. We are also seeing devices staying current with the latest updates faster than ever, with the majority of devices running the latest updates in less than 6 months, and over eighty percent of devices running the latest update in less than a year. We can’t wait to see the next wave of innovation enabled by the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update SDK.

Create inspiring experiences using the next revolution in technology – Mixed Reality

The next revolution of computing is Mixed Reality. Microsoft is the only company embracing the entire continuum for mixed reality, from augmented reality to virtual reality and everything in between. Windows 10 was designed from ground up for spatial interactions and the next wave in this journey is Windows Mixed Reality, uniting the digital and real world to create a rich, immersive world. As humans, we interact with space constantly, and Windows Mixed Reality will feel the most natural for users. With HoloLens, we have already demonstrated unrivaled innovation that is transforming industries. Now, our immersive headsets offer unrivaled experiences.

For developers, Windows Mixed Reality offers unique opportunities.

1. Our unified platform maximizes reuse across platforms and device form factors
2. Windows Mixed Reality provides reach on the broadest range of devices
3. Our Microsoft Store provides an unrivaled discovery opportunity
4. Millions of people come to the Store every day to get an application from our broad catalog

Modernize applications for the modern workplace

With the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update SDK, developers can easily create a new or update an existing application to support modern experiences that employees need, or customers expect.

Modernizing your deployment

The deployment system in Windows 10 has been significantly enhanced to help your users start using your application quicker and easier. This starts with the ability to only download the delta between updates, the updated bits versus the entire package to your end user. In addition, you can break up your application into components to allow streaming install. This will allow your application to work before your user has the entire application installed.

To assist with this modernization, the Fall Creators Update introduces the Windows application packaging project with Visual Studio 2017 version 15.4. This new project allows developers to utilize the app packaging without having to convert your existing installer. Just add the project and you’re done. Once your application is using the modernized installer, you now have access to all the APIs that have been added to the Windows Platform. For example, integration with Windows Hello to assist with security, action center integration to assist with engagement, and cross-device capabilities provided with device relay and activity feed.

Another major investment has been the integration of .NET Standard 2.0 which enables developers to reuse their code across platforms and devices with Visual Studio and integrates the vast array of libraries available in the open source community built on .NET.

Fluent Design System

The Fluent Design System is the evolution of Microsoft’s approach to creating the very best user experiences. Experiences with Fluent Design feel natural on the device you’re using, whether it’s a large screen desktop with keyboard, a laptop or tablet with touch, a mixed reality headset, or one of many other computing form factors. Applications using Fluent Design are optimized for consuming content and are efficient and powerful to use for creating and collaborating, and they help you to achieve more… they are experiences you love to use!

For developers, the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update provides a comprehensive solution for creating applications with Fluent Design in a way that’s simple, powerful and flexible to your needs. It includes UX building blocks, guidelines, samples, tools, and a community to help you build the best experiences for your customers. Here are some highlights:

• The Navigation View control provides an easy, consistent home for getting around your app.
• Acrylic Material gives you a rich new visual building block that helps you create information hierarchy and greater immersion in your app.
• The Reveal Highlight interaction visualization built into many controls helps your experience feel natural to use across as disparate inputs as mouse, pen, touch and gaze.
• Connected Animations aid usability by preserving context and increasing engagement, and are so easy to adopt incrementally.
• Gesture Actions like swipe build on familiar patterns to help users efficiently and naturally get stuff done.

Learn more about all the different building blocks and features you can take advantage of at: http://developer.microsoft.com/design.

Device Relay and Activity Feed

Microsoft Graph and Project Rome enable new and exciting ways to drive user engagement across apps, devices and platforms. Device relay allows your customers to continue what they’re doing right now, but on a different device and Activity Feed, allows them to pick up an activity they were doing in the past, and continuing it now or sometime in the future.

Helping your customers stay connected to what they need to do right now isn’t as easy as it used to be. People have multiple devices they switch between and they expect them to all work together. Using the Remote Systems and Remote Sessions APIs, you can do truly delightful device relay scenarios to help your customers use the right device for the task.  The Remote Systems APIs enable you to communicate with the user’s devices across Windows, Android and iOS.

With the Activity Feed, you can keep your customers engaged and help them resume what they need to do next. Your customers can’t always finish what they were doing in a task or session in your app, but you can still help them pick up where they left off between devices and experiences by simply adding an activity to the Activity Feed using the UserActivity API.

Build and monetize your games and applications

Lastly, with the Expanded Resources feature in the Fall Xbox One Update, we’ve made another investment in the promise to open Xbox One to UWP game developers who want to build more immersive experiences. Now, developers will automatically have access to 6 exclusive cores, 5 GB of ram and full access to the GPU with DX12! We designed Visual Studio 2017 with game developers in mind! We built a brand-new work-load based installer in Visual Studio 2017, which optimizes the install experience for game developers, so you get everything you need and nothing you don’t.

We recently launched the Xbox Live Creators Program, and this gives anyone the ability to build and publish games for the Xbox One family of devices and Windows 10 PCs. You don’t have to go through concept approval, and the certification is simplified. What’s more is that you are able to leverage select Xbox Live features like stats, leaderboards and cloud saves. We have added more monetization options and tools in Microsoft Store. Interactivity is the future of live streaming and Mixer is our fast and interactive live streaming platform. We have the Mixer SDKs for the major game engines and languages and you can make something cool in less than an hour. Our goal is to create a community of indie game developers. We want to foster open discussions between developers and Windows, and each other. With that in mind, we are bringing back Dream.Build.Play in 2017. The 2017 Challenge has a prize pool over $225,000 (USD), with several categories.

Community and thanks

We were pleased today to have been joined on stage in London by two creative partners building UWPs for unique and innovative experiences.  Black Marble, a UK based developer is building on its history of simplifying law enforcement experiences with a new Mixed Reality UWP to bring MR to courtrooms. Texthelp, another UK based company, showcased a UWP application and Edge extension that helps improve reading and writing comprehension for children with dyslexia and students learning in a second language. Texthelp has also announced a new app, EquatIO, which assists learning in mathematics.

Whether you’re building immersive experiences for Windows Mixed Reality, games, education or business applications, community is crucial to the Windows developer platform. I’d also like to take a moment to thank all developers who are participating Windows Insiders Program and have been using the Fall Creators Update Preview SDK. We value your insight and suggestions, as well as your feedback.

I look forward to seeing what you create with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update SDK. The Windows Dev Center is open now for submissions to the Microsoft Store! For more details, go to dev.windows.com.

The post Windows Developer Day in London – Windows 10 Fall Creators Update SDK Availability appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

We are happy to announce the new Monetize -> In-app ads section in Windows Dev Center. This is your one stop shop to create and manage the ad mediation settings of your UWP and Windows 8.x ad units.

You can find the In-app ads section under the Monetize section in the left navigation. On choosing this option, you can view your in-app ads dashboard that lists all your ad units, along with additional details such as application name, ad unit type, mediation settings, etc.

On clicking the ‘Create ad unit’ button, you will be taken to a new page where you can specify the ad unit details, configure the ad mediation settings for the ad unit and submit. The ad unit will then appear on your in-app ads dashboard.

Do note that you no longer need to start a submission to be able to create an ad unit – simply reserve your app name and you will be able to create an ad unit for it.

If you wish to change the mediation settings of an existing ad unit, simply click on the ad unit, change the settings and save.

For more information on these new experiences, please refer to this article.

We hope you enjoy the new experience! Please send your feedback to aiacare@microsoft.com.

The post Check out the new In-app ads dashboard in Windows Dev Center appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

The Maps team has been busy making improvements and adding new features to the Maps platform for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. In addition to performance and visual improvements to the 3D engine, we are introducing features requested by users, like the ability to import 3D models into the map and support for layering and binding for map elements. We also are making enhancements to the styling API to allow clients to specify base map styles and visual states for their own map elements. Finally, we are announcing a places API to see relevant information of a place right within the current context of the calling app.

Without further ado, please see the highlights below and keep your feedback coming!

3D Buildings

You might recall that some 3D buildings were missing in the previous release. We have been working hard since then to bring them back (and improve the ones that didn’t look correct) with this update.  Keep an eye out for more 3D buildings in the next few months!

3D Objects

We are adding a new MapElement called MapElement3D. Along with MapModel3D, this new API can be used to import and display 3D objects with ease. Think about fancy 3D push pins, cars, planes, etc.  The possibilities are endless!

Here are some great examples of MapElement3D displaying 3D models at a specific location, orientation and scale on the Windows 10 Map Control:

Avatars

Cars

Clouds

Map Layering APIs

We also are adding a new MapLayer class, the first derivation of which is MapElementsLayer. Unlike the existing MapControl.MapElements API, this can be used to manipulate groups of elements independently as a unit or to designate a joint purpose.

Bind your data to the map using MapControl.Layers

You can bind elements on the map to your own custom collections of business objects with the Map Control.Layers API.

See How To: Display points of interest (POI) on a map.

Map Styling APIs extensions

We are extending the current set of Map Styling APIs for Windows 10 Map Control. In the previous release, we added the MapStylesheet API to allow you to dynamically change the look and feel of the map in real-time. In this release, we are adding support for two new properties on MapElement: MapStyleSheetEntry and MapStyleSheetEntryState, which can be used to more deeply customize the appearance of your map elements using one of the default style entries and states or custom ones.

See How To: Customize Your Map Elements

Here are some examples of the customization that can be done of map elements using the new styling extensions on the Windows 10 Map Control:

Integrate your elements better with the base map using MapStyleSheetEntry

You can make your map elements look like they are part of the base map by setting their style to an existing entry in the map style sheet such as Water. See MapStyleSheetEntry for the full list of entries you can chose from.

Bing logo is rendered by the Windows 10 Map Control through changing the map polygon’s MapStyleSheetEntry property to Water.

Implement states on your map elements using MapStyleSheetEntryState

You can further modify the appearance of your map elements by leveraging default states like Hover and Selected in the map style sheet, or override them to create your own. See MapStyleSheetEntriesStates for the full list of states you can chose from.

Bellevue Square, City Center and Meydenbauer POIs are rendered by the Windows 10 Map Control through overriding the scale of the existing UserPoint entry and changing the map icon’s MapStyleSheetEntryState property to a custom state that extends the existing Hover and Selected entry states.

Place Info

Finally, we are happy to announce the new PlaceInfo API that allows you to see rich relevant information of a place without the need of switching context, in a pop-up UI, right within your own app.

https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-universal-samples/tree/dev/Samples/MapControl

API Updates and Additions

For a list of the APIs added since Windows 10 Creators Update, please see here the following resources:

• MapElement: MapStyleSheetEntry, MapStyleSheetEntryState and Tag properties
• MapElement3D
• MapElementsLayer
• MapStyleSheetEntries
• MapStyleSheetEntryStates
• PlaceInfo

For more details on all new APIs go to MSDN.

The post New Map Control features in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

It’s a big day today – after a year of public preview, Adobe released Adobe XD 1.0 on Windows 10 and Mac: a new tool for user experience creators to design, prototype and share interactive designs for apps and websites.

When it comes to designing anything, it’s important to have design tools that support a fast and fluid process – one where you can iterate rapidly through a design, test, and build process: designing at the speed of thought. For interaction design, creative professionals have often used tools that excel at creating images of screens, but these tools that created static images have always missed something: transitions and interactions that demonstrate the experience. Putting an interactive prototype in front of stakeholders that they can try out is now a crucial part of the process, and being able to iterate on design rapidly based on the feedback from the prototype is essential. Being able to create a prototype without any coding is mandatory for this process. Almost a year ago, I wrote about a new app that fits these requirements, when Adobe released a public preview of Adobe Experience Design CC (XD) on Windows and Mac. Since then, Adobe was able to iterate quickly, releasing monthly updates of Adobe XD, responding to early customer feedback and an ambitious list of features that interaction designers wanted. We’re excited to share that today, Adobe XD as part of the Creative Cloud, is available today on Windows and Mac. Here are a few other reasons that that this is such an important release.

XD is a Universal Windows Platform App

Available through Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription, XD takes advantage of the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) to deliver a modern, high performance, professional design tool. Whether you’re working with one artboard or a hundred, XD gives you the same fast performance. The rendering surface is accelerated by DirectX and the UI is implemented in XAML, C++ and JavaScript.  Using this architecture, Adobe was able to have maximum code reuse between their Mac and Windows versions yet take advantage of the most advanced, platform specific UI layout technology. During XD’s preview period, Adobe was able to iterate quickly, leveraging a proprietary automated testing framework for much of their code built on the Windows Application Driver. The end result is a high-performance, stable, professional tool.

Design, Prototype and Share in One Tool

In creating Adobe XD, the team thought of the whole Design/Test/Build workflow that interactive designers go through, and made an easy-to-use tool for designing experiences, creating rapid prototypes and sharing them with others to get their feedback. With Adobe XD, you can rapidly create screens with standard tools as well as utilizing tools that have been specially designed for UX designers. Repeat Grid, for instance, allows users to quickly create content grids based on a single element – helping designers to simulate the type of content they often have to create. The Assets Panel helps users reuse important design elements such as colors, character styles and symbols – so that making changes across an entire document is fast and easy. At 1.0 XD is also connected to Creative Cloud Libraries, allowing users to leverage content across documents and teams. You can also add artboards for common screen sizes ranging from Android Wear to Surface Pro.

Switching from design to prototype mode is a single click, and you can quickly connect artboards to communicate the flow and paths of multiscreen apps.

Once your prototype is ready for feedback, you can generate shareable web link of the prototype or embed it onto webpage or supported application. Since my team uses Microsoft Teams to collaborate, I can create a tab page in Teams using that link to share the design with my colleagues – they can interact with the prototype in Teams and we can chat about it there.

Designer and Developer Resources

In addition to the tools available, Adobe XD has a number of UI resources available for designers to use while creating, including Apple iOS, Google Material Design, Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Office UI Fabric. Our Office and Windows teams worked closely with the Adobe XD team to deliver a great set of UI components that designers and developers can use to craft their user experiences. We will continue to work closely in the future as we help developers and designers take advantage of the Fluent Design System.

This Is Just the Beginning

Having worked closely with the Adobe XD team for the past two years, this is a very exciting day. The designers, engineers, testers and product managers that I have met on the Adobe XD team are passionate about their product and are eager to hear your feedback as you try it out, use it and craft the next generation of user experiences. While today marks the 1.0 release of Adobe XD, the team has big plans ahead, including improvements for the way designers and developers work together. Read more about where they’re headed here.

You can download XD as a free trial or as part of Creative Cloud today. Adobe will also be hosting a live stream on UX design from Oct. 24-26. Watch and interact with Daniel Alegria, a Microsoft UX designer in action using XD on Windows. See the schedule and more content here.

Adobe has delivered a new, high-performance, UWP app that is useful to designers, and you should try it out today.

The post Adobe XD CC: A New High-Performance UWP App for UI/UX Design appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

Last year with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, we introduced the Desktop Bridge to provide desktop applications a path to modernize with the Universal Windows Platform, and to distribute via the Windows Store and the Microsoft Store for Business to all Windows 10 PCs, including devices that are running the Windows 10 S configuration.

The primary developer tool at the time was the Desktop App Converter, a tool that converts your current app installer into a Windows app package (.appx file), which can be submitted to the Windows Store or deployed via your distribution mechanism of choice. With Update 4 for Visual Studio 2017 we now have great support directly in Visual Studio for your Windows desktop application projects (WPF, Winforms, Win32, etc.). With the new tools you can now build, configure, deploy, test and debug your Desktop Bridge application as you develop them in VS by simply hitting F5!

Let me walk you through an example, step-by-step. I am starting out with this Winforms app that showcases various chart controls. It’s been created several years ago in an older version of VS against .NET 4. Now my goal is to release it in the Windows Store and incrementally modernize it. Here is how easy it is now with Update 4 for Visual Studio 2017.

Step 1 – Add Windows App Packaging project to the solution

Before we start we need to make sure our desktop application project is loaded in Visual Studio 2017 and builds without error. Then in the next step we want to package our application as a Windows App Package (.appx file) so our Winforms app can take advantage of all the same Windows 10 app deployment features that are available to UWP apps: clean install & uninstall, seamless updates, Store distribution and many more. To do this, we will take advantage of the new tooling features introduced in Update 4 for Visual Studio 2017. We are adding a new project of type “Windows Application Packaging Project” to our solution:

Now we need to specify our min/target versions…

…and let the packaging  project know which project output to include in the package. To do so we right-click on the “Applications” node and set a reference to our Winforms project – done!

Important! Select the “DistributionPackage” project as your startup project. Now hit F5 and watch how your app gets packaged, deployed and launched as a Desktop Bridge app. You can start testing and debugging in this new execution context. If you set the Winforms project as startup project and hit F5, you can still test and debug the unpackaged version of your application

Step 2 – Configure app for Windows Store release

Our app is already running as a Desktop Bridge app now and we have successfully tested and debugged it in this configuration. Next we just need to put some finishing touches on the package so it integrates nicely with the Windows 10 Shell (tiles, badges, etc.) and to make sure it conforms to the Store submission requirements. First thing, we need to replace the default visual assets that come with the project template with our real, application-specific assets. This is very easy now in Visual Studio 2017 with the Visual Assets Manager in the package manifest editor:

To prepare for our Store submission we need to create the application in the Windows Dev Center and reserve our application name, provide screenshots for the store front, set the price, age ratings, etc. If you are not planning to distribute via the Windows Store, you can skip this step.

Last thing we need to do before we can release our app to the public is create a package bundle that is ready to deploy and Store-compliant. This bundle can contain binaries for different architectures, resources for different locales as well as the symbols for our binaries so we can later make sense of any crash reports in the Dev Center or Mobile Center. This can be done for Desktop Bridge apps directly from Visual Studio now, just like you would do for any UWP app:

As part of creating the packages we also run the certification tests and then submit the package to the Dev Center for certification and publishing. You can try the result of my submission out now and install the sample app on your machine from the Store by clicking on the badge below – source code for the app is available for your reference here.

What else does this enable for developers?

Aside from distributing and monetizing via Windows Store, your app now enjoys the modern deployment capabilities built into Windows 10. You don’t need to build an installer anymore, updates are automatic and differential. Uninstalls are guaranteed to be clean. Moreover, since your app is now in the Windows 10 App Model, you have access to UWP APIs and features, such as live tiles, Cortana integration, background tasks etc. Another important benefit specifically for Windows Forms apps is the new high DPI support in .NET 4.7, which is included in the Windows Creators Update (1703). Our sample app here is taking advantage of this new support, by following the steps outlined in this article.

And there is more

Talking about installers, did you know that your app package is also your installer on Windows 10? Users can just click to install it, as long as it’s signed with a certificate that is trusted on the target device. This enables you to distribute your modernized desktop application in the way that’s right for your scenario, without having to go through the Store – e.g. for LOB applications in an enterprise. Learn more about it here.

Conclusion

Getting your desktop application development project ready for Windows Store submission is easy now with Visual Studio 2017 Update 4. Once converted to a Windows App Package your app can take advantage of all the Windows 10 platform capabilities and start using new APIs and features on Windows 10. Here are some resources for more details:

• Desktop Bridge docs
• Desktop Bridge samples
• App Modernization video on Channel 9

Are you ready to submit your desktop application to the Windows Store? Let us know about it here, and we will help you through the process!

The post Visual Studio 2017 Update 4 makes it easy to modernize your desktop application and make it store ready appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

As part of our continuous effort to deliver insights to you that help make key business decisions about your apps easier, the Dev Center team is excited to announce a few updates to analytic reports.

Review insight categories

On your Reviews report, the new Review insights feature uses machine learning to classify new app reviews, including non-English reviews, into one of 12 pre-defined categories. Now you can quickly identify themes and understand customer sentiment by filtering your app’s reviews by category. You can also apply additional filters, such as OS version or rating, that allows you to further isolate issues and find actionable feedback.

Near real time health data

Understanding your app or game’s stability as quickly as possible after launching helps you make key decisions in that critical launch window. That’s why we’ve worked hard to bring near real time health reporting to Dev Center. We’re happy to announce we are flighting this capability within our Dev Center Insider Program.

If you’ve joined the Dev Center Insider Program, the Health report’s 72H view in Dev Center now shows data for crashes, hangs, memory failures and JavaScript exceptions within minutes of those events (as compared to taking several hours). This feature will be available to all Dev Center users soon.

If you’re interested in trying out new features like this before they become available to all developers, we encourage you to join the Dev Center Insider Program.  We also encourage you to provide feedback on these and other features by using the feedback tool within Dev Center.

The post Analytic reports improvements within Dev Center appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.