Windows Phone 7.5 Unleashed [Paperback]

Daniel Vaughan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 2012 | ISBN-10: 0672333481 | ISBN-13: 978-0672333484 | Edition: 1

Windows® Phone 7.5 Unleashed is the first comprehensive, start-to-finish developer's guide to Microsoft's brand-new Windows Phone 7.5 ("Mango"). 

Written by Microsoft MVP and leading WPF/Silverlight innovator Daniel Vaughan, this full-color guide covers everything Microsoft developers need to rapidly build highly competitive Windows Phone 7.5 mobile apps.

Vaughan teaches through complete sample apps that illuminate each key concept with fully explained code and real-world context. He presents real-world best practices for building highly functional and attractive Metro interfaces; integrating touch, rich media, and data; testing, profiling, and publishing apps; and more. Throughout, he shares expert insights available in no other book, drawing on his exceptional access to the Windows Phone development team through the elite Microsoft Silverlight and WPF Insiders group.

Along the way, he presents exceptionally practical and thorough coverage of many powerful new Windows Phone 7.5 platform enhancements--including full chapters on sensors, the camera, XNA graphics, local databases, scheduled actions, and background file transfers.

Detailed information on how to...

• Get started fast with Silverlight Windows Phone development in Visual Studio
• Master the Capabilities Model, threading, and the Execution Model
• Create attractive Metro interfaces using Windows Phone's rich set of controls, including the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit
• Make the most of the application bar and other interface elements
• Enhance user experience with advanced support for touch, gesture, and sensors
• Build location-aware apps that use Bing Maps and location services
• Quickly internationalize apps for global markets
• Leverage Windows Phone 7.5's improved camera support
• Connect apps to online services via SOAP, REST, and ODATA
• Validate user input on the client side or via Web services
• Use Windows Phone 7.5's powerful new local database support
• Implement background actions, file transfers, and audio playback
• Incorporate game-style XNA graphics
• Unit test to find defects earlier, saving time and money

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Daniel Vaughan, Microsoft MVP for Client Application Development, is an internationally respected pioneer in advanced .NET development in finance, e-commerce, and multimedia. Vaughan's areas of expertise include WPF, Silverlight, WCF, and WF, and Windows Phone. His recent innovations include employing neural networks to predict user navigation behavior in WPF applications and creating a grid computing framework for Silverlight. His many open source projects include Calcium SDK and Clog.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1120 pages
• Publisher: Sams Publishing; 1 edition (March 31, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672333481
• ISBN-13: 978-0672333484
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 1.4 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,111,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Daniel Vaughan is cofounder and president of Outcoder, a Swiss software and consulting company dedicated to creating best-of-breed user experiences and leading-edge back-end solutions, using the Microsoft stack of technologies--in particular Silverlight, WPF, WinRT, and Windows Phone.

Daniel is a technical advisory board member of PebbleAge, a Swiss finance company specializing in business process management.

He is a Microsoft MVP for Client Application Development, with more than a decade of commercial experience across a wide range of industries including finance, e-commerce, and multimedia. He is a Silverlight and WPF Insider, a member of the elite WPF Disciples group, and threetime CodeProject MVP.

Daniel is also the creator of a number of open-source projects, including Calcium and Clog.

Daniel blogs at http://danielvaughan.org, where he publishes articles and software prototypes.

He has a degree in Computer Science from UNE, where he received various awards including the Thomas Arnold Burr Memorial Prize in Mathematics, and twice the annual School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Prize.

With his wife, Daniel runs the Windows Phone Experts group on LinkedIn at
http://linkd.in/jnFoqE

Originally from Australia and the UK, Daniel is based in Zurich, Switzerland, where he lives with his wife, Katka.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best programming books I've ever read. May 15, 2012

By Pete O'Hanlon

Format:Paperback

Where do I start reviewing this book? It's hard to know because this book has so many different aspects to it that it's hard to know which one to start with. Okay, let's start with the question, does the book teach Windows Phone programming? That's the basic premise of the book, so it's fair that we start with that.

Dan is one of the foremost experts on WP7, and this book certainly reflects that depth of knowledge. By the end of the book, as long as you aren't actually a turnip, you should be able to write WP applications with ease. (A caveat here though - there is an assumption that you are comfortable developing in C#; you don't have to be an expert, you just need to be able to recognise the basic constructs of the language).

Okay, that was an easy one. Now let's make it slightly harder. Does the book teach me Windows Phone programming in an easy to follow and entertaining way?

One of the great things about Dan's prose is that he has a fluid, easy to read style, and he conveys complex topics in a simple jargon-light fashion. You're never going to get completely free of jargon in a book on programming, but the sign of a good author is one who doesn't scatter jargon around like rice at a wedding, and Dan keeps the jargon to the absolute minimum. Another gold star for Dan here.

Now, the biggy, and Dan's secret weapon. Can I take what I've learned and apply it in my own projects?

Most programming books, I find, teach you some of the concepts and then leave it up to you to figure out how these should all be bolted together, and to try and figure out on your own what the best practices are. This is no easy task. All through this book, however, Dan introduces you to a series of libraries that he's written that you can use for free.... These libraries build on the topics he covers, and encapsulate a lot of the boilerplate you'd only end up having to write yourself. Now, the biggest benefit is that Dan, as an experienced developer, uses solid, proven best practices in these libraries; so you learn not only how to apply the techniques in the real world, but also see how to make them solid and bullet proof.

Would I recommend this book? Yes. Would I recommend it over other Windows Phones books? Yes. Do I think it's one of the best programming books I've ever read? Yes. Am I Dan Vaughan? No. Read more ›

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The most complete book about Windows Phone 7.5 development July 13, 2012

By ArchieCoder

Format:Paperback

This book is huge with 1120 pages, and all of them are worth it. Here are some of the things that I like about the book:

Most of the code samples are done with the MVVM pattern. Nowadays, this pattern is the most popular one used when creating Windows Phone applications. The author even shares his known Calcium SDK that includes the MVVM philosophy. For a beginner who wants to start Windows Phone programming, starting off with the best pattern is a great idea, and this book will help you do that.

There is a lot of free code given. There are a lot of utility classes that can be used in many types of Windows Phone applications. Honestly, the book is worth buying for the free code alone, and it will save you a lot of time.

If you are new to use the SQL Compact Server database, this book will help you to learn the technology; the author has a large helpful section on this topic.

The author introduced the usage of Reactive Extensions. This technology is not for beginners, but I'm pretty sure it will intrigue you, as it did me. The author presents the benefits of Reactive Extensions. The Reactive Extensions (Rx) is a library for composing asynchronous and event-based programs using observable sequences and LINQ-style query operators. You can find the rest of the definition at the official website.

The author knows the platform well and describes many useful hints and caveats in Windows Phone programming.
In conclusion, this excellent book is one that I recommend right now if you want to dive into Windows Phone programming or to learn more about the recent features added with Mango.

Happy reading!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything about this book rocks!!! July 5, 2012

By T. Anderson TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Everything about this book rocks!!! It is in color which makes for a great read. Being able to see the code and screenshots in color doubles the value of a book like this. I wish all programming books that included coding client UIs were in color.

Although the chapter names usually highlight the main topic covered in the chapter, some chapters like chapter 2 cover a ton of topics. It covers XAP files, the capabilities model, threading model for graphics and animation, the frame rate counter, performance tools, how to determine device status, MVVM, and commands.

This book is 1095 pages huge and includes 29 in-depth chapters. It is broken into five parts. I have listed each part and the chapters below.

Part I. Windows Phone App Development Fundamentals
Chapter 1. Introduction to Windows Phone App Development
Chapter 2. Fundamental Concepts in Silverlight Development for Windows Phone
Chapter 3. Application Execution Model
Chapter 4. Page Orientation

Part II. Essential Elements
Chapter 5. Content Controls, Items Controls, and Range Controls
Chapter 6. Text Elements
Chapter 7. Media and Web Elements
Chapter 8. Taming the Application Bar
Chapter 9. Silverlight Toolkit Controls
Chapter 10. Pivot and Panorama

Part III. Windows Phone App Development
Chapter 11. Touch
Chapter 12. Launchers and Choosers
Chapter 13. Push Notification
Chapter 14. Sensors
Chapter 15. Geographic Location
Chapter 16. Bing Maps
Chapter 17. Internationalization
Chapter 18. Extending the Windows Phone Picture Viewer
Chapter 19. Camera
Chapter 20. Incorporating XNA Graphics in Silverlight
Chapter 21. Microphone and FM Radio
Chapter 22. Unit Testing

Part IV.... Building Windows Phone Data Driven Applications
Chapter 23. Input Validation
Chapter 24. Network Services
Chapter 25. Isolated Storage and State Preservation
Chapter 26. Local Databases

Part V. Multitasking
Chapter 27. Scheduled Actions
Chapter 28. Background File Transfers
Chapter 29. Background Audio

One of the things I really like that the author did was introduce the Windows Phone Performance Analysis Tool right off the bat in chapter 2. Knowing how to make use of the performance tools may really help developers without an actual device.

Another thing I really liked was that the author made use of MVVM throughout the book. He did not just introduce it and then continue with the rest of the book without it, like I have seen done with some other Silverlight books, he made extensive use of it.

The author does a great job covering the Silverlight Toolkit. He covers the ListPicker, AutoCompleteBox, ContextMenu, DatePicker and TimePicker, LoopingSelector, LongListSelector, PerformanceProgressBar, TiltEffect, ToggleSwitch, and the WrapPanel. He does not just list them, he provides in-depth examples of each.

The chapter on Bing Maps is not only a great introduction to Bing Maps, it also contains a practical example of using Reactive Extensions (Rx). The chapter on Geographic Location also contains a nice example of Rx.

The chapter named Touch is all about gestures. It gives a great overview with some really good visual aids. It covers all the gestures and their associated events.

The chapter on Launchers and Choosers is awesome. The author does a great job of covering a ton of them. He covered so many of them, that I am not sure that he missed any. He provides a nice code sample for using each one.

The downloadable code is very well organized and usable. I did not run into any trouble with the samples, which is amazing because there are a ton of them.

Every chapter of this book is rock solid and they all go in-depth. The last thing I will say I liked about this book is that it took advantage of tools like LINQ to SQL, Odata, the Unit Testing Framework, and Reactive Extensions in practical real world examples. The author doesn't skimp on implementation examples.

All in all if you are considering getting into Windows Phone development, or are already involved with it, this book is an absolute must!!! Read more ›