This past weekend, the Patterns and Practices team at Microsoft released the final version of the Windows Phone 7 Developer Guide on MSDN. The guide was built in an open community fashion on Codeplex by the team this past year and has been downloaded over 5000 times. The intent was to build a sample Windows Phone 7 client application that connected to a Windows Azure backend.
The scenario is built around a fictitious company named Tailspin, which originates from the previous developer guide for Windows Azure. This time the company has decided to create a Windows Phone 7 client application for their existing cloud-based application.
Sections include:
- Introducing Windows Phone 7 - overview of the platform and SDK
- Designing Windows Phone 7 Applications - planning and architecting Windows Phone 7 applications
- The Tailspin Scenario - intro to Tailspin and their Surveys application
- Building the Mobile Client - steps taken to build the application including how to implement MVVM on Windows Phone 7
- Using Services on the Phone - how the phone stores and manipulates data, manages activation and synchronizes with the server
- Connecting with Services - how to utilize Azure services like authentication, downloading data, push notifications and filtering data on the server
- Interacting with Windows Marketplace - how to distribute and sell applications through Windows Marketplace
Beyond the client application, the guide discusses integration with remote services, and why the developers made given decisions made during the design and implementation of Surveys. The developer guide may be viewed freely in a browser on MSDN or obtained from MS Press as a hardcopy or ebook.