Connecting Windows 8 Applications with Services
Author: Gill Cleeren
Price: $2.99 
Format: Word, PDF, MOBI, EPUB, source code
Number of pages: 60
Release date: November 2012
From the author: Windows 8’s biggest novelty is without a doubt “Apps”. Microsoft is entering the world of apps and is for the first time introducing a “real marketplace”, named the Windows 8 Store where developers can publish, market and sell their applications. This new (for Microsoft developers at least) way of working requires in many views a change of mindset. We as developers are facing many new things, including a new application lifetime management, a new API (WinRT), a different type of communication between apps (Contracts), a new Start experience (Tiles) and many more.
Since apps are going to be distributed through the means of a store, topics such as accessing data also requires some thought. In many views, accessing data through services is similar to accessing data in Silverlight applications. Although the principles are similar, the implementation tends to differ in many places.
The apps we build need to give the user the feeling of being connected. When we’re building a stock ticker application, the app needs access to up-to-date data. An RSS reader would be pretty useless without access to RSS feeds. A LOB app may need access to a CRM data. Without being connected to (up-to-date) data, many apps can’t even execute their normal routine.
In this SilverlightShow ebook, we are going to explore how we can build connected Windows 8 applications. In other words, we are going to explore the options we have to connect our Windows 8 apps to services. The good news for us as developers is that Windows 8 apps can connect with many types of services.
Contents:
Chapter 1: Using services to get data in our Windows 8 applications
Accessing data over services in Windows 8
Accessing ASMX services from Windows 8 apps
Accessing WCF services from Windows 8 apps
Chapter 2: Working with REST, oData and RSS from Windows 8 applications
Talking to REST services
oData services and Windows 8
Consuming RSS feeds in Windows 8
Chapter 3: Background transfers in Windows 8
Background transfers in Windows 8
Downloading files in the background
Uploading files in the background
Chapter 4: Tile interactions in Windows 8
The need for updating tiles
Creating periodic tiles
Creating Push Notifications
Chapter 5: Integrating with public APIs such as Facebook and Twitter
Integrating with Twitter and Facebook
The traditional approach
The WebAuthenticationBroker
Facebook API
Twitter API
Chapter 6: Integrating the cloud through the Live SDK and roaming data
Working with the Live SDK
Registering your app to use Live services
Single sign-on with Live ID
Storing information in the cloud: roaming application data
Chapter 7: Working with sockets from a Windows 8 application
Sockets in Windows 8
Communicating using TCP sockets
Communicating with web sockets
About the author:
Gill Cleeren is Microsoft Regional Director (www.theregion.com), Silverlight MVP (former ASP.NET MVP) and Telerik MVP. He lives in Belgium where he works as .NET architect at Ordina (http://www.ordina.be/). Passionate about .NET, he’s always playing with the newest bits. In his role as Regional Director, Gill has given many sessions, webcasts and trainings on new as well as existing technologies, such as Silverlight, ASP.NET and WPF at conferences including TechEd Berlin 2010, TechDays Belgium – Switzerland - Sweden, DevDays NL, NDC Oslo Norway, SQL Server Saturday Switzerland, Spring Conference UK, Silverlight Roadshow in Sweden, Telerik RoadShow UK… He’s also the author of many articles in various developer magazines and for SilverlightShow.net and he organizes the yearly Community Day event in Belgium. He also leads Visug (www.visug.be), the largest .NET user group in Belgium. Gill is the author of “Silverlight 4 Data and Services Cookbook”. In 2012, the second edition, “Silverlight 5 Data and Services Cookbook” was released.
You can find his blog at www.snowball.be. Twitter: @gillcleeren