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Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova in Visual Studio 2015 RC

May 3, 2015 ANDROID, Cordova, CSS, CSS 3, HTML, HTML5, iOS, JavaScript, jQuery, Mobile, Mobile Frameworks, Mobile SDK, Mobile Services, Mobile-Development, PhoneGap, Visual Studio 2013, Visual Studio 2015, Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova, VisualStudio, VS2013, VS2015, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8 apps development, Windows 8.1, Windows Phone, Windows Phone Development, Windows Phone Store, Windows Store, Windows Store Development No comments

Microsoft has announced that with Visual Studio 2015 – Apache Cordova tools will be integrated within the main install bundle. Using Apache Cordova Tools for Visual Studio you will be able to develop cross-platform mobile applications using single codebase for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

With support for native device capabilities (e.g. camera, accelerometer, contact), offline scenarios and popular JavaScript frameworks (e.g. Angular, React and Backbone), the Tools for Apache Cordova contain everything web developers need for building cross-platform mobile apps using Visual Studio.

What’s new in Apache Cordova Tools for VS2015-RC

Grunt, Gulp, Bower and Node-based Workflows – Starting with the RC release, it’s also much easier for you to build Cordova apps using tools familiar to many web developers.
New Templates from Ionic and Onsen UI – Ionic and Onsen UI templates are provided as optional to enable developers to try out the new frameworks. Each framework provides a variety of starting points to suit the most common project types.
Fresh Samples, Tutorials and Documentation

If you are using Visual Studio 2013, then you will have to rely on Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova CTP3.1 (Add On) to enable cross platform mobile development using Visual Studio 2013 Update 4.

This preview release for Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 and Visual Studio 2015 RC supports building apps for the following device targets:

Android 4+

iOS 6, iOS 7, iOS 8

Windows 8.0 and Windows 8.1 Store

Windows Phone 8.0 and Windows Phone 8.1

Benefits of using Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova:

When you develop apps using Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova, Visual Studio provides these benefits:

Easy installation. Manual installation of Cordova involves a lot of work to find, install, and maintain the correct version of all the third-party software required to support native platforms. Visual Studio handles all that for you by including a third-party dependency installer that gets you up and running in the first hour.

Plugin management. Cordova plugins provide access to native APIs using a JavaScript interface. Support for custom plugins like those that turn a mobile phone into a barcode scanner are critical to an app’s success. Visual Studio makes it easy to add plugins of all kinds, including core Cordova and custom plugins. You also benefit from IntelliSense for plugins in Visual Studio.

Unified debugging experience. Cross-platform development often requires a different tool for debugging each device, emulator, or simulator. Different tools mean different workflows and lost productivity every time you switch devices. With Visual Studio, you can use the same world-class debugging tools for all deployment targets, including iOS devices and emulators, Android devices and emulators, Windows, and the Apache Ripple emulator.

Write once, deploy everywhere. The common JavaScript and plugin APIs in Cordova make it easy to write an app using a single code base that deploys to all target platforms—iOS, Android, and Windows. Of course, you can always write platform-specific code if and when you need it.

Command line interoperability. The Visual Studio solution directly reflects the file system and is updated in real time. This means that it is easier than ever to use your favorite command line tool with Visual Studio.

Multi-Version Cordova support. The Visual Studio solution allows you to select different versions of Cordova at the project level.

Quoting from MSDN Article – Getting Started with Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova

TO Learn more USE THE FOLLOWING RESOURCES

Visual Studio 2013 – Update 2 is available

May 14, 2014 .NET, .NET Framework, .NET Framework 4.5.2, Azure SDK, Microsoft, SQL Server 2014, Trial Downloads, Updates, Visual Studio 2013, VisualStudio, VS2013, Windows, Windows 8, Windows 8 apps development, Windows 8.1, Windows Azure Development, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 8, Windows Phone 8.0 SDK, Windows Phone Development, Windows Phone Store, Windows Store, Windows Store Development, Windowz Azure, XBOX Development No comments

Microsoft has released the latest update for Visual Studio 2013 with major improvements including support for developing Universal apps for Windows 8.x, Win Phone, and XBOX.

Here are the list of improvements included as part of the release(lending from Visual Studio team blog):

Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 has many new capabilities as well as fixes that address bugs, customer feedback, performance, and reliability improvements. Here are some new capabilities that are part of this and related Updates and links to where you can find more info.

Universal Apps. With this release you can now build universal apps that can run on Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 while sharing code and assets through shared projects.

TypeScript. The TypeScript language is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript. As a typed language you can define classes, modules and interfaces that compiles to JavaScript and runs in any browser.

Web Tool. Our web development tools have many new features like SCSS support, a new JSON editor, updated ASP.NET templates, and an improved URL picker.

Azure tools. It’s easier to take advantage of Azure with options to create websites and SQL Azure databases directly on Azure for simpler deployment to a development / testing environment.

Diagnostics. Our diagnostics tools also got some enhancements. Performance events now let you navigate to user code for MVC Methods or jump to the SQL command for database queries. It is also possible to view the Windows Store diagnostics tools at the same time to see all your diagnostics information on a shared timeline.

Slipstream install. You can download Visual Studio with all its latest features from one install that includes Visual Studio 2013 RTM and Update 2 for Visual Studio.

There are a number of other important updates that are available today in addition to Update 2 for Visual Studio 2013:

Apache Cordova and Visual Studio. Cordova tools in Visual Studio let web developers build cross-platform mobile applications targeting Android, iOS, Windows and Windows Phone using use their existing skills in HTML and JavaScript. To learn more about Apache Cordova visit http://cordova.apache.org/

A cloud optimized .NET. The latest updates to the framework provide a cloud optimized mode that is smaller, lighter weight, and designed for cloud and server workloads.

.Net vNext. This update to the .Net framework is optimized for cloud-first and mobile-first development. It enables you to compile C# 6 and VB code with Roslyn compilers, speed up Windows Store apps with the .NET Native ahead of time compiler, and has a cloud optimized mode for ASP.NET apps.

TFS 2013 Update 2. It’s worth mentioning again the updates in TFS 2013 like improvements for tagging, charting, shared parameters, cloud load testing application analytics, and a lot more.

Check out Somasegar’s Blog and Brian Harry’s Blog to get more details on some of the highlights in this release. For a quick view at all the features and fixes included in this update go to the KB article.

DOWNLOAD:

Visual Studio 2013 – Update 2 (Web / ISO)

Kinect SDK for Windows v 1.8 Released

September 20, 2013 .NET, .NET Framework, Kinect Development, Kinect SDK, KnowledgeBase, Microsoft, Microsoft SDKs, Visual Studio 2013, VisualStudio, VS2010, VS2012, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Embedded 7, Windows Store No comments

Microsoft has released latest version of Kinect SDK for Windows and Kinect Developer Toolkit for Windows. The Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) enables developers to create applications that support gesture and voice recognition, using Kinect sensor technology on computers running Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows Embedded Standard 7.

News features available in this SDK are:

Color Capture and Camera Pose Finder for Kinect Fusion
Webserver for Kinect Data Streams
Kinect Background Removal
Windows 8.1 Support
New Samples!
HTML interaction sample
Multiple-sensor Kinect Fusion sample.
Adaptive UI sample
Realistic color capture with Kinect Fusion.
Improved tracking robustness with Kinect Fusion.

The Kinect for Windows SDK, driver, and runtime v1.8 are 100% compatible with Kinect for Windows v1.0, 1.5, 1.6, and 1.7 applications.

The Kinect for Windows SDK includes the following:

Drivers for using Kinect for Windows sensors on a computer running Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows Embedded Standard 7

Application programming interfaces (APIs) and device interfaces

Note: Samples, tools, and other valuable development resources are available in the Kinect for Windows Developer Toolkit.

To learn more about the SDK visit:

Kinect for Windows Team blog

View Release Notes

Explore the features from official KinectSDK for Windows site

DOWNLOAD:

Kinect for Windows SDK v1.8

Kinect for Windows Developer Toolkit v1.8

Kinect for Windows Runtime 1.8

Kinect for Windows Human Interface Guidelines

Sending Mobile Push notification using C#/.NET (iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, Windows 8 and Blackberry)

August 9, 2013 .NET, ANDROID, Blackberry, Extensions, iOS, iPhone, KnowledgeBase, Microsoft, Microsoft SDKs, Mobile, Mobile Services, Mobile-Development, Nokia, Third-Party-Libraries and Frameworks, VisualStudio, VS2010, VS2012, Windows, Windows 8 apps development, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 8, Windows Phone 8.0 SDK, Windows Phone Development, Windows Phone SDK, Windows Phone Store, Windows SDK, Windows Store, Windows Store Development 2 comments

This is an update blog to my earlier blog about Sending Apple iOS Push notifications using C#.

With that blog – I introduced you to how to send push notification using Open Source library APNSharp, by the developer John Redth. Redth announced that library is already deprecated.

Redth came up with with another open source project called as PushSharp:,published under apache software foundation license.

PushSharp is a server-side library for sending Push Notifications to iOS (iPhone/iPad APNS), Android (C2DM and GCM – Google Cloud Message), Windows Phone, Windows 8, Amazon, Blackberry, and (soon) FirefoxOS devices!. Single library serves the purpose of sending push notifications to multiple platforms. Pretty decent isn’t it?

Here is the basic architecture:

Features of PUsHSHARP

Supports sending push notifications for many platforms:

Apple (APNS – iPhone, iPad, Mountain Lion)

Android (GCM/C2DM – Phones/Tablets)

Chrome (GCM)

Amazon (ADM – Amazon Device Messaging)

Windows Phone 7 / 7.5 / 8 (including FlipTile, CycleTile, and IconicTile Templates!)

Windows 8

Blackberry (BIS and BES via PAP)

Firefox OS (Coming soon)

Fluent API for constructing Notifications for each platform

Auto Scaling of notification channels (more workers/connections are added as demand increases, and scaled down as it decreases)

Implementation using PushSharp is straight forward

Here’s some sample code: shared by Redth

//Create our push services broker
var push = new PushBroker();

//Registering the Apple Service and sending an iOS Notification
var appleCert = File.ReadAllBytes("ApnsSandboxCert.p12"));
push.RegisterAppleService(new ApplePushChannelSettings(appleCert, "pwd"));
push.QueueNotification(new AppleNotification()
                           .ForDeviceToken("DEVICE TOKEN HERE")
                           .WithAlert("Hello World!")
                           .WithBadge(7)
                           .WithSound("sound.caf"));


//Registering the GCM Service and sending an Android Notification
push.RegisterGcmService(new GcmPushChannelSettings("theauthorizationtokenhere"));
//Fluent construction of an Android GCM Notification
//IMPORTANT: For Android you MUST use your own RegistrationId here that gets generated within your Android app itself!
push.QueueNotification(new GcmNotification().ForDeviceRegistrationId("DEVICE REGISTRATION ID HERE")
                      .WithJson("{"alert":"Hello World!","badge":7,"sound":"sound.caf"}"));

You can get the Push Sharp for your .NET projects from below mentioned links:

Binaries from NuGet: https://www.nuget.org/packages/PushSharp