Today a new set of tools targeting the Windows Phone 7 “Mango” release is available.
This toolset is being called Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1
This by not means can be translated into the actual product name for the final release!
The download is available at Create.MSDN.com [might take a few hours to appear on that site]
Direct Download Link
Documentation and What’s New is on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh237342
Using these tools a developer can write WP7 application for 7.0 and 7.1 Beta targets.
Install NOTE: Suggested to install this on non-production machine, as this is Beta software.
Marketplace NOTE: Applications written with 7.1 will not be allowed on the current Marketplace. Also, using 7.1 APIs is not permitted in 7.0 applications.
Consumer features are demonstrated here - Ch9: Joe Belfiore unveils "Mango" for Windows Phone
Even more videos [a ton] are available here: http://www.microsoft.com/press pass/presskits/windowsphone/videogallery.aspx?contentID=mango_vid09
Top level features:
- Background processing
- New profiler and emulator for testing
- Use of Silverlight + XNA together
- Silverlight 4
- IE9 web browser control
- Live Tile enhancements: use of back of tiles and ability to update Live Tiles locally
- Deep linking into apps from notifications and Live Tiles
- Additional sensors; direct camera access, compass & gyro
- Fast application switching
- Networking / sockets for communications
- Local SQL database for structured storage
- Access to calendar and contacts
Here is the list of the new API features:
Controls:
- RichTextBox – inline images and hyperlinks
- Viewbox – like Zoombox
- WebBrowser Control - IE9
Media:
- Webcam + Microphone
- 32bit color
Networking:
- Multicast – UPD Support
- WebClient API will call back into UI thread
Performance:
- Input thread for increased performance of controls like ListBox
User Interface:
- Clipboards Access API
- Commanding
- Implicit Styles
- Right-to-Left Flow Direction
- Multiple Transforms – move me and animate away!
XAML:
- Silverlight 4 Parser – also helps with moving XAML from other apps
Data:
- DataBinding improvements include String Formatting, Fallbackvalues
- DataServiceCollection<T> – for WCF Data Services support
Core .NET Framework features:
- Collection Classes – ISet<T> and HashSet<T> now available
- Tuple class support
- Time Parsing – easily parse TimeSpan and String Format as desired with multi-culture support
- Cryptography
- TryParse – added to many types, such as Guid and TimeSpan
Official blog: update to Windows Phone 7 will be available today
I simply cannot wait for this release, so many new and exciting features in this release.
I hope you enjoy the latest tools. What will you build using these new tools?