Documentation and Softwares – Developing for Windows Phone 7 Series

Windows Phone 7 Series is expected to hit the town in about 5 months from now. Microsoft has already released the Phone SDK which you can make use of to build your apps and keep it ready for the market by the time the device arrives!

All set to start developing your first application for Windows Phone?

Download Windows Phone 7 Developer Training Kit: This Training Kit below will give you a jumpstart into the new Windows Phone world by providing you with a step-by-step explanation of the tools to use and some key concepts for programming Windows Phones. This training kit is geared for beginners who want to get started with developing applications for the latest Windows Phone operating system. Even if you don’t know Silverlight or XNA Framework, you’ll find this Training Kit useful. More seasoned Silverlight developers should also find this kit useful, as it explains some of the differences between Silverlight and Silverlight for the phone. – Download this Training Kit here

Update: 28th July, 2010 –

The UI Design and Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7 v2.0 has been updated for beta. With additional information and a new layout we hope you will find more readable, this guide provides detailed information about UI elements and controls, UI system behaviors, and the interaction model for the touch interface based on the design system codenamed “Metro”. Designers and developers should read this guide to learn about the dos and don’ts of UI implementations for their Windows Phone applications.

The Design Templates for Windows Phone 7 are a collection of 28 layered Photoshop template files and system fonts that can be used to create pixel-perfect application layouts, to help guide UI development, or to pitch an idea. These design templates showcase many controls that are a part of the Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta. They also include examples of controls that are a part of Windows Phone, but are not available as a part of the Windows Phone Developer Tools.

Update : 30th April, 2010 –
Beginning today you can download the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh (WPDT CTP) from http://developer.windowsphone.com, which means you can now build Windows Phone 7 apps on the final release of Visual Studio 2010 (VS2010). While this update is primarily intended to enable development using the final release of VS2010 there are a few new things here too. You can read the complete article here on the Windows Team blog!

There is a huge bulk of Windows Phone development documentation on the MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network). You do have lots of information like,

• Download Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta here to start with. (You will need to have VS2010 installed to work with this. you can also download the Express edition along with this installer)
• Code Samples for Windows Phone
• Application Bar Icons for Windows Phone 7 Series – This download contains a set of 64 application bar icons that you can use when developing applications for Windows Phone. Download here [zip file]
• To understand how to add an Application Bar to your application – Check this article on MSDN
• Windows Phone UI Design and Interaction Guide [Pdf document]
• Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Training Kit [Channel 9 Videos]
• Application Platform Overview for Windows Phone that covers how all the pieces fit together
• Getting Started Guide for Developing for Windows Phone that includes everything you need to create your first Silverlight or XNA Framework application
• Programming Guide for Windows Phone with overviews of features and how to guides with code snippets
• Silverlight for Windows Phone
• Class Library Reference for Windows Phone
• XNA Framework 4.0 training for Windows Phone home page
• Lab – creating a Windows Phone version of Alien Game
• Training Kit download link (includes source code for the Windows Phone version of Alien Game described in the lab in the previous link)
• The OData Client Library for Windows Phone 7 Series CTP is a library for consuming OData feeds on Windows Phone 7 Series devices. It has many of the same capabilities as the ADO.NET Data Services Client for Silverlight. – Download [exe format]

Other important documentation links include Developing Windows Phone Games and Silverlight for Windows Phone as a part of the XNA Game Studio 4.0 and Silverlight 4 RC documentation sets, respectively.

Charlez Petzold is authoring a Book called “Programming Windows Phone 7 Series”. He has already offered a draft preview of his eBook FREE of cost! – Download the ebook here (pdf document)

2/4/2010 – Update : New XNA Game Studio 4.0 samples for Windows Phone released on the Creators Club site

Yesterday, Microsoft released several samples and mini-games to help you get started using the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (which includes the XNA Game Studio 4.0 CTP) to create games for Windows Phone 7 Series.  Here is some additional information about the samples and where you can download them:

• Reach graphics demo – this is the demo that Shawn Hargreaves used in his talks at GDC and MIX to show the 5 five built-in effect types provided by the XNA Framework 4.0 on Windows Phone (BasicEffect, DualTextureEffect, AlphaTestEffect, SkinnedEffect, and EnvironmentMapEffect).
• Snow Shovel mini-game – a simple Windows Phone game that shows how draw 2D sprites using SpriteBatch and handles player input using the accelerometer. You will not be able to use accelerometer input in the Windows Phone 7 Series emulator in the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP however.
• Primitives sample – an updated version of an existing sample that works with the XNA Game Studio 4.0 CTP and demonstrates how to create a reusable class to draw 2D primitives (points, lines and triangles) on the screen.  The source code for the 4.0 version of this sample is available at this link.
• Primitives3D sample – an updated version of an existing sample that works with the XNA Game Studio 4.0 CTP and demonstrates how to create a reusable class to draw 3D primitives (cubes, spheres, cylinders, torus and teapots) on the screen.  The source code for the 4.0 version of this sample is available at this link.

You can also join the discussion in the Windows Phone forums to get your queries answered.!