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In the first part of the MVVM using caliburn micro with WPF we saw how to write the bootstrapper to setup everything for the caliburn micro library. Now in this part we’ll see how to start creating new pages in the application and how the binding and events are being defined using this small library project with power of MVVM.

Before we start I would recommend you to go through the previous article showing how to do setup. Once you done with the setup you can design the MainWindowView.Xaml file.

Instead of building Hello World to get started learning Windows 8 development, consider customizing your own version of Pong.

“I want to build a Windows 8 app/game, but I don’t know how to get started.”

“I want to do a workshop with some kids but I am not sure what to do.”

“I want to do a workshop with a group who has little or no coding experience, what can I do?”

“I know how to code but I’ve never built a game, how do I get started?”

In my role as technical evangelist, I get asked questions like that a lot! A couple of months ago, one of my team members built a version of Pong with HTML5/JavaScript. It’s not a complicated game, in fact he originally wrote it as a tool to help XNA developers get started with HTML5/JavaScript. But, because he took the time to structure and comment the code, we discovered this template also makes a fun workshop/hands on lab for beginners.

XAML namespace is an extension of XML namespace and conventionally written as “xmlns” in XAML pages. We use it on all XAML pages in Silverlight, Windows Phone, Windows 8, WPF related technologies to better reference assemblies and namespaces.

In this post we will learn more about this XMLNS namespace and the way to customize it for a cleaner XAML page. Interested to know it? Continue reading and share your feedback about the post.

I have many app is the Windows 8 store now. My Sudoku Free app is the most popular one. It has almost 500.000 downloads and it is played around 13.000 a day. Until recently I received many mails on how to use the app. My support email address is in the Settings panel. Most of these mails where request to add features to the game like 'can I validate a puzzle?', 'can I solve a puzzle?', 'can I get statistics?' or 'can I get a hint?'. Those features are all available in the AppBar of the game. My conclusion is that the average user is still not aware that the AppBar can exist.

To make my users aware of the AppBar I added a peek behavior to it. When you start a sudoku puzzle the AppBar peeks out for just a second, see video. After the implementation I got almost no more of those emails any more.

Testing your app throughout the development process can help you create a really great Windows Phone app. Testing helps ensure that your app is effectively represented in the Windows Phone Store as an app that offers Windows Phone users a high level of performance and quality. A small investment in the key areas described in this post can help you bypass common errors early in the development process, and help you get positive results in the long term. This post is part 2 of a 3-part series that outlines key test areas that you should consider before submitting your app to the Store. See part 1 for additional details.

Here is the new SilverlightShow content for Tuesday, May 21st, 2013.

• NEW Article: 'WinRT Business Apps with Prism: PubSubEvents'
• Quick Tip: Processing HTML Content in Windows Store Apps
• Pre-beta Windows 8.1 WinRT Developer APIs
• Use your HTML5 skills, port your PhoneGap app to Windows Phone, and win prizes
• Async Development in WinRT – Part I
• Conference Buddy on WPF

Or follow our news on Twitter - @silverlightshow!

We just published the fourth part of Brian Noyes' series WinRT Business Apps with Prism (read part 1/part 2 /part 3). Check it out:

• WinRT Business Apps with Prism: PubSubEvents

In this part, the author covers the loosely coupled communication mechanism from the newly released Prism for Windows Runtime, called PubSubEvents. Read more »

Brian Noyes is also the author of two of the most successful SilverlightShow ebooks: 

• WCF RIA Services
• Working with Prism 4

Follow us on Twitter and/or Facebook and be up-to-date with all new content published at SilverlightShow!

The WebView control allows you to display content from sites in your app using a small window that renders the HTML using the same rendering engine as Internet Explorer. It does have some limitations and most likely if you are providing content in your app, your goal is to augment your app with fresh data rather than try to superimpose a full-blown web application on your own native Windows Store app.

Trying to strip down content can be quite cumbersome once you wade through the myriad RegEx expressions or other utilities available. Here’s a simple trick that will work with most content-oriented sites like blogs and online magazines. It allows you to get a more basic view of the content and present it without all of the bells and whistles you may end up pulling down with regular content.

In this article we’ll review new developer WinRT features that’ll be released in the upcoming Windows 8 release (dubbed “Windows 8.1” / “Windows Blue”). Microsoft recently announced that during June 2013’s BUILD conference a developer preview of Windows 8.1 will be released for download. In the meanwhile many Windows 8.1 “leaked” images are available online. These “leaked” images allows us to get a sneak preview of the featuresets that’ll be announced in BUILD conference. For the length of this article we’ll go over those features.