Datasheet
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CHAPTER 1 WHAT’S NEW IN WINDOWS PHONE 7
Application Framework
Mobile application developers are mainly concerned with changes to the application framework.
When targeting Windows Mobile 6.x, developers can use either native Win32 APIs to write C/C++
code or C# and Visual Basic .NET to write managed code. The managed code runs on top of the
.NET Compact Framework. On WP7, however, all applications are managed applications, and
Microsoft provides two application frameworks: Silverlight and XNA, as shown in Figure 1-2
(source:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402531(v=vs.92).aspx). Microsoft
suggests using Silverlight for developing event-based applications and XNA for game development.
FIGURE 1-2: WP7 application framework
Applications
Silverlight Framework for WP7 XNA Framework for WP7
Controls Drawing
Isolated
storage
Shapes Media NavigationMarkup
Input Media Content
Game
services
Graphics Audio
.NET Common Base Class Library
Runtime Resources Globalization Reflection Location Tex t IO Net
Security Threading Collections
Component
model
Configuration
Service
model
LINQ
Some details follow on the two frameworks described briefl y above (with development tools):
Silverlight: People familiar with Silverlight programming techniques on the desktop will
fi nd it fairly easy to develop applications to run on WP7. Silverlight provides a .NET-based
runtime environment that includes a rich user interface, multimedia, and animation. In
addition, Silverlight offers web access on desktop, web server, and mobile devices. You use the
Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML, pronounced “zammel”) to defi ne the user
interface, and .NET languages, such as C# and Visual Basic .NET, to implement the program
logic. Silverlight on WP7 provides a subset of the .NET Framework APIs, with added phone-
specifi c APIs. All these differences are integrated into Visual Studio. To ease the design of a
rich UI, Microsoft also provides a tool called Expression Blend for UI designers.
XNA: XNA is yet another .NET-based runtime environment available on Microsoft Xbox,
Windows, and WP7. Microsoft optimized the XNA run time, together with extensive
classes and libraries for game development. XNA provides a foundation for game developers
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