XAML Behaviors now open source

XAML developers have enjoyed the reusable encapsulation and design-time experience of Behaviors since Windows Presentation Foundation. Just drag-and-drop onto the design-time canvas and you declaratively build out functionality without explicit code-behind.

Inside the Code: What's New with Visual Studio

Lots of great stuff has been happening recently with Visual Studio. While I've quickly recapped all the goodness for you in an earlier post, you might want to dig deeper into specific topics. You do? If you do, check out these cool links by my fellow developer evangelists as they compile in-depth coverage of specific topics

Check these out!

• A Developer's guide to Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 & all the Connect(); 2015 announcements by Jerry Nixon
• Visual Studio Code goes Open Source by Jeremy Foster
• An Intro to Visual Studio Dev Essentials by Adam Tuliper
• What's new with VS Subscription by Daniel Egan
• Visual Studio 2015 IDE Improvements by Paul DeCarlo
• What's New with Application Insights by Bret Stateham
• Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova by Adam Tuliper
• New C# REPL and scripting capabilities by Bret Stateham
• Visual Studio Code supports Extensions by Jeremy Foster
• HockeyApp in VS Team Services by Daniel Egan
• Understanding ASP.NET 5 & .NET Core by Adam Tuliper
• XAML Behaviors and Visual Studio 2015 by Jerry Nixon
  

A Developer's guide to Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 and all the Connect() 2015 announcements

They dunked Visual Studio 2015 in a bucket of awesome-sauce and pulled out Update 1! This article will help step you through the update as well as the other details we announced @ Connect().

 

It’s Microsoft season! In July, we released our best Windows ever – fast, secure, and super-personal, Windows 10 has than 110M consumer and 14M enterprise installations in as much time. November is the first major update in this new Windows-as-a-service world; it coincides Visual Studio 2015 update, and in this article, we’ll try to make sense of the flurry of announcements and updates.

What’s new for everybody but developers?

We might as well get this out of the way. It’s good to be aware.

Microsoft honors Star Trek with Visual Studio 2015 USS Enterprise Edition

And then there were three. The Visual Studio team has announced the convergence of their Premium and Ultimate editions into a single Visual Studio Enterprise with MSDN edition. Is this a nod to the most famous starship in the galaxy? I think it is. But mums the word when it comes to what’s on the mind of our engineering and marketing gurus.

In my mind, it’s Visual Studio [USS] Enterprise Edition with MSDN. Period.

“Enterprise grade solution with advanced capabilities for teams working on projects of any size or complexity, including advanced testing and DevOps”

The Visual Studio team is reaching new frontiers in pricing as well. The astounding entry fee of $10k+ for Visual Studio Ultimate has been pruned back to make our excellence in tooling and integration even more available to our enterprise community of developers. The new pricing for Visual Studio Enterprise edition with MSDN is: $5,999 (new) and $2,569 (renewal). Those numbers are based on the current, Microsoft Store online pricing. More

Today is April Fools day, but Visual Studio really does have a new name! It’s just that the new name doesn’t officially include USS. But, I’ll always be whispering it!

LLAP!

Why you must build a HoloLens app

These are becoming the golden years. Microsoft has accomplished several amazing things at one time. First, Windows Core allows a driver tested against x86, x64, and ARM to run on every possible Windows device. Then there is UAP, the Universal App Platform, a contractual subset of Windows APIs enabling Windows Apps and a universal experience across every possible device.

Microsoft January 21 Event Highlights

Microsoft had a series of major announcements on January 21. Most of them around Windows 10. Did you miss it? Let me summarize for you.

12 things you should teach your daughters about Microsoft Word

My daughters are getting into typing their homework, so I am making sure they understand OneDrive, OneNote, and Word. These are like Visual Studio for the student. OneDrive is their source control. OneNote manages their assets. And Word guides them away from simple, stupid errors without writing their papers for them.

I’ve been giving them some small tutorials, and thought I would take a little of the lesson and put it here. This is, as far as I am concerned, the basics of what you should teach your daughters (or sons) about Microsoft Word. Lots of these features are part of the web version of Word that comes in OneDrive – only a few of them are parts of Google Docs (yuck) some of their classes use. 

Hey! The future of WPF?

How about a quick chat with the Windows Presentation Foundation team? Not sure what that road map article really meant. We’ll get to the bottom of it. Spoiler alert, it’s awesome and you’ll walk away smiling.

The Bing Image Widget

The Bing Image Widget enhances your web site with the power of Bing Image Search and provides your users with beautiful, configurable image galleries and slideshows. Learn more.

It’s that easy. It’s also in the news!

I had a dream. And, I was in charge!

The way Microsoft acquires companies to solve niche problems is very interesting to me. It’s equally interesting to me how Microsoft determines what products and features to build and discontinue. I started considering how this might be streamlined. Yes, it’s just a dream, but isn’t it compelling?

Did you know you can use Visual Studio to write an Android app?

You might think you need x-code to write an iOS app. You might think you need eclipse to write an Andriod app. Visual Studio, is it just for Windows?

The answer is a solid “No”. Since the recent update of Visual Studio 2013 Update 3, developers have comprehensive tooling to support Apache Cordova.

At last, C# is getting “?.”, sometimes called the Safe Navigation Operator

Visual Studio (and many other Microsoft Products) uses http://UserVoice.com as a feedback mechanism for users to suggest and vote on product features. One of the most popular features, with 3,752 votes, a new “?.” operator for the C# language, sometimes called the Safe Navigation Operator.

YouthSpark: Challenge for Change

On Tuesday February 11th, Microsoft announced the launch of Microsoft YouthSpark Challenge for Change, a contest from Microsoft YouthSpark – in partnership with Windows, Office, Surface, Microsoft Stores, Brand Studios and Corporate Communications – that invites youth aged 18-25 around the world to share their ideas for a social good project that could spark change in their communities, college campuses, or the world. The contest is open for entry February 11 through March 5.

Windows 8 App Challenge for Students

Are you a student? Are you building a Windows 8 app? Any student-written Windows 8 app published before 4/14/2014 qualifies to win a $50 Amazon gift card. Want more? Any Windows 8 app published before 4/14/2014 and has 100 downloads qualifies to win an additional $50 Amazon gift card – that’s $100.

http://www.windows8challenge.com/

Step 1: Build your App

Download all the free software and resources you need to start building your App. http://aka.ms/GetStartedNow

Step 2: Publish your App

Publish your new and unique app to the Windows Store. Win a $50 gift card. Submit your app at http://aka.ms/appmadnessappsubmission

Step 3: Promote the App

Get a 100 downloads for your app to qualify to win an additional $50. Confirm 100 downloads at http://aka.ms/appmadnessdownloads

Free C# Training for Beginners and Forgetful Experts

Last year, I sat down with my colleague and friend Daren May for to create a Microsoft Virtual Academy training series that beginner developers could use to get a solid introduction to C#, called Programming in C#.

This course steams through the myriad of C# features and concepts, giving a comprehensive survey of the topic to would-be students. It was brilliant for me to have to remember all these things that made me love C# in the first place, and a chance to introduce new developers and remind seasoned ones.

I hope you like it.

Choosing between Visual Basic and C#

Here’s an awesome question I was recently asked:

So far, our line-of-business apps are in Visual Basic. We are moving to Visual Studio 2013. On the internet, we find more samples in C# than Visual Basic. What language should we choose?

The overarching principle here is that an enterprise needs to have an established, common technical architecture and set of development standards – including language. Having said that, every enterprise should also have a roadmap for change adoption, adjusting to trends and upending long-held traditions for the sake of the enterprise and their developers.

Vanity domains and Outlook.com

Outlook.com is awesome. It is super-fast with hyper-advanced features that sort of make Yahoo!, Gmail, and AOL a great fit for your grandparents, but not you. Not tech-savvy you. What’s better is Outlook.com is free. Now you get an awesome web, comprehensive Office Outlook integration, Xbox integration, Windows Phone integration, and Microsoft Account integration for nothing.

To be completely open, Outlook.com is Microsoft’s attempt to shed that Hotmail vibe. Though Hotmail was great, people started to see Hotmail like Gmail and AOL. Perception is reality, after all. To some, Hotmail looked less professional to send your resume from – solely based on the domain. Enter Outlook.com. A new email domain that ships with a wholly updated backend service.

3 inevitable things; a glimpse into the future of our industry

In our industry, the future is uncertain. As technology gets more complex, employment seems assured. But as technology gets more complex, perhaps a unified theory of technology will emerge, wiping away the need for keyboard monkeys pounding out apps. It’s just uncertain. But in the short-term, there are three inevitable things. And, here they are.

Do you know Microsoft’s brands?

Now, this is just for fun. Over the years, Microsoft has commissioned hundreds of logos to brand their products and properties. Sometimes they are good. Sometimes they are great. But a great logo doesn’t mean the brand will survive. Take a look at this image. Can you identify them all? Get them all correct and I’ll ship you an Xbox Two as soon as it launches!*

Best of luck!

* I will never ship you an Xbox Two.

At last! A replacement to the Microsoft 7000. Thank you!

About 80 years ago (more like 10) Microsoft released the Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000. The keyboard, mouse combo was unparalleled in ergonomic value. A culmination in ergonomic research, the 7000 was superior for several reasons!