Nov 28, 2013

Windows 8.1 brings in over 5000 new APIs and features. Of course, many of these new APIs are not to be used directly in the code you write, but there is a significant amount of exciting new stuff that will affect your day by day work as a Windows Developer. For example, there are a bunch of new controls both for HTML with Javascript and XAML with C# apps development. To name a few, we have the Flyout, MenuFlyout, Hub, CommandBar, DatePicker and TimePicker, which I'll go through shortly. These controls are classes with a good number of members, all contributing to the mentioned 5000 new APIs.

New Features in Windows 8.1

The Flyout control displays a lightweight UI for collecting information or just for displaying warnings or confirmations that can be dismissed by tapping, clicking outside of it, or pressing ESC. You can declare the Flyout as a resource and then associate it with different buttons. Inside the Flyout, you can add all the controls you need for the UI and organise the layout as you see fit. The MenuFlyout (pictured left) inherits from the same base class of Flyout and allows you to temporarily show a list of commands or options. You can use the MenuFlyout in the same way as the Flyout. With this, the UI is simpler as it consists only of occurrences of MenuFlyoutItem, ToggleFlyoutItem and MenuFlyoutSeparator. The Hub control makes it easier to implement the hub design pattern for your app. The Hub contains any number of HubSection controls, each one with its own DataTemplate, allowing you to have full control of the layout of the data you will display inside the HubSection. The data you pass to each HubSection can come from different data sources. This gives the Hub enormous flexibility when compared with a GridView or ListView which only accept data from a single source. The CommandBar makes it easy to create a basic app bar. You can add commands (app bar button controls) to either one of two collections: the PrimaryCommands, shown on the right of the app bar, or the SecondaryCommands, shown on the left of the app bar. The buttons will resize automatically when the app size changes and the labels associated with them will only be displayed when the app size allows it. The DatePicker (pictured left) allows users to pick a date using touch, mouse, or the keyboard. The control will use the correct calendar for your app’s default language, or you can set its CalendarIdentifier property. You can customise the look of the control, but the default settings are suitable for most situations, minimising the amount of XAML you need to set up for the control. The TimePicker works in a similar way. Controls are certainly not the only additions to the Windows API. There are new APIs to capture and process media; DirectX 11.2 can now be used for your games and graphics apps, and there are improvements in real-time communications. Besides these exciting new controls, a number of existing controls have been improved in terms of features and/or performance. One control that improved considerably is the WebView control. You use it to display HTML content embedded in a XAML window or page. It behaves in a more sensible way now, and many tricks you had to do previously are a thing of the past. Windows 8.1 is definitely not just a cosmetic upgrade from Windows 8.0. To read more about the new Windows 8.1 features for developers visit the Windows Dev Center. Alternatively, if you'd like to gain some practical skills and training in this area, I recommend that you look into New Horizons' 20687: Configuring Windows 8.1 Microsoft Official Course.