Developing for Windows Phone 7 Series

If you want to take a look at the new development approach behind Windows Phone 7 Series go to developer.windowsphone.com web site and download the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010  Express for Windows Phone. This is a free development environment for the latest mobile platform from Microsoft. It is till in CTP status.

The environment allows you to develop applications targeted to Windows Phone 7 Series only. It provides the following :

• Tools to develop mobile applications based on Silverlight For Windows Phone (out-of-web-browser)
• XAML based UI
• Expression Blend  may be used to design UI
• Support for mutli-touch input, microphone,accelerometer is available through API
• Location services on the phone and in the cloud through Windows Azure
• Isolated data storage on the device
• Media support: discovery, enumeration and playback
• Cloud services integration: Notifications,Location,Identity, Feeds Social and Maps,Azure through REST and SOAP
• Debug in the emulator and in physical device
• Apps publishing through Marketplace in the form of .xap files
• Tools to develop mobile applications based on XNA Game Studio 4.0
• Development of loop-based games (2D and 3D) supporting Windows Phone 7 Series and Xbox 360

 

The environment contains Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator ,which allows you to start playing with the bit right now. We are waiting for real devices later this year.
Compatibility for legacy ( .NET Compact framework 3.5) apps is not supported – at least on a binary level.
The MIX 2010 is still in progress, so wait for more details around the developer story.

The post is short, but I’ve just started playing with the CTP bits so stay tuned for more info.

System.Web.Mvc.HtmlHelper<object> does not contain a definition for ActionLink

 

I spent some time playing with ASP.NET MVC 2 RC . Everything was smooth and nice until I tried to upload my simple app on a “production” server.

The app its self was a basic test app without any valuable functionality , but I wanted to test the deployment process of such an app.

So I copied the  files on the machine and made some configuration changes on the web server. I opened my web browser, hit the app and KA-BOOOOM …… I got the yellow screen of pain:

 

NOTES: my server has .NET 3.5 SP1 installed and System.Web.MVC.dll 2.0 registered in GAC.

All my trials to find a solution from someone else failed. I’ve checked if  I have all the needed namespaces in the <pages>/<namespaces> tag. I’ve checked if my app is configured to work

I’ve checked if I have the right assemblies deployed on the machine. Still no success!

 

Fortunately, I had a luck and found the problem my self by exploring the Web.config file. I found that I had by mistake replaced a symbol in the CompilerVersion string

 

So I replaced the “?” symbol with “p” and the yellow screen disappeared.