Building Awesome Apps for Windows 7
Went to the Building Awesome Apps for Windows 7 'community tour' yesterday evening, hosted by Richard Campbell (of .NET Rocks! fame).
This was basically a quick run through of what's available in the Windows API Code Pack, with some hints as to how (and when) to implement the new bells and whistles available in Windows 7.
Here's what I took away from the talk:
- All the taskbar improvements (jump lists, overlays, progress bars...) are easy to use, but just provide eye-candy. I do think that the thumbnail buttons are pretty cool if you have a use for them, though.
- Restart and Recovery is nifty, and not only useful for program crashes. Having your app 'come back from the dead' on the morning after patch Tuesday is a great idea.
- The touch API is not so easy, but the Surface SDK is. Unless you're interested in fine control over the intricacies of the touch API, pass over it and just use the tools provided for Microsoft Surface.
- There are ways of laying out an application that make life easier for touch users without specifically programming for touch. A nice observation.
- Liquid cooled computing can have disastrous results. Thanks for that, Richard.