With every release comes a set of release notes that reflects the state of resolved bugs and new additions from the previous release. You’ll find the notes useful to help determine the resolution of existing issues from a past release and as a means of determining where to test your applications when upgrading from one version to the next.

Release notes are available in both PDF and Excel formats. The PDF summarizes the changes to this release along with a listing of each item. The Excel sheet includes each change item and makes it easy for you to sort, filter and otherwise manipulate the data to your liking.

Download the Release Notes

Ignite UI 2014 Volume 1

• PDF (Ignite UI 2014 Volume 1, Build 14.1.20141.2692)
• Excel (Ignite UI 2014 Volume 1, Build 14.1.20141.2692)

Ignite UI 2014 Volume 2

• PDF (Ignite UI 2014 Volume 2, Build 14.2.20142.2318)
• Excel (Ignite UI 2014 Volume 2, Build 14.2.20142.2318)

With every release comes a set of release notes that reflects the state of resolved bugs and new additions from the previous release. You’ll find the notes useful to help determine the resolution of existing issues from a past release and as a means of determining where to test your applications when upgrading from one version to the next.

Release notes are available in both PDF and Excel formats. The PDF summarizes the changes to this release along with a listing of each item. The Excel sheet includes each change item and makes it easy for you to sort, filter and otherwise manipulate the data to your liking.

Download the Release Notes

ASP.NET 2014 Volume 1

• PDF (ASP.NET 2014 Volume 1, Build 14.1.20141.2392)
• Excel (ASP.NET 2014 Volume 1, Build 14.1.20141.2392)

ASP.NET 2014 Volume 2

• PDF (ASP.NET 2014 Volume 2, Build 14.2.20142.2317)
• Excel (ASP.NET 2014 Volume 2, Build 14.2.20142.2317)

C# is becoming an increasingly important language for mobile development, with or without Windows. Check out our latest infographic to learn more!

Share With The Code Below!

This is a guest post by Mark Wilcox of VisionMobile. Mark is a developer who has worked on everything from the lowest level smartphone firmware to games and apps that sell pizza. He’s also a project leader with a focus on lean methods and a consultant who loves rapid prototyping, app economics and business models. Mark uses this experience to interpret the latest stats about the app industry as a Senior Analyst at VisionMobile. You can follow him @__MarkW__.

     Microsoft’s Patterns and Practices team announced today that they are about to undergo a change. In the past, the team has focused on creating and giving guidance on most major Microsoft platforms. Today however, the team has announced that they have decided to focus primarily on Microsoft’s Azure, which is their cloud platform. Although the team is essentially “narrowing” their focus, they believe that in actuality that they are expanding their focus for they will now be looking at different platforms, languages, and technologies which they were not working with previously. While the team’s overall focus is shifting away from its major platforms, specifically Prism in regards to this article, clients and developers should not fear that there will no longer be support for their projects.

     So who exactly will be driving the Prism-based client work that the Patterns and Practices team has been focusing on for years? Patterns and Practices will be handing over ownership of their Prism projects and frameworks to three individuals whom they refer to as “passionate and dedicated” community members. One of these three individuals who will be taking ownership of the Prism framework is Brian Lagunas, a member of our team here at Infragistics. Brian is currently a Product Manager for Infragistics’ award winning XAML product line as well as a Microsoft MVP, a Microsoft Patterns & Practices Champion, author, speaker, and original creator of the Extended WPF Toolkit. Brian’s involvement with Patterns and Practices began with Prism 2, and he later became a valued member of the Prism Advisory Board.  Brian’s years of experience and commitment to the Prism project has led him to speak as an expert about Prism at different events and conferences around the world, as well as provide personal training on Prism and author courses on Prism for Pluralsight.

     In addition to Brian’s expertise in Prism, the two other accomplished individuals who will be taking ownership with him are Ariel Ben-Horesh and Brian Noyes. Both-Horesh and Noyes have been a part of Prism from the start, and have seen much success in their time as team members from contributing directly to the design and implementation of Prism to building several Prism-based applications that can be found in the Windows Store. Between the expertise, experience and passion of these three individuals, there is no need to fret the change of ownership. While Microsoft will not be developing future releases of Prism, Patterns and Practices expect a strong continuity for the projects due to the significant contributions that the new owners have been making since the beginning. More information on the change of ownership, specifically in regards to Prism, can be found here on Brian Lagunas’ blog, as well as here [insert Microsoft’s announcement link] on Microsoft’s official announcement. Congratulations to Brian, as well as the other two new owners of the Prism frameworks!   

Follow the new owners on Twitter:

Brian Lagunas: @BrianLagunas

Ariel Ben-Horesh: @ArielBH

Brian Noyes: @BrianNoyes

Competition in the mobile app space becomes fiercer every day. There are more and more applications crowding the marketplace, and everyone seems to want a piece of the proverbial pie. However, many developers continue devoting their time to open source projects, and are happy just knowing that their applications are helping the greater community of their peers. What motivates these entrepreneurial, yet philanthropic developers? Infragistics Marketing Communications Analyst, Dara Monasch, spoke to the lead developer of open source app, Mobilesiz.es, Darren Barklie, to dive into his team’s motivations as well as get a little information about their app!

1. You say that Mobilesiz.es was conceived on a scrap of paper 12 months ago. Can you share more of the story around how the app concept was developed?
   
   Since NIFTIT was founded around 18 months ago, we had always spoke of a collective ambition to build products, as well as contribute to the open source community.  Khoa and Dom (NIFTIT co-founders) threw around a few ideas to be considered by the wider team.  As frontend designers and developers, we thought we would find the mobile statistics web app the most useful for ourselves day to day.  So that initial scrap of paper was expanded to wire-frames, then full designs and eventually a fully-developed web app.
   
   
2. Why did you decide to go open source with Mobilesiz.es? Can you tell us a little bit about your involvement in the open source community?
   
   We have the greatest respect for the open source software community.  Like most devs, so much of our daily workflow is made up of open source/free software; from operating systems down to jQuery plugins, via web browsers and content management systems.  That these resources remain free and so widely-accessible is what really drives innovation on the web.  While Mobilesiz.es is a modest contribution, we are still hopeful that it is a worthwhile addition to ease and/or hasten fellow designers and developers workflows.
   
   
3. What was the best part of developing Mobilesiz.es?
   
   Working from a completely blank canvas!  While it can be as intimidating as it is exciting, I really enjoyed the freedom afforded to the team that typically doesn’t come from working with a client.  It’s quite a different process to create something from nothing.
   
   
4. Was wireframing always part of the application development plan? How important do you find wireframing was to this project, if at all?
   
   As mentioned, starting with nil content and having to conceptualize every functionality and design decision is much different than working with a client or providing a service.  Wireframing proved essential to exploring the scope of our functionality and to allow the team to make early design decisions.  Making these decisions early, before essentially “skinning” our solution with a final aesthetic, avoided any headaches later in development.
   
   
5. You selected AngularJS for this project specifically due to the two-way data binding functionality; do you have any tips or tricks to share now that you’ve written the app, either about that functionality specifically or AngularJS in general?
   
   With AngularJS: know what you want to do before you do it.  With jQuery we are used to writing HTML and then manipulating it in the DOM, whereas Angular forces you to take a different approach. The functionality needs to be written into the HTML.  While this is more modular and structured, it can be difficult if you are used to writing jQuery scripts.
   
   
6. Can you share the biggest challenge you encountered while developing Mobilesiz.es?
   
   Like responsive design, learning to be extremely fluid and adaptable throughout the development process proved to be the biggest challenge – but also the most worthwhile learning experience.  Since this was a side project, we couldn’t always be as consistent with our attention as creating a product perhaps deserves.  So it was necessary to maintain agility with both our timing and our attention.  Since there was never a right or wrong way to solve a problem, we also had to adapt this flexibility in problem-solving and solution-finding. 
   
   
7. What do you anticipate Mobilesiz.es being most used for?
   
   Hopefully our concept is focused enough that it is used exactly as it was conceived: as a quick-fire tool for designers and developers to retrieve key mobile device information.
   
   
8. What has the most interesting use case been so far for Mobilesiz.es?
   
   To generalize our internal user testing experiences, I think what has been most notable is how quickly people find the device they want.  Our search functionality is really quick to respond, and the filters are easy to interpret and enjoyable to use.
   
   
9. You mention that Mobilesiz.es aims to provide data to its users in 3-8 seconds and less than three clicks. How did you decide on these metrics?
   
   We knew that for Mobilesiz.es to be a useful tool to the community, it only had to do one thing, but do it really well.  In this case, our chief metric was the timing it took from the user landing on our page to retrieving the device information they required.  That’s why we accommodate so many different filtering options that can be utilized simultaneously.  The metrics you mention were based on in-house testing.  Should the tool gain some wide-spread use, we would consider monitoring these metrics much more closely to aid future improvement.
   
   
10. What do you think your next project will be?
    
    It’s already in progress, but I don’t think we’re in a position to reveal it yet!  Lessons learned from the experience of building Mobilesiz.es have refined my approach to this next project, which is much bigger in scale and ambition.
    
    
11. Do you have any advice for developers who are considering starting their first open source project?
    
    I think that my advice would be to maintain your focus on doing one thing and doing it as well as you possibly can.  Identify a single problem and provide a single stream-lined and user-friendly solution.  The process of identifying the whole problem, moving through the design of a solution, before coding, testing, releasing and marketing your product will provide you with a full body of experience that will serve any developer well as they further their career.  As a user, I love sites that I can rely on for just that one task; favourites including spritecow.com, flaticon.com and work3hours.com.
    
    
12. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
    
    Just to recognize the wider team of NIFTers that supported the process from paper to product; special thanks to Nghi, Craig, Courtney, Dom, Jessica and Khoa.  I’d also like to point out that Mobilesiz.es is forkable on Github, should any devs wish to contribute to the project and/or report any bugs; we’re keen to improve the product to ensure it is the best resource online for finding key mobile device information.
    
    

So there you have it! Thank you so much to Darren and the Mobilesiz.es team for sharing their story with me, and letting me share it with all of you!

If you have an open source application or another venture that you think the Infragistics community would like to hear about, please reach out to Dara and let her know!

Bryan Downing over at Quantlabs recently featured Infragistics finance dashboard sample applications in a recent post - take a look!

[youtube] width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yY2XgyjOsXk" [/youtube]

If you've read my other articles you might have realized I have a particular interest in how science and the study of perception can aid us in creating effective visualizations; visualizations in which the viewer can quickly and clearly see the important patterns encoded within and not be mislead by errant artifacts. But that doesn't mean that visualization design should be based entirely on matters of perception. Seemingly arbitrary conventions should not be forgotten, as the examples below aim to demonstrate.

Temporal conventions

There may be nothing inherently wrong with the chart below in terms of our ability to perceive patterns. However, the majority of times-series charts you are likely to see will have the time component increasing horizontally from left to right.

This convention may be related to writing conventions: Fuhrman and Boroditsky found that English speakers (who write from left to right (obviously)) tend to perceive time as increasing in the same direction, while Hebrew speakers (who write from right to left) favor time going from right to left. (That paper is a very interesting read; unfortunately it does use bar charts that don't start at 0.) Meanwhile, Bergen and Lau found that some Taiwanese speakers (then resident in America) envisioned time as running from top to bottom, in line with the predominant direction of writing in Taiwan (at the time).

Whether or not you want to take these results and follow them to the letter is probably a matter for debate, but if your data is predominantly to be viewed by a Western audience you are best off following the left to right convention (below) unless you have a very good reason not to.

A second temporal issue is with textual labeling. If you're presenting data to a foreign audience, be aware of differences in formatting of numerical dates. Note that this is not a purely West versus East difference or an English versus not-English difference. Take the time series below. Is the time-gap between each tick a day (ie the first tick is January 4th, the second is January 5th...), a month (the first tick is April the 1st, the second tick is May the 1st...) or a year (the first tick is January 2004, the second tick is January 2005...)? Clearly it's important to be explicit with dates. Ideally use axis labels that are unambiguous, failing that use a more meaningful axis or main title to clarify.

Color conventions

Conventions are also relevant to choosing an appropriate selection of colors. Some color conventions come about naturally - the sea is blue, land is green or brown - and others appear to be arbitrary or a result of branding. Differences abound across cultures.

Take a look at the map below. It may appear to show an island at its center. In fact that's the black sea and the blue protuberance at the top is the Crimean Peninsula. A map with an actual purpose is likely to have other additions to make it more useful - cities, roads, places of historical interest - and these may make it clearer what is land and what is water. But reversing the conventions still serves no useful purpose. That doesn't mean that maps should follow the blue-green convention (there are plenty of useful maps that don't), just not invert it.

I've mentioned previously the dangers of using green for positive or affirmative outcomes and red for negative ones. To recap, because of the relatively high-prevalence of red-green color vision deficiencies (aka color blindness) anything up to ~10% of your audience might struggle. But using red and green for the reverse encodings (below) could well confuse and inadvertently mislead most of your audience.

Political parties also have associated colors. In the UK, the Conservatives are blue and Labour red. The association between Republicans and red states and Democrats and blue states is much more recent. Now this convention seems enshrined it would be unwise to go against: if we color code charts using these "brand" colors, readers who know the context may well not even bother to read the labels. (I think it's also reasonable to argue there's a good case for ignoring the second "rule" in my 7 Do's and Dont's of Dataviz article here.)

Andy Kirk at visualizing data recently conducted a (perhaps not entirely scientific) poll regarding the convention of using blue for males and pink for females. The results suggested this particular convention may not be appreciated. Avoiding gender stereotypes seems like a good idea. The lesson to take from above is that, if you're going to use an alternative pairing of colors, make sure you pick a pair that is significantly different from just inverting the stereotype.

This past week was a goldmine for web dev articles, so it's no surprise that the top two are from that genre! Enjoy!

5. Microsoft Azure Beats Amazon and Google for Mobile Development (IT World)

4. On Secretly Terrible Engineers (Tech Crunch)

3. The 5 Pillars of Interaction Design (The Next Web)

2. The Things You Need to Know to Do Web Development (Typical Programmer)

1. Why Angular is Not Only for Single Page Web Apps (DZone)

The issue

   Upon running the installer for any version of TestAdvantage 2007 volume 2 and earlier, you receive a message similar to this. 
Mercury Interactive QuickTestProfessional Version Check
Fatal Error found 
With one or both of QuickTest Professional version, and .NET Add-in versions will be identified as 0.0 

Why this is an issue

     To stem issues with the installation of TestAdvantage, we put in our installer tests to see that you have QuickTest Professional installed, a valid version of it that supports our product, and the .NET add-in that is required to properly use TestAdvantage. To verify this information we tested the registry entries that QuickTest Professional added upon installation, and the installation of it's .NET add-in.

     As of the release of QuickTest Professional 9.5, in 2008, they changed what registry entries that were added upon installation, which caused our installers to fail to recognize our product. We fixed all the installers of our supported products at the time, TestAdvantage 2007 volume 3 and up, to accommodate for the change, but older versions of TestAdvantage installer will fail to install. 

     Similarly you may get this issue on 64 bit Windows OS. As at the time we only checked the default registry area, and with 64 bit Windows OS's the registry entries are put in a different part of the registry.

How to resolve this issue  

As our installers check the registry, the way to bypass the issue is to alter the registry so that it finds what it expects to find. You can either manually open the registry and change the locations yourself, or copy the below text and place it in a text file with the extension of .reg and run it. 

32 bit Registry file changes

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mercury Interactive\QuickTest Professional\CustComponent\QuickTest Professional\CurrentVersion]
"Major"="9"
"Minor"="2"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mercury Interactive\QuickTest Professional\CustComponent\.NET Add-in\CurrentVersion]
"DotNET_Add_in"="C:\\Program Files\\Mercury Interactive\\QuickTest Professional"
"Major"="9"
"Minor"="2"

64 bit Registry file changes

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Mercury Interactive\QuickTest Professional\CustComponent\QuickTest Professional\CurrentVersion]
"Major"="9"
"Minor"="2"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Mercury Interactive\QuickTest Professional\CustComponent\.NET Add-in\CurrentVersion]
"DotNET_Add_in"="C:\\Program Files\\Mercury Interactive\\QuickTest Professional"
"Major"="9"
"Minor"="2"

Microsoft was slow to react to the step change in user experience provided by iOS and Android versus the first generation smartphone platforms. Windows Phone was then late to market and has finished a distant third in the smartphone platform wars. Smartphone adoption was consumer led and in the race to catch up, Windows Phone skipped some enterprise-friendly features that left it out of the running for business adoption too. In tablets, Windows RT was largely rejected by the market and Intel processor based devices running Windows 8 have only managed a weak third place in the market so far. In terms of their share of the mobile OS market, Microsoft is a long way behind Apple and Google. However, as enterprises are increasingly making big investments in mobile, Microsoft still has a significant opportunity.

If you can’t beat them, join them

Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, has made it clear that the company’s focus is now mobile first and cloud first. This includes aggressively rolling out their services across iOS and Android. In fact they already have more than 100 apps across the two platforms and that number is growing fast. Nadella has not been hesitant to acquire technology where previous strategy has left gaps. The new Outlook apps for iOS and Android are based on the Acompli apps that Microsoft acquired late last year. These will likely be enhanced in the near future with the technology from the recently-acquired calendar app, Sunrise.

In addition to filling out their offering and buying in talent for their competitors platforms, they have also moved to protect their dominance in productivity software with free Microsoft Office for consumers on mobile platforms. To sweeten the deal for those who pay, they’ve added unlimited storage via OneDrive. They then removed reasons to switch by opening up to competing storage solutions such as Dropbox and Box. Following the old adage that the best form of defense is a good offense, these moves help keep Microsoft’s central position in the daily life of business users while starving startups hoping to topple them of revenue. No one without Microsoft’s scale can compete directly on price while offering similar value.

Developers, developers, developers!

The other key to protecting Microsoft’s core enterprise revenues is keeping their technology stack at the heart of enterprise app development. For this to happen, third party enterprise app developers need to stick with .NET and related tools to build apps for iOS and Android. Developer loyalty is where Microsoft has been very strong. VisionMobile’s Developer Economics surveys repeatedly show Windows Phone with massively higher developer mindshare than the installed base of devices merits. That mindshare also continues to grow despite ongoing lack of traction with device sales.

One of the reasons for this developer loyalty is that Microsoft makes top class developer tools. They’ve invested heavily in this area for a very long time and most developers don’t want to downgrade their tools and productivity in order to target another platform. While Microsoft didn’t do the groundwork necessary to let developers target iOS and Android with their tools, Xamarin did. Microsoft and Xamarin have a global partnership to enable C# developers (and to some extent, Visual Basic developers) to target iOS and Android via Visual Studio. Microsoft open sourced their state-of-the-art Roslyn compiler technology for .NET, presumably mainly so that Xamarin could integrate it. It seems likely that the partnership between the two companies will deepen at some point, probably through investment or acquisition. In any case, it seems to be working. In the Q1 2015 Developer Economics survey, Xamarin was the second most popular cross-platform tool, behind only PhoneGap/Cordova. The survey data also shows that C# is clearly on the rise as a language for mobile development.

Next best thing

If you can’t own the OS and platform APIs, then the next best thing is to own the developer tooling and thus the key relationship with developers. If you want to introduce or drive new features or standards (that don’t require new hardware or OS level support) then it’s the developer relationship you need to own rather than the platform itself. Arguably a lot of innovation in mobile going forward will be achieved through cloud services and Microsoft would love to own those APIs. This only goes so far in the consumer space, where Apple and Google can veto Microsoft’s moves at the public app store interface. However, in the enterprise, where most apps are not distributed via the public app stores, anything goes. This is where Microsoft’s biggest mobile opportunity lies, and it’s also where the bulk of the revenue in app development will end up. If Microsoft can keep a huge pool of developers fed and happy on mobile, then they’ll be in a much better position for whatever comes next in computing.

This is a guest post by Mark Wilcox of VisionMobile. Mark is a developer who has worked on everything from the lowest level smartphone firmware to games and apps that sell pizza. He’s also a project leader with a focus on lean methods and a consultant who loves rapid prototyping, app economics and business models. Mark uses this experience to interpret the latest stats about the app industry as a Senior Analyst at VisionMobile. You can follow him @__MarkW__.

Cast your mind back to your first mobile phone. Or more specifically the phone charger that the vendor had packaged with it. If you ever tried to charge your handset at a friend’s house or at the office, you may have encountered the irritation of an incompatible phone charger. However, think more recently about the last phone you purchased and the chances are that you’ll not have experienced this inconvenience. 

Why not? Probably due to the standardization of mobile phone chargers, which has been agreed upon by a number of telecommunications companies. The issues of having complicated, vendor specific nuances and the conveniences offered by standardization is what we’ll be discussing in this blog post. Specifically, we’ll be looking at the development of an application standards group that wants to make positive changes to how applications are developed. This movement is being headed up by Xamarin. These guys (alongside others) are trying to become the standard bearer for cross device development, so this development is both a positive step forward for them and the wider industry.   

We think that’s ACE!

Xamarin and several other vendors (including Box, Cisco, VMware and Workday) recently outlined the plans to move away from an SDK based application development towards something more universal at the March 2015 Mobile World Congress (in Barcelona). The name of this enterprise level application group seems to be quite fitting; it’s called is ACE (App Configuration for Enterprise), and ace it is.

ACE is a standard intended to promote several aims, with a lot of changes being given to rolling up security and management features into applications. These changes can be summarized as follows:

• Allowing vendors and developers to automate the first-time setup experience with enhanced application configuration capabilities
• Enforcing application secure app connectivity to corporate networks with app specific tunnels
• Providing a single sign-on apparatus with a view of avoiding separate user login requirements on an app by app basis
• Allowing access to native apps only on secure, compliant devices with access control
• Preventing data leakage with a flexible set of security policies including open in and copy/paste controls
• Wiping corporate data remotely from lost or stolen devices

The current approach to readying Enterprise level applications has always been a very fragmented experience. As ACE is the first industry-wide solution that can alleviate this problem regardless of its intended usage, it should be viewed positively. Mobile applications are, if we’re being candid, what make mobility programs successful. As such, ACE is an important and powerful catalyst in enabling empowerment for a greater number of firms with the updated, enterprise-ready apps they need regardless of their deployment structure.

Simplification for developers

As an app developer, the first port of call for developing an application is normally a software development kit (SDK). In many instances, this is no bad thing. An SDK includes literature examples and many other general details for getting started.  This may lead to you wanting to ask what’s the need of having them replaced?

We’d answer that an SDK is only vendor specific, so the line of thinking from ACE is a valid one.  They offer this by using a standard framework and plugging into application programming interfaces (APIs) from Android and Apple's iOS so that mobility management tools will be easier to integrate. With ACE, developers will also be able to cut time and costs when they develop enterprise apps as they’ll not need to create multiple versions of the same tool using different SDKs.

Simplification for administrators

The last three items on the bullet point list above can also contribute to how effectively IT administrators are doing their work. Firstly, knowing that there is a maintainable list of authorized devices that connect to applications on terms laid out by IT security’s access controls should be reassuring to all stakeholders. 

Secondly, having this feature being backed up by standardized security policies and the ability to remotely wipe devices in a fashion that which is universal regardless of who made the device ensures a quicker response time to any data loss. It also means that administrators will have less work to do in familiarizing themselves with various devices and their configurations, as ACE will give them a platform for tackling any issues they’ll potentially face.

A more unified future for the industry

We think that the development of ACE can only be a good thing. Standardization and streamlined processes will help application development mature to levels that can only be beneficial, not just for IT staff but to the end user.  For these efforts, Xamarin and their peer companies should be applauded.

Hardly a day goes by without new programs, products or updates being released from the tech sector, which certainly lives up to its dynamic nature. Last Thursday was no different, as Microsoft’s Patterns and Practices team announced that they will be shifting away their focus from the PRISM project and concentrating more on Microsoft’s Azure - their cloud platform. You can read more about the change in our blog post on that topic.

The change will have no effect on clients and developers, as ownership of the PRISM projects and frameworks will be given to three ‘’passionate, dedicated‘’ and highly accomplished Microsoft community members: Ariel Ben-Horesh, Brian Noyes, and Infragistics’ very own Product Manager of our market-leading XAML product line, Brian Lagunas. Brian has impressive knowledge and experience in the field and has been involved with Patterns and Practices since the launch of PRISM 2. He has been an expert speaker about PRISM at various international events and conferences and also provides personal training on the project and author courses on PRISM for Pluralsight.

Both Brian Lagunas and Brian Noyes joined this week’s episode of one of our favorite radio shows - Dot.Net Rocks! - where they talked about PRISM, its evolution and composability, and their ownership of the project now. The conversation touched on PRISM’s core nature, which is a set a of tools for building WPF apps and helping you organize your application in a more manageable and easier to test mode, its support for Windows Phone and Universal apps, and other PRISM-related topics. Rather than give away more, why not check it out for yourself? We hope you enjoy!

As any mobile app developer knows, clients with little programming knowledge tend to expect miracles from our work. Of course, we do pretty neat things but we’re often asked to build apps and develop stunning interfaces by people who have a limited understanding of how this is actually done and just how complex it can be. Used to instantly accessing apps on their devices, they expect these can simply be pulled out of the air and consequently expect apps to be built within short time frames and to limited budgets. This can be irritating (to put it lightly), and it’s important to let people know just what is and isn’t possible. Nonetheless, in a world of on-demand access, finding more efficient routes to building apps can only contribute to enriching your skillset.

Built with the modern, high pressure workplace in mind, Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms let you work more efficiently and boost your productivity by simplifying cross-platform app development. In this post we’ll be looking at what they can offer you and how they help bring projects to closure quicker. Clients might not understand what you do or how you do it, but by using Xamarin you can be sure they’ll be amazed by your output.

What is Xamarin?

Xamarin is an API which lets you build apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone in one place, in one language (C#). Rather than having to write code in three different languages for the different operating systems, Xamarin brings all this into one place. From one code base it configures your apps to the particular architecture of the different platforms as if written natively. Put simply, this means you can develop apps in much less time and at a fraction of the cost of alternative cross-platform app development methods. Because the code base for all three systems is written in C# you can also maintain it, iron out bugs and introduce updates far more easily throughout the app’s life cycle.

If Xamarin takes care of the ‘functional’ side of things, Xamarin.Forms takes cross platform development to the next level by allowing you to share design code across devices too. With Xamarin.Forms you can write in either C# or XAML and apply your rich, visually stunning and interactive UI design across platforms. This cuts out the additional work of developing UI on different systems and again makes your job quicker, builds smoother and clients happier.

Why we think you’ll love Xamarin

Here at Infragistics we pride ourselves on creating state of the art UX controls and recognize just how useful Xamarin is for UX designers. We’ve put together five reasons why we love Xamarin and why we reckon you’ll be pretty impressed too:

1. C# - The best language for mobile app development

Xamarin uses C# as the code base from which apps are then configured to different platforms. Why’s that? Simply because C# is the best code for cross-platform app-development. In C# you can do anything you’d do in Java, Objective-C or Swift. It uses type inference to give developers more safety in fewer keystrokes, boasts asynchronous programming and functions such as lambdas are super simple.

2. Use the same code across different platforms

When you develop with Xamarin, on average 75% of your app’s code will be shared across platforms. Of course, each system will need some platform specific C# development, but just take a moment to think about how much time you’ll save when building apps for different platforms.

3. Reach the market sooner

With Xamarin.Forms you’ll be building native User Interfaces for iOS Android and Windows Phone using 100% shared C#, meaning you can release apps simultaneously in all the different stores.

4. User interfaces that look and feel as users expect

The first rule of UX is that when end users interact with your product they should barely notice how smooth and satisfying it is to use. Consumers will be confused and may even reject an app which doesn’t respond as they expect it to. You might think that sharing a code base across different platforms would lead to issues around UI not feeling quite right, yet Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms excel at creating a native experience despite all apps being built in C#. For the business app developer Infragistics have combined our UX expertise with Xamarin to let you incorporate stunning UI controls with your Xamarin.Forms builds.

5. The bottom line

We know that clients expect apps to be designed faster than ever and at a lower cost. Xamarin is a real helping hand here and lets you achieve targets efficiently and effectively.

App development for the 21st century

Developing apps across platforms is a highly complex task and, until now, has been a real headache. Whether it’s writing the code, finding bugs or maintaining apps, Xamarin makes development easier and more efficient. We love Xamarin for its simplicity and scope for improving app development and reckon you will too!

Introduction

With every release comes a set of release notes that reflects the state of resolved bugs and new additions from the previous release. You’ll find the notes useful to help determine the resolution of existing issues from a past release and as a means of determining where to test your applications when upgrading from one version to the next.

Release Notes: NucliOS 2014 Volume 1 Build 139 and NucliOS 2014 Volume 2 Build 295

By Torrey Betts

Any developer who has had to design apps for different mobile platforms will know just how time consuming writing code for different operating systems is. Any developer who’s ever mastered different languages for APIs will know just how cumbersome a task this can be, and any developer who’s wanted to test their apps on different devices or upload them to the App stores will be aware of just how frustrating this process often becomes.

While the emergence of the iTunes store and its Android and Windows rivals has produced a revolution in the app development industry it has also produced new difficulties. With over one and a quarter million apps in the major App stores and counting, consumers have an unprecedented access to tools which correspond to practically any desire.

For developers, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. On the one hand, their designs can now reach potentially millions of end-users, bringing in enormous potential for growth. On the other hand, standing out among the crowd and designing apps which will reach consumers quickly, efficiently and smoothly is harder than ever.

Given this context, Xamarin.Forms was designed to help professionals write apps in a faster, more agile way. It provides an API where designs are written in one popular language (C#) and which are then rendered to the characteristics of different OS’ making them feel native for end-users of different interfaces. When deciding if a tool like Xamarin is relevant for you, it’s worth considering when you’d use it, how it works and if it really corresponds with your targets.

When does Xamarin.Forms come into its own?

When writing code for iOS, Android and Windows, it’s a bugbear of the development community that they’re required to modify their designs for the different systems. Unless you want to run the risk of writing a code in one language and deploying it to the different stores only for users to report that it felt the UX was not native, building apps separately for each platform is more or less unavoidable.

The problem here, as ever, is time. We all have deadlines and the rapidly expanding and evolving App Store is a highly competitive environment. The risk of slow development is of course that another company will have the same idea as you and get it to market sooner. Otherwise, you may also face the real danger that your competitors will take your app written for iOS and quickly release an Android or Windows version and gain legitimacy with consumers before your app is even ready.

Because it writes code for all Operating Systems in C# and in one API, Xamarin.Forms helps developers write then deploy their work to the App Stores quicker. Practically, this means you can get an app written for all the stores in a considerably shorter timeframe.

What do you get in the box?

Xamarin.Forms offers a complete environment for mobile App development, from writing, to testing to deploying in the stores.

C#, the best tool for mobile App development:

• Uses type inference, meaning developers type less and in more security
• Language level async - keeps apps responsive
• Stronger types produce smarter tools
• Simple to write lambdas - something you can’t do with java for Android and which is difficult in other programs

Access to cloud testing tools:

• Over one thousand (and growing) virtual devices on which to test your builds
• Real-time reports
• Scans for bugs and faults
• Always up to date with the major operating systems

Quickly deploy Apps to stores

• All coding written in one API
• Directly upload from the API to App Stores, making deployment smoother

Do you actually need Xamarin.Forms?

Xamarin.Forms makes mobile application development faster, more efficient and easier. However, while it is a powerful tool, not every developer will need it - those working exclusively for one Operating System will not really feel the need to invest in its capabilities. While the option for writing in C# makes it an attractive standalone project, the adaptations required of moving to a new system may mean it’s not for you.

However, most companies aiming to expand will be keen to get their builds up and available on every App store and in this case, Xamarin.Forms really is a boon for those wanting to develop more easily, more rapidly and more securely.

A flexible and innovative tool

The advantage of a tool like Xamarin.Forms is that it lets developers do what they love best: write bold and brilliant code. Your builds will take less time to prepare, it will be possible to test them on hundreds of devices and deploy them to the App stores sooner.

Xamarin.Forms is also so powerful that it can incorporate other pre-built apps and widgets which add to and improve on an already impressive toolkit. See Xamarin's website for more information on this exciting new tool and see what it can do for you.

It's Developer Humor day!!! Please enjoy our most recent release and feel free to share it with your friends!

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        Last month, all of us at Infragistics received some great news! Our colleague Ken Azuma was chosen as a Microsoft Regional Director. Being chosen as a Microsoft Regional Director is an incredible accomplishment, and we are all very excited for Ken and his opportunity! It is no common feat to be selected, for according to Microsoft, to be chosen as a regional director one must “exhibit a mastery over a wide variety of technologies.” To recognize Ken’s great accomplishment, I interviewed him in order to not only get some information about him and what he does here at Infragistics but also to find out what he will be doing as a Microsoft Regional Director.

        Our interview began by me asking some questions regarding his background. I started by asking Ken how he got involved with technology in the beginning of his career. While working to obtain his masters, Ken joined several academic-industrial cooperation projects that revolved around software development. Through this experience, he decided to apply to jobs within IT and SI until one day he thought, “someday, automatic software will be more sophisticated than it is now,” which led him to eventually want to go into the more “business-side”. Ken eventually took his first job working at a temporary staffing company within the IT department. After working in the IT department, Ken switched jobs a few times, eventually leading him to become a senior RIA architect. When I asked Ken if he personally chose to go into RIA, or if it just worked out that way, he responded stating, “Actually, it was determined by my genes! During my IT department days I realized that I wanted to find a “better” way to develop software in an easy and productive way.”

        The desire to develop software efficiently caused Ken to begin working with a rapid development framework called “ColdFusion”. After working with the technology and the community, Ken eventually became the Chairman of the Tokyo ColdFusion user group and this was really the starting point of his community activity. After switching jobs and becoming a server side developer and project manager, Ken had the chance to work on a joint project with an RIA agency. While working on this project, Ken realized that this was his calling. The hidden design-oriented gene within him of which was likely passed down by his father who is a textile designer began to come out and guide Ken in a new direction. This led Ken to eventually join Infragistics in 2011 as a Senior UX Architect. I asked Ken what he does each day while he is at work and he told me, “I do a lot of consultations with customers on User Interface or User Experience.” In addition to this position, Ken is also the Managing Director of the Japan and APAC regions, in which he manages profit and loss, sales revenue, and customer satisfaction. Being in sales in a global company is “a challenge and a lot of fun” for Ken, and having the ability to work directly with customers not only has a positive effect on his sales, but also spices up his life a bit.

        In addition to his recent accomplishment, Ken has had quite a few notable achievements while here at Infragistics. As a senior UX architect, Ken has had the chance to speak at MIX, which is a gathering of developers, designers, UX experts and business professionals “creating the most innovative and profitable consumer sites on the web,” several times. Ken specifically noted two other great accomplishments since he joined Infragistics, one being the creation of his training course and book on designing user interface and structuring user experience. His other accomplishment is the partnership between Infragistics and another well known global company, which is the biggest engagement that we have company wide. Ken stated that this “has had a great impact for both companies,” and that he is “very proud that I could accomplish this great partnership with my team.” It should also be noted that in addition to being chosen as a Microsoft Regional Director, Ken has also been chosen as a Microsoft MVP for his value to the industry, customers, and community.

        After getting some background information on Ken, we directed our discussion towards being selected as a Microsoft Regional Director. Being a Regional Director, Ken is not employed by Microsoft; however, he is expected to promote their technologies. When I asked Ken what his area of expertise as a regional director is, he answered “my area of expertise is not deep technology side, but is in customer strategy and selecting client technologies.” While Ken must know the characteristics of the technologies he will be helping clients select, he also has to be able to suggest the appropriate technologies from an objective point of view. He described himself as sort of the “translator” between business and design and development. By being this “translator”, Ken will be “bridging the gap between customers and Microsoft” by working with customers who want to know the direction of Microsoft and which long term technology is right for them. I continued our discussion by asking Ken if being a regional director would allow him to travel or speak in places that he may not previously had the opportunity to. He told me that he was not sure yet, but that he would personally like to expand the area he has worked and spoken in. Ken’s ultimate desire is to again speak at Microsoft’s Tier1 Conference where he has spoken at MIX several times in the past. In addition to getting information on what Ken will be doing as a Microsoft Regional Director, I also asked Ken what his reaction was to being selected in which he humbly responded, “I was really surprised! Because so many of my friends are already Regional Directors, but they are so talented and well known in each of their categories.” He continued saying, “They are truly in a class of their own. I am so proud of this selection, but I also have to continue to polish my sense and knowledge to be on the same stage with them.” Ken’s humble words convey his deep appreciation for not only the work he enjoys doing so much, but also the respect that he has for the great minds working in the same industry as him. This is a great representation of Ken as a professional, as well as a clear display of his character.

        In addition to the more specific questions I asked Ken, I also asked him a few extra questions that I was personally interested in. Being here in New Jersey, and Ken being across the world in Japan, I was curious about the differences between the Japan/APAC region, in which he is a Managing Director for Infragistics, and the American region. Ken started by stating that there are clearly cultural differences, such as how we conduct business, our priorities, level of qualities, and so on, and he then asked, “But we’re all human right?” This led to Ken explaining how since we are anatomically the same and we essentially use interfaces the same. Because of this, Ken tries to introduce the same general user experience to his customers. However, he then went to say, “But at the same time, globalization does not mean that the U.S. way of thinking rules the world,” and that embracing diversity is so important. In order to sort of “solve” the conflict of working with other people in such a diverse world, Ken stated that he wants to continue to polish his communication skills and continue to learn about and understand others, for only then will the “gap” be filled. Through his desire to continue to grow as a professional and as a person in general, I could really tell that Ken is incredibly passionate in what he does. Because of this, I decided to ask him what his favorite part of his job is. He stated “Being a UX architect in a global software company brings endless surprise and fun for me,” and he continued starting “Infragistics embraces diversity of cultures, and I like that.” Ken’s favorite part of his job is being able to help satisfy customers and their needs, and getting that final “thank you” is what it is all about. Ken not only loves what he does, but he wholeheartedly recommends getting into UX and UX design, “because they do not depend on specific technologies, but universal skill.” Lastly, I asked Ken if there was anything he would like to share. His response was “As managing director of JP/APAC regions of Infragistics, I want to be a good advisor to our customers. Through these actions, I can also create more awareness of Microsoft technologies as well. Please feel free to reach out to me! Doumo arigatou gozaimasu (thank you very much)!”

        Ken Azuma is a hardworking, passionate professional who is dedicated to ensuring the most positive experiences and outcomes for his customers. His value and expertise is second to none, and he absolutely deserved to be selected as a Microsoft Regional Director. You can find and interact with Ken on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Doumo arigatou gozaimasu for the interview Ken, and congratulations!

This month, I take you through the creation of a Global Sales Dashboard application using Infragistics Xamarin.Forms controls with app views that adjust their content depending on screen size of targeted mobile device. You can watch video of this application and download source code.

First, Infragistics designers came up with great mockups images of what they wanted the application to look like:

Then I had productive meeting with UX and design teams to talk about how the components of this application will interact with each other. As result, we finalized the app design and user interactions, which you can review on tablet and phone prototypes in Indigo Studio.

The biggest challenges implementing this application was layout of Xamarin.Forms controls in shared app views such that they show detailed information on tablets and only summary of sales data on phone devices. In addition, the design called for normalized look and feel of BulletGraph, DataChart, and LinearGauge controls across Android, iOS, and WinPhone platforms. The final challenge was to create data structure for retrieving data based on date range, region, and division of sales.

I accomplish all challenges by some creative coding to show detailed views of sales data based on target device, normalizing styling properties on Infragistics Xamarin.Forms controls, and creating 3-dimensional data structure that I called Sales Cube to quickly retrieving information based on user’s selection of date range, region, and division of sales data.

Are you inspired to build your own dashboard mobile app? Grab your free trial of Infragistics Xamarin.Forms or simply get source code for this app so you can quickly start creating some in-depth visualizations. Happy coding!

As was recently covered by Marissa McCorkel here at Infragistics, Microsoft's Patterns & Practices Prism Library has been open sourced... and one of my colleagues, Brian Lagunas, is helping to head up the team!

On the 24th, Brian featured some sneak peek details of Prism for Xamarin.Forms (available now on NuGet). This preview boasts features like IoC with Unity, event aggregation, commanding, MVVM support and Navigation.

Brian's actually written an incredibly in-depth article, walking you through the entire preview, with instructions and screenshots, which is available now on his blog. Also, feel free to check out the preview, read the walkthrough, check out Brian's Prism interview on .NET Rocks from earlier this week, OR you can reach out directly to Brian on Twitter and ask him about any and everything Prism related.

Even the best developers can make mistakes, and on a big build it’s crucial that you feel confident your coding is error-free. This is no different when developing SharePoint apps. Of course, comprehensive development guidelines are a good way to start here, but they still require manual verification and fixes. Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if this process could be automated?

Visual Studio has partially responded to this need by building tools which analyze code using code analysis tools. However, while great for general development, Visual Studio doesn’t focus on SharePoint specific development guidelines. To write better code, SPCAF (SharePoint Code Analysis Framework) from Rencore provides an excellent tool to analyze custom SharePoint apps and solutions. In this post we’ll be looking into the features of this tool when building SharePoint apps, with many also applying to farm solutions.

Analyze your code

SPCAF validates and tests your custom-made code through the application of about 600 rules. By following these rules, your solution can avoid XML errors, follow best practices, is future-proofed and so forth. In addition, custom rules can be added to adhere to a company’s standards around development. Reports are produced which not only contain the errors found, but which also provide a suggested solution. See what this looks like in practice here.

Write better apps

SPCAF can analyze both SharePoint apps and Farm solutions. To analyze apps, the team at Rencore have assembled a set of rules tailored to apps. For example, SPCAF will verify that the app meets the guidelines for submission to the store; store submission of SharePoint apps can be time consuming so SPCAF helps when you’re trying to find and solve these errors.

The quality of an app can be further enhanced through the application of a set of correctness rules. For example, only 25 Supported Locales are supported in an app; SPCAF throws up an error if more than 25 locales have been added.

Integration with third party apps

Most developers are already accustomed to using applications such as FxCop for analyzing .Net code, or CSS Lint to analyze CSS files. SPCAF handily provides integration with a lot of these third party apps, and it will nicely integrate these results into the SPCAF reports too. By integrating these external tools, one application (SPCAF) is responsible for analyzing the app and combining these results into a report. That should help make your job a lot easier!

Run from Visual Studio

Visual Studio is the most important tool for a developer. While SPCAF can be run from the command line, it provides full integration with Visual Studio. Analysis can be configured to run on every build, and the build can fail whenever SPCAF detects an error. By defining such rules in the build configuration, an app that did not pass the SPCAF rules (plus configured 3rd party apps) will never make it to other environments.

Furthermore, it even allows for automated analysis by a TFS build server on, for example, each check in. A check in will fail when an error was encountered during SPCAF analysis.

Write better code in less time

Every software developer makes mistakes and like in any type of engineering, the earlier a mistake is discovered, the better. By using automated code analysis tools, errors and problems can be discovered sooner rather than later and headaches avoided when you’re trying to find out what went wrong.

SPCAF provides a rich set of features to analyze SharePoint apps in different areas, like code correctness, best practices, and upgradeability. In this way it will decrease development time (making you more efficient) because it outlines the issues and provides guidelines on how to solve them.