codeShow is a app for learning to make apps. It’s very meta in that way. The whole project is an open source project with community contributions. Use it to learn the web platform and Windows app development.

You can download the app by visiting aka.ms/codeshowapp and you can find the source code at codeshow.codeplex.com.

ME: Hi, Paul. Would you mind introducing yourself. Tell us where you work and what’s the most interesting thing you’re working on.

PT: My name is Paul Tidwell, I have been writing code as a hobby since I was 12. I currently work for Bungie, Inc where we are in the processes of bringing the world of “Destiny” to life. For fun, I am getting 8tracks ready for the Xbox 360.

ME: Okay, so what’s this 8tracks app you made? What’s the purpose of the app and was it your idea?

PT: 8tracks is a small company from San Francisco founded in 2006. It provides a streaming music service similar to how people think of Pandora or Spotify. 8tracks is different from those in at least one important way: its content is provided by its community of users. That is the users upload music from their own collection, organize it into a “mix” and then share it with the world. The clever folks at 8tracks figured out how to do this legally by making sure the artists are paid for their work and by following the rules set out in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

I got involved with 8tracks when I was looking for a first project to do on Windows Phone. I had been using 8tracks (from their website) as a source of music and music discovery, when I happened to noticed they offered a public API for accessing and playing back their music. When I tried it out on Windows Phone, it worked beautifully and my first Windows Phone app “Mixtapes” was born. Mixtapes was a moderately successful Windows Phone app and got the attention of the folks at 8tracks.

In early fall of 2012, 8tracks approached me and asked if I would be interested in developing their official Windows 8 app. I agreed.

ME: Did you have help with 8tracks or did you work alone?

PT: I worked with the lead designer at 8tracks who provided wireframes and mockups of how the app should look at work and I put it all together. The folks at 8tracks also helped me test the app.

ME: How long did the project take, and did it take more or less time than you expected?

PT: The project got started in December 2012 and was approved in the store by March 2013, so about three months for the first release. I have released a couple of updates including a port to Windows 8.1.

ME: Can you tell us about what technologies you used? Did you write the app in C#? Did you use any significant libraries?

PT: I used Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate (although Express would have worked too), TFS online (visualstudio.com) which, by the way, is an amazing resource. The app is written using XAML and C#. I didn’t really use any major libraries except for a small wrapper around Google analytics making it accessible from C#.

ME: What were the biggest obstacles you had to overcome making this app?

PT: The biggest obstacle was my limited knowledge of XAML. At some point I ended up buying a big thick book on WPF which I read cover to cover. This helped me understand important concepts like Dependency Properties and Routed Events that I had been using by mimicking example code but never really understanding. This knowledge helped me debug issues and write better controls.

ME: What advice would you give an app developer starting out on his first app today?

PT: Make sure you understand your app lifecycle (suspend, terminate, resume, etc) early on. Don’t save it for last. Your project will be smoother if you consider and test these scenarios from the very start. The new async pattern that Windows 8 embraces is really beautiful, but it can also bite you when you least expect it. Users can, for example, navigate away from a page waiting for an async operation to complete, and when the operation resumes, surprising things (like crashes) can happen because the state of the app has changed.

ME: Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us today, Paul. On a personal note, I use 8tracks most every day. I do like the built in Xbox Music app for playing music from my own library, but when I am looking for some new music to match my mood, I go straight to 8tracks. Good luck, Paul, on your future coding endeavors.

In case you haven’t heard, Microsoft has an incentive [link removed] going on right now where any app you create, you can get $100 for. That’s not bad considering how easy it is to make an app. Well, not all apps are easy. Some apps take quite a substantial bit of time, but if you’re just trying to get a good app into the Windows Store quickly (like say for $100!) there are some tricks you should know. There’s a template at w8templates.codeplex.com, for instance, that you can customize with a few search terms and RSS feeds and in a matter of minutes, you’ve got a data and media rich app all about the topic of your choice.

I just made an app using this template. It’s called The Sailing App. One of the tasks you’ll have to complete if you go down this road is to create your own graphics for the app tiles, splash screen, etc. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of CorelDRAW, so I made a template and I’m posting it here for you. By the way, if you’d like your very own free copy of CorelDRAW X6 Essentials, just join a ZERO260 event [link removed]. We’re giving them away.

Here’s that template. Have fun!

App Tiles Template.cdr (39 kb)

I’m on leave but I return to work next week. I took some of my off time to write another app. It’s a quick one that is tied to a specific piece of hardware, but I have said hardware and I use this app all the time now.

It’s a webcam viewer for the Foscam FI9820. I will expand it at some point to work with more cameras and do a lot more to it, but for now I have done with I always recommend my independent developer friends do and I kept the scope very low.

The app is called CamView and I use it daily now to spy on my as he sleeps. Here’s what it looks like…

Notice the full screen view of the webcam. I like this immersive experience, because I feel like I’m actually in room looking into the crib. I wanted to create a good snap experience too since watching someone sleep is not exactly going to be captivating and one might wish to multi-task. Here’s what I ended up with for the snapped view…

Instead of the camera’s view being restricted to a small square, it takes up the entire snap view.

Notice too the faint arrows on each edge of the screen. Those control the pan and tilt of the camera. Again, I like how direct the control is. Instead of a control panel to the side, they are right on the surface of the image.

If you happen to have this specific hardware, then you can link to CamView in the store with http://aka.ms/camviewapp.

I’m not sure what I’ll write next, but I’m ready for my next app. What are you working on and how’s it going?

The codeSHOW app is now certified and available in the Windows 8 Store. If you’re wanting to learn development for Windows 8, use codeSHOW to browse a lot of demos and then see the code for them. There’s a lot more to be added and some kinks to work out, but I hope it adds value to your life today. Updates should happen on a relatively frequent basis. Leave a review and tell me what you think.

If you have Windows 8, you can go directly to http://aka.ms/codeshowapp to download it.