Microsoft Project Siena, create Windows 8.x app without any programming

Microsoft Project Siena

Microsoft Project Siena (code name) is the beta release of a new technology for business experts, business analysts, consultants and other app imagineers. Now, without any programming, you can create powerful apps for the device-first and cloud-connected world, with the potential to transform today’s business processes.

• Apps to explore media-rich product catalogs and create ensembles that together serve a customer’s needs
• Apps used on the spot to resolve customer service bottlenecks and logistics exceptions, with the custom intelligence to help the user make local trade-offs
• Apps for auditing and inspecting a manufacturing facility through photos, videos and pen and voice notes, all tied to an asset database

Siena apps are as easy as editing a document. You place some visuals on a canvas. You hook them up to your data. You customize how your app looks and works. Then, if you need special logic and intelligence, you write some Excel-like expressions. You can use your app immediately, or share it with colleagues or the world.

With Siena, you can conceptualize, validate and build your app ideas almost as fast as you can come up with them. And if your needs change tomorrow, updating your app is no problem. Open it. Change it. Share it again, and you’re off to do business.

Siena works well with corporate and web data and media content: SharePoint lists, Excel and Azure tables, RSS feeds and the gamut of RESTful services.

Siena apps are just HTML5 and JavaScript and are deployed and managed like any other Windows 8.x app. In fact, developers can open them up, see what’s there and, if needed, extend them in their favorite programming tools.

Install Siena, watch one of the how-to videos at http://aka.ms/ProjectSiena, and then build the app that you’ve been imagining... in under an hour.

• Conceptualize, validate and build your app ideas as easily as editing a document
• Connect to corporate and web data
• Compose rich interactive visuals to create custom, unique apps
• Add business logic and intelligence using the power of Excel-like expressions
• Use the app yourself, share with colleagues or with the world

Real World Windows 8 App Development with JavaScript: Create Great Windows Store Apps

Real World Windows 8 App Development with JavaScript offers you practical advice and hard-earned insights that will help you create and publish apps to a worldwide market.

Led by authors with deep Windows 8 app development experience, you’ll learn how to make the most of Microsoft’s APIs for hooking into Windows 8 on all devices, including the core ideas of promises and the asynchronous programming model. You’ll also discover such important tips as how to
- Adhere to Windows 8 guidelines for successful app acceptance
- Extend the appeal of your app with media, contracts, charms, and user notifications
- Capture and work with media, including the ability to play video wirelessly to a television
- Manage background processing and file transfers
- Gain visibility for your app and add monetization optionsReal World Windows 8 App

Development with JavaScript features real-world examples that emphasize the use of JavaScript and HTML 5 and that also adhere to the stylistic guidelines Microsoft has put in place to maintain a consistent look and feel for all applications on this platform.

Get the low-down from authors with experience from the front lines of Windows 8 app development. Theory is all well and good, but when it comes down to it, you can’t beat practical advice from people who’ve been there and done it! You’ll come away from this book with all the tools, ideas, and inspiration you need to create successful Windows 8 JavaScript apps.

What you’ll learn

• The fundamentals of the asynchronous programming model
• Integrating your app with the Windows 8 system
• Working with and capturing media
• Extending your app with contracts and charms
• Giving users notifications
• Monetization and certification

Who this book is for

This book is for JavaScript developers wanting to create applications for sale in the Windows 8 app store. Developers should have a good knowledge of HTML5 and JavaScript, but no previous Windows 8 app development knowledge is required.

Table of Contents

1. The Windows 8 Ethos and Environment
2. Getting the Basics Right
3. Incorporating Layout and Controls
4. Navigating the Media Maze
5. Making the Most Out of Charms and Contracts
6. Solving the Printing Problem 
7. Providing Clear Notifications
8. Keeping Apps Running the the Background
9. Monetizing Your App: The Lowdown 
10. Getting your App on the Windows Store

Create your first Windows Store app using JavaScript

The tutorial series by Microsoft explain how to use JavaScript with HTML5 and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to create Windows Store apps.

Hello World of Windows Store app using JavaScript

• Part 1: Create a "Hello, world!" app
  Start here to create your first app, a simple "Hello, world" app that displays a personalized greeting. Learn how to
  - Create a new project
  - Add HTML content to your start page
  - Handle touch, pen, and mouse input
  - Switch between the light and dark style sheets
  - Create your own custom styles
  - Use a Windows Library for JavaScript control
• Part 2: Manage app lifecycle and state
  In Windows 8, you can launch several apps and switch between them without having to worry about slowing down the system or running the battery down. That's because the system automatically suspends (and sometimes terminates) apps that are running in the background for you. A well-designed app can be suspended, terminated, and relaunched by the system and seem as though it were running the entire time.
  In Part 2 of this tutorial series, you update your "Hello, world" app to respond to lifecycle events and save user and session data.
• Part 3: PageControl objects and navigation
  The "Hello, world" app that you created in the previous tutorials contains a single page of content, but most real-world apps will contain several pages. In this tutorial, you copy the code from your "Hello, world" app into a new app that uses the Navigation App template, and then you add an additional page and enable navigation between the app's pages.
• Part 4: Layout and orientation
  In this tutorial, we go over the basics of creating a user interface in HTML and CSS. To learn these basics, you create a simple photo viewer that lets the user pick an image from their Pictures Library, and then it shows the image and some info about the image file. For this tutorial, we start from scratch with a new app.
• Part 5: File access and pickers
  In this tutorial, you add functionality to the app you created in Part 4: Layout and views. First, you handle the "Get photo" button click event to open a file picker and let the user select an image from their Pictures library. Then you bind UI controls to file properties to show the picture info. Finally, we revisit what you learned in Part 2 about how to save app state. Here, you use a MostRecentlyUsedList to keep access to the image selected by the user.
• Doc roadmap
  After you're done with the tutorials, check out the doc roadmap for a list of key resources that can help you learn more about creating Windows Store apps using JavaScript.