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Asynchronous UI development in WinRT, Silverlight, Windows Phone & WPF with async/await keywords of C# 5.0

C# 5.0 comes with the new async/await keywords that make asynchronous code easier to write, read and maintain. This is very nice if you have properly declared methods that support this pattern and Windows Runtime (or WinRT – the API for Windows 8 Metro Style Apps) comes with a lot of these methods for long running tasks or ones of nondeterministic duration – especially in I/O or web calls. It is however completely lacking in support for asynchronous UI development, even though one of the main goals of these new keywords was support for responsive UI.

Interactive coding often introduces the need to start an operation, like an animation or a dialog box and then wait for an event before switching the state of the UI, for example: running another animation or removing a dialog. Reading this article you will learn how to do it better using the upcoming features of C# 5.0, regardless of whether you develop in WinRT, Silverlight, WPF, Windows Forms or even Web Forms. The source code that comes with this article contains a library you can use to cut the amount of code you need to write by half!

Creating a Side-scrolling Game with UDK

I wanted to find a way to introduce others to UDK in a way that is fun and simple. I discovered some notes I took while prototyping a simple UDK side-scroller, and turned them into this little guide. This guide attempts to lay out the groundwork for developing a simple game with the Unreal Development Kit. It will help readers understand the structure of a basic UDK game, its elements and the relationship between them. It does not, however, detail creating levels or assets. For that, please refer to the excellent 3D Buzz video tutorials available on the UDK website.

Remote Temperature Monitoring With the Arduino & SM5100B

The Problem

In January of 2010 the hot water heating system of my family’s lake house failed with catastrophic consequences. Many of the copper pipes in the home froze and burst. By the time we found out about the problem the damage had been done, and done well. The basement had several inches of water in it and we were also treated to beautiful ice sculptures such as this one, formed on our deck.

Is this the Hoth system?

XNA Primitives on Windows Phone 7

In a previous post, 3D on Windows Phone 7 with XNA, I walked you through displaying 3D models in your XNA game. However, primitives are a necessity in 3D due to their flexibility. I’ll be getting straight to the point in this post so you can walk away with the knowledge you need to draw primitives in your 3D Windows Phone 7 title.

3D on Windows Phone 7 with XNA

XNA 4.0 on Windows Phone 7 supports 3D, much like its predecessors.  However, having moved to the mobile market, a few things have changed (i.e. the lack of HLSL support).  Nevertheless, we’ll be going over the bare minimum work you need to do to get 3D into your game. After this post, you should be able to plug the pieces into your own title and get to work making 3D awesomeness.

Large Number Aesthetics in Javascript

In designing and developing websites, it’s often necessary to go an extra mile to display content more pleasing to the human eye than what traditionally might be used in development. Such a task presented itself today when it became necessary to write a function that would convert a plain number into a more human-readable number with commas separating the thousands, millions, etc. For example, the number 1234567890 would be converted into 1,234,567,890.

7 Reasons To Be a Windows Phone 7 Developer

Mobile app development is an ever-growing and extremely competitive field of software production. Windows Phone 7 (WP7) and its marketplace offer developers a great new platform for their software, providing advantages over other mobile markets. While there are many benefits, here are my top 7 reasons for being a WP7 developer.

#pragma mark and you!

Hello Xcode users!

I’d like to talk a little about source code organization with #pragma mark. I’m not going to go on a huge rant about code commenting, or naming conventions. Preferences on those topics vary widely from developer to developer and company to company. I’m concerned with a higher level problem: “Where the heck did I stick that code?”

Android: Supporting Multiple Devices

There are a few common questions asked whenever development begins on a new Android app. What assets will be needed? Which devices should be supported and how many can be supported with the team’s available resources? As an Android developer, my goal is to support the majority of devices and reach the broadest audience.

Gamification of the OpenStreetMap API