Developing a Windows Store app using JavaScript: Hilo guidance released

The patterns & practices client team is happy to announce the release of the Hilo guidance: Developing a Windows Store app using JavaScript. This is companion guidance to Hilo C++.

Customer Value

Windows 8 enables millions of people to be more productive, creative, and to have fun. The combination of HTML and JavaScript opens up a new world of development practices for creating apps.

This guide is based on the experiences of a fictitious team that created a photo browsing and editing app named Hilo.  This guide focuses on how to create a world-ready app that combines the power of HTML 5, CSS 3, and JavaScript with the controls and features provided by the Windows Runtime to create an app that looks and works great on both touch and non-touch devices. Hilo includes support for three languages and the Gregorian calendar, and can be easily modified to support any language.

It is intended for any architect or developer who designs and builds Windows Store apps. This guide demonstrates how to build Windows Store apps that use async programming patterns, tiles, a splash screen, controls, pages, navigation, suspend & resume, and touch.  The guide provides guidance on common development patterns and practices such as Model-View-Presenter (MVP) and Query Builder patterns and unit testing.

Acknowledgements

We want to thank the customers, partners, and community members who have patiently reviewed our early content and drafts. We especially want to recognize Jose M. Alarcon (CEO, campusMVP.net), Srđan Božović (MFC Mikrokomerc), Pablo Cibraro (AgileSight), Andrew Davey, Robert Fite (Application Delivery Architect), Paul Glavich (Chief Technology Officer, Saasu.com), Ian Green (www.hardcore-games.tk), Adrian Kulp (CTO, Aeshen LLC), Alvin Lau (Solutions Consultant, Dimension Data (Singapore)), Thomas Lebrun, Chris Love, Yasser Makram (Independent Consultant), Ming Man, Chan (Section Manager, AMD), Christopher Maneu (UI Engineer, Deezer), Paulo Morgado (MVP, paulomorgado.net), Caio Proiete (Senior Trainer, CICLO.pt), Carlos dos Santos (Product Manager, CDS Informática Ltda.), Mitchel Sellers (CEO, Director of Development, IowaComputerGurus Inc.), Darren Sim (Partner, Similton Group LLP), Perez Jones Tsisah (Freelance Software Developer), Dave Ward (Encosia), and Tobias Zimmergren (Microsoft MVP) for their technical insights and support throughout this project.

We also want thank the Microsoft team:

• • Program Management:   Blaine Wastell
  • Development:   Derick Bailey (Muted Solutions LLC), Christopher Bennage
  • Written guidance:   David Britch (Content Master Ltd.), Mike Jones
  • Test:   Larry Brader, Poornimma Kaliappan (VanceInfo)
  • UX and graphic design:   Deborah Steinke (Graphic Designer, adaQuest, Inc.), Howard Wooten
  • Editorial support:   Mick Alberts, John Osborne  

What’s in the box

The reference implementation illustrates the concepts for developing Windows Store apps.

The guide Developing an end-to-end Windows Store app using JavaScript: Hilo complements the reference implementation by describing how it works and what decisions were made during its development.

Guide chapters: Getting started with Hilo Async programming patterns and tips in Hilo Using a separated presentation patterns Using the query builder pattern Working with tiles and the splash screen in Hilo Creating and navigating between pages in Hilo Using controls in Hilo Working with data sources  Using touch in Hilo Handling suspend, resume, and activation in Hilo Improving performance in Hilo Testing and deploying Hilo Meet the Hilo team Complete table of contents

How to get it?

The reference implementation is available from the MSDN Code Gallery at https://aka.ms/hilojs-code. The associated guide is available on the Windows Dev Center at https://aka.ms/hilojs-doc or as a PDF. The documentation on the Windows Dev Center has been localized into the following languages:

• Chinese Simplified
• Chinese Traditional
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese   
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish
• Ukrainian

How to get started?

There are many ways to get started with Hilo. One way is by reading the guide which includes a  Table of Contents. We provided the Table of Contents to help you understand the breadth and depth of the guide. Depending on your experience creating Windows Store apps you will want to read the guide from start to finish or read how we implement specific features.

Another way to get started is to download the RI. The Getting Started chapter describes how to build and run the code and provides a description of the different project and solution folders. You can download the associated unit tests from CodePlex site at https://hilojs.codeplex.com.

Your turn

After reading the guide or reviewing the code it is now your turn to create a great maintainable and testable app. Let us know how it is going and what additional guidance is needed. You can leave us feedback on the https://hilojs.codeplex.com community site. We hope Hilo helps you succeed.