Just released - Prism for Windows Runtime

Last December, we announced our thoughts on a new version of Prism for Windows 8 which we code named Kona. We are excited to announce that Prism for the Windows Runtime and the associated AdventureWorks Shopper reference implementation is now available on the Windows Dev Center. This guidance helps developers build Windows Store business apps using a new stream lined version of Prism for the Windows Runtime. Many of these apps will be customer facing. They can also be traditional line of business apps.

What is Prism for Windows Runtime?

Similar to Prism for WPF and Silverlight or “Prism Classic”, Prism for Windows Runtime provides guidance to help you more easily design and build flexible and easy-to-maintain Windows Store business apps  using C#, Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), the Windows Runtime, and modern development practices. These are apps that are “built to last” and “build to change”. Using design patterns that embody important architectural design principles, such as separation of concerns and loose coupling.

Prism comes with the AdventureWorks Shopper reference implementation which uses the Prism library to demonstrate modern development practices such as Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern with navigation and app lifecycle management. Additionally the reference implementation demonstrates validation, application data management, accessibility, localizability, touch, search, tiles, tile notification, and multiple view states. It also provides guidance on testing your app and tuning its performance.  

What’s in the box?

• Reference implementation: AdventureWorks Shopper
• Quickstarts
  • Hello World
  • Event Aggregator
  • Validation
• Prism library
  • Microsoft.Practices.Prism.PubSubEvents: Event Aggregator in a portable class library
  • Microsoft.Practices.Prism.StoreApps: Bootstrapping, MVVM, Navigation, Lifecycle Management, Delegate Command, Settings Charm, Search, and Flyout Support
• Documentation: on Windows Dev Center and in PDF

How to get it?

The Prism library source code is available with the AdventureWorks Shopper reference implementation on the MSDN Code Gallery at https://aka.ms/prism-winrt-code. The Prism binaries are available on NuGet. Search for Prism.StoreApps and Prism.PubSubEvents. You need to NuGet Package Manger 2.1 or higher.

You can view the documentation at https://aka.ms/prism-winrt-doc or download a PDF version at https://aka.ms/prism-winrt-pdf. The documentation is also available on the Windows Dev Center in the following languages:

• Chinese Simplified
• Chinese Traditional
• English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish

How to get started?

For an overview of the guidance, watch this Channel 9 Video of Francis Cheung and myself giving a walk through of Prism. To evaluate and see the guidance in action go to Getting Started chapter of the documentation. This chapter tells you how to build and run the reference implementation as well as describes the different projects in the solution.

To create your first app see Using Prism for the Windows Runtime chapter in the documentation. You should also follow Francis Cheung’s blog post if you want more detailed instructions. Additionally our CodePlex Knowledge Base page provides additional resources to get started such as links to Project and Item Templates and an online training course.

How to provide feedback?

If you’d like to provide feedback, please post it via the Codeplex forum. This is where you can also get support. We have a dedicated sustained engineering team monitoring the forum regularly. To report a bug, use online Issue Tracker. We will start planning the next release soon so your feedback is appreciated.

If you have a story of how your team leverages Prism and would like to share it with the broader community, please contact us. We’ll be happy to work with you on a case study.

Happy coding.