Windows Developer Roundup for 03.11.2011

This week, we have been working hard on new accessibility training for the web and released the updated 3D Manipulations in Windows Touch sample.  We shared some of the work that has been done to update the developer center.

Releases for this week

Accessibility Training for the Web

The accessibility training for the web includes a cd with resources for accessibility development as well as new planned content for the MSDN library and the developer center.   The Microsoft Accessibility Tools and Training resource CD includes the accessibility guide for business and organizations, the accessibility guide for government organizations, and accessibility training courses, tools, and other resources to help developers worldwide create technology products, services, and web sites that are accessible to people with disabilities and to enable business leaders to make better informed technology decisions.  The official download is not yet available but we have an unofficial release of the accessibility training DVD available online.  All of the release materials will be available from the Windows Accessibility Developer Resources page on the developer center.

3D Manipulations for Windows Touch

This sample demonstrates some advanced concepts for Windows Touch manipulations:

  • Integration with Direct3D
  • Creating Custom Gestures
  • Smoothing Windows touch input by normalizing messages

If you are developing multitouch applications for Windows, this sample demonstrates some very useful techniques. The attached documentation walks you through the code and helps to clarify the details of the sample.

For more information on Windows Touch Programming, check out the Windows Touch learning path on MSDN:https://msdn.com/windows/touch

Developer Center Updates

We have been working to define some templates for presenting content on the developer center.  The most important part of this to this reorganization of content is going to be ensuring that the actual resources (videos, code, articles) are clearly called out on pages and are consistently organized across Windows features, scenarios, and how-to's.  To address this, we have created a simple template that will be used for content curators to highlight resources for their particular feature area. The name "resource page" seems to be sticking for this page type for now.

The following high level designs reflect where content should appear on resource pages based on their content. The colored content is the core of the page with beginner in green, intermediate orange, advanced red:

Resource Page:

Resource page with video:

Generically, resource pages should just have content organized by the point, beginner to advanced developer. If a page has videos on it, they should be placed within the video flipper and propped to the top of the page in order from beginner to advanced developer. Various content types should be called out with iconography either at the reorganization launch or on iterative releases.

Other News and Updates

Visual Studio 2010 SP1 has a potential issue with the Windows SDK 7.1 that affects IA64/x64 compilation. If you install the Windows SDK 7.1 and then install Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and are using the Express or Professional SKU, the IA64/x64 compilers can be removed. If you encounter this issue, you can fix the x64/IA64 compiler issue in Visual Studio with instructions from the Visual C++ developer center.

@EliotSeattle announced that IE9 will be launching on Monday, March 14th at SXSW next week!

S. Somasegar blogged about recent enhancement releases for Visual Studio 2010.

See Also