fignewtron was here

Tonight I had the pleasure of speaking at the Portland Silverlight User Group meeting.  My topic was Windows Phone 7 Hello World using MVVM Light (In the trenches).

I did what every speaker talking about code avoids. I wrote some code in front of everyone.  I think everyone would agree that restarting the Windows Phone 7 emulator between each application deploy takes some time.  So, when you are debugging phone applications from Visual Studio or Blend, try to remember that you don’t have to restart the emulator.  =)

The developer tools and resources - http://developer.windowsphone.com/
The application bar icons - http://bit.ly/awj2Bq
MVVM Light getting started guide - http://www.galasoft.ch/mvvm/getstarted/
Panorama and Pivot controls until we get them from Microsoft - http://phone.codeplex.com/

For those of you interested in looking at the source code you can download from the link below.  Also, here is a really cool technique for making planets spin without using 3D.

Check out all the new accent colors by navigating to Start/Settings/Themes:

While the emulator is running, click with your mouse on the page and press F10 or F9 on your keyboard.  The ringer volume selector should display.

Press and hold the Start button on the emulator to see how voice commands work!

Today the Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools (WPDT) were released to the public!  First let me say that I’m ecstatic about this release.  The emulator and phone API was improved so much.  Check out the release notes and you will see the differences.  But now for the tip.

Press the Pause/Break button when the emulator is running and you can use your computer keyboard for input instead of the emulator keyboard with mouse clicking.  This is a HUGE time saver if you want to test out your forms.  However, it comes with a bug.  It seems that orientation misbehaves after you press that button.

To reproduce:

1. Create a simple Windows Phone 7 project using the project template from the July 12 WPDT.
2. Add a TextBox to the MainPage.xaml.
3. Compile and run the application.
4. Set focus to the TextBox in the running application using your mouse.
5. Notice that the emulator on screen keyboard appears.
6. Press the Pause/Break button on your keyboard.
7. Notice that the emulator keyboard closes.
8. Begin typing using your keyboard to confirm the state change.
9. Click the orientation button for the emulator.
10. Notice the screen stays in the Portrait orientation that you started the application in.