Three Pro Tips on Starting with Windows Phone 7 Development
I've recently gone through the experience of deploying and testing a Windows Phone 7 application on a real device as well as deploying it to the WP7 app marketplace. Along the way I encountered a few surprises and obstacles and my goal with this post is to prepare you for these obstacles so that you aren't so surprised when you hit them.
These obstacles include:
- Required, paid app developer account to deploy to a real device
- Zune's interference with an app's media capabilities
- Requirements for marketplace submission and certification
Required, Paid App Developer Account
In order to debug your application on a real WP7 device, you are required to sign up for a developer account, pay the $99 app hub fee, and unlock/register your device for your Live ID. While I was prepared to eventually pay the $99 some day, I was not prepared to pay it as soon as I was ready to start developing against a real device.
That's right - you have to pay your $99 before Visual Studio can recognize your device and deploy to it.
The real hurdle though is that you cannot register and debug your device until your app hub identity is verified by a third party. If you try and plug in your device and register before being verified you will be told (by the registration tool in Windows) that your registration is incomplete.
Both of these hurdles forced me to wait about 6 hours to actually plug in my phone and start debugging. My advice to you is to start the developer registration and verification process before you receive your device to avoid this delay (if you're as excited as I was to start developing on a real device).
Zune's Interference with Media
In order to deploy a WP7 app to your device from Visual Studio, you will need to have the Zune software running at the same time. If your WP7 app uses a MediaElement to play audio or video, it will fail miserably because Zune takes over the device's media capabilities while it is attached to your computer. There are two solutions to this:
- Unplug the WP7 device to use the app - but then you cannot debug
- Use the WPConnect.exe tool
Charles Petzold pointed out this quirk in his post on Playing Music Files on WP7.
The WPConnect tool is available in the October 2010 update of the WP7 developer tools. Jaime Rodriguez has a good short description of how to use this tool. Basically, WPConnect replaces Zune with the device connectivity context that Visual Studio needs to deploy an app to a real device.
If you're going to do anything with media in your WP7 apps, you will need to install the October 2010 update and run WPConnect.exe
Marketplace Submission and Certification and Iconography
There is a 27-page PDF document published by Microsoft that outlines their guidelines for Windows Phone 7 application certification. You can download the document here: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9730558. The document is a dry read but I found it very informative and I highly recommend reading through most of it. They have details on everything from the assembly namespaces you are allowed to use to rules on profanity. I found it particularly informative that they do not allow depictions of exploding body parts. Srsly.
What I didn't expect to see in the document were all of the requirements around images and icons. Be prepared to produce at least seven separate images for your application. Three of these are for the core application itself and the other four are for the WP7 marketplace:
- App splash screen (480 x 800)
- App icon (62 x 62)
- Start screen "pinned" icon (173 x 173)
- Marketplace small tile artwork (99 x 99)
- Marketplace large tile artwork (173 x 173)
- Marketplace large PC tile artwork (200 x 200)
- Marketplace screen shot (at least one) (480 x 800)
These numerous graphics weren't too much of a pain, but it was just one more set of unexpected hurdles. Be ready to produce these graphics, and give the 27-page guide a read before you get serious about deploying to the Marketplace.
Happy App Building
In conclusion, make sure to get your app hub developer account squared away, download the October 2010 update of the WP7 dev tools, and be prepared to satisfy some extra marketplace certification requirements before submitting your app. If you're mentally parepared to face these details then your WP7 app development and deployment experience will go much more smoothly.
Posted: 29 November 2010