Microsoft Updates Windows Phone App Studio Beta With More Features

Microsoft has launched a beta version of its Windows Phone App Studio few months ago which is a web environment to develop mobile applications. In an update occurred yesterday, it now adds several features, including the ability to create applications for Windows 8. Windows Phone App Studio is a project of web interface to create the simplest possible applications for Windows Phone 8.

Since the beta was rolled out, Microsoft says that 350,000 developers have addressed this "light" environment for a total of 300,000 projects and created 20,000 published applications on the Windows Phone Store alone. A new beta version appeared yesterday and the number of inputs is particularly more significant. First there is a major change in the user interface.

The company stated that it had identified the most commonly used features and have thus arranged in a more logical way to guide the user choice. Let us recall that this App Studio is not necessarily designed as a complete development solution, but rather as a tool that will be destined for beginners or in a team to quickly generate a model. The new interface is more tailored to the touch models.

Microsoft wants to effect most of the features can be used directly in a web browser on a tablet. The goal of App Studio is not directly touching the code but to implement the key elements for the code to be generated more precisely. In addition, the tactile aspect also makes it easier to test the interfaces created for applications. The emulator has also been improved and supports a larger number of live changes. For example, any change in a text will be immediately reflected in the emulator. Many other additions are there in this new beta.

The environment can for example convert JPG images in to PNG format and the emulator supports screen rotation. The Integration sections and data sources are also simpler and user friendly than before. Regarding the code, sources are now following the MVVM architecture (Model-View -View- Model) and the display is presented as more readable. The release note also mentioned that the performance has been improved in this area.

 Last but not the least, a whole series of innovations for the creation and management of projects is added in this beta. On the one hand, models have been added for a company to quickly view the information concerning it in a product. Secondly, and most importantly, Windows Phone App Studio now allows you to generate a complete project for Visual Studio. If the developer chooses the second option, so it will generate Visual Studio project file containing both the version for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 for that.

This new feature is particularly interesting because it provides additional information on the progress. Soon, there is a good chance that the beta App Studio is still evolving and this time offers more than one single code base for, probably with some modifications to the specifics of each platform. We also add the Microsoft BUILD conference, to be held from 2 to 4 April, is expected to be the scene of many ads in this direction.

One of our sources has also told us that the SDK (Software Development Kit) Xbox One would be distributed to developers at this time. It is quite possible that Microsoft may announce the first single trunk creating applications for Smartphones, tablets, PCs and its console. Meanwhile, those who want to test the beta of Windows Phone App Studio can be launched it and enjoy!