uwp

Using a pen and computer has an interesting history that goes farther back than you’d think. In 1888, the first patent for a “electric stylus device for capturing handwriting” was issued to Elisha Gray for the Telautograph. In fact, pen input was being used 20 years before mouse and GUI input...

Here’s a little memory test: Do you recall this blog, which posted back in May and promised to soon begin integrating Kinect for Windows into the Universal Windows Platform? Of course you do! Now we are pleased to announce two important developments in the quest to make Kinect functionality...

Overview I called this project the “Internet of Stranger Things,” but so far, there hasn’t been an internet piece. In addition, there really hasn’t been anything that couldn’t be easily accomplished on an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi. I wanted this demo to have more moving parts to improve the...

The way users interact with apps on different devices has gotten much more personal lately, thanks to a variety of new Natural User Interface features in the Universal Windows Platform. These UWP patterns and APIs are available for developers to easily bring in capabilities for their apps that...

Overview I am a child of the 80s. Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first movie I saw by myself in the movie theater. The original Star Wars trilogy was an obsession. And WarGames is one thing that inspired me more than anything else to become a programmer. But it was movies like The Goonies...

Apps should be able to see, and with that, they should be able to understand the world. In the sixth blog post in the series, we will cover exactly that, how to build UWP apps that take advantage of the camera found on the majority of devices (including the Xbox One with the Kinect) and build a...

This week’s app is all about the Internet of Things. Best For You is a sample fitness UWP app focused on collecting data from a fictional IoT enabled yoga wear and presenting it to the user in a meaningful and helpful way on all of their devices to track health and progress of exercise. In this...

Augmented Reality is a way to connect virtual objects with the real world, making it possible to naturally interact with them by use of mobile devices like phones, tablets or new mixed reality devices like HoloLens. Vuforia is one of the most popular Augmented Reality platforms for developers...

Overview Today we live in a multi-device world, and the way we use them spans different platforms and form factors: We read the morning news on our tablets, check email during the morning commute on our phones and at work on our desktop PCs. And at night, we watch movies on our home media...

Today we are releasing the first update to the UWP Community Toolkit. To see the updates, first: Get started with UWP Community Toolkit 1.1 Install the Link Removed directly from the Windows Store Read the documentation In under a month since the first release, we are humbled by the positive...

For the fourth installment in the series, we are open sourcing yet another sample app: South Ridge Video, an open source video app developed as a hosted web application built with React.js and hosted on a web server. South Ridge can easily be converted to a UWP application that takes advantage...

We are back with yet another app, Backdrop, an open source sample media app developed to showcase a cross-device music experience. In this blog post, we will dive deep into the new background model in the Universal Windows Platform, and specifically focus on how to enable your application to...

As Windows 10 evolves, we are continuing to build in support for musician-focused technologies. Let’s take a look at MIDI. Windows has had built-in MIDI support going back to the 16-bit days. Since then, most MIDI interfaces have moved to USB and our in-box support has kept pace, with a class...

When the layout of your Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app changes, there is often a slight pause as your app rearranges content to fit the new window size or orientation. Composition APIs let you create smooth-as-butter animations between these states so your layout changes won’t jar your...

Continuing what we started during the “App Dev on Xbox” event, today we are making available yet another app experience – Atmosphere. In this blog post, you will learn how to get started building great 2D and 3D experiences with Unity and XAML, how to open up your app so other app developers can...

The age-old act of ventroquilism sees a puppet move its mouth while the controlling ventriloquist speaks without moving their lips – pretty impressive! The underlying technique has the ventriloquist “throwing” their voice in a joint audial and visual illusion. Enter Spatial Audio, a set of...

The Composition APIs come with a robust animation engine that provides quick and fluid motion running in a separate process from your Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app. This provides a consistent 60 frames per second when running your app on an IoT device as well as on a screaming gaming...

A few months ago, during Build 2016, we announced the Desktop Bridge, enabling developers to bring their existing desktop apps and games over to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) by converting their app or game with the Desktop App Converter and then enhancing and extending it with UWP...

Link Removed is about making your app usable to the largest possible audience. For some apps, accessibility is required by law. For others, it’s part of the service you are offering to a specific audience and a way to make your app more generally appealing. Choosing to incorporate accessibility...

The Composition APIs allow you to enhance the appeal of your Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app with a wide range of beautiful and interesting visual effects. Because they are applied at a low level, these effects are highly efficient. They run at 60 frames per second, providing smooth visuals...