Last week Microsoft released the RTM version of the Developer Tools for Windows Phone 7. This weekend i took some times to migrate the application that I’m creating for the TechDays . The migration took me about less than 30 minutes.
I only had to fix one issue, which is related to the RTM version. The WMManifest.xml have changed since the Beta version. To fixe the issue i had to create a new Windows Phone 7 project and copy the WMManifest.xml file in my application. And the application was building again.
In the beta version, the Panorama and Pivot controls was not available as built-in control. There was a project on codeplex which provided the functionality. So moving to the RTM, was pretty simple. I only had to declare a namespace :
xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls".
After what i have to change the control type. That was simple as that.
The Panorama and Pivot control are working perfectly and smooth. And much better than the other version.
Also they provide natively a Map control, which is a Windows Phone version of the Bing Map for Silverlight. I was waiting for that specific control for a long time. I only had to do a drag and drop and assign the CredentialProvider properties and the control was working.
Also the team who was working on the Silverlight Toolkit have created a version of the toolkit for Windows Phone. So i was able to use the WrapPanel from the Toolkit instead of importing some code file from the original Silverlight Toolkit.
For the emulator, it have been improved again. The start time have been improved.
In conclusion, i think as a developer we have all the tools we need to be able to build great Windows Phone 7 application.
What you need to download to start building Windows Phone 7 applications
Resources about Windows Phone 7
Regards,
LP