I have been long interested to develop on the platform. I even got the tools installed already on my desktop but I can't upgrade my WDDM from 1.0 to 1.1. To make things simple: my graphics chips are not up to the task of running the emulator.
If I still buy a Windows Phone (e.g. a Nokia Lumia) for development purposes, can I sideload and test my apps there efficiently instead of going against the emulator?
If I still buy a Windows Phone (e.g. a Nokia Lumia) for development purposes, can I sideload and test my apps there efficiently instead of going against the emulator
Yes, of course. It's very easy and convenient. You have debugger and all the goodies. Advantage of the emulator is the test option for 256MB devices.
That's exactly what I used to do prior to upgrading my devstation. The nominal min spec says 3G but with a real phone it worked fine in 2G and as you say this also sorts out graphics limitations.
Note that the setting for whether the emulator or physical device is used is stored in the project, so if you accept a project from someone else you will have to set it once prior to debugging.
Well there are 2 sides of the coin. With the physical device you can test most of the things, but with a few limitations
You will not be able to test internet related test cases - For example, if you have an app which uses internet connectivity then you will not be able to test it on the device easily because
The device does not use the machine internet connectivity
When connected to the PC the device's internet connectivity(Data connection 3G/ wifi/GPRS) is broken.
You will have to purchase an account right from the first day you want to test your app. If you have the emulator working then you could postpone this for atleast few days.
Related
Why is the Xcode Simulator called "Simulator" while the Android Studio Emulator is called "Emulator" when they bot basically do the same.
I'm not really sure if they are both simulators or emualtors.
Not even after reading this discussion:
Simulator or Emulator? What is the difference?
Emulator:-
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the host) to behave like another computer system (called the guest). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use peripheral devices designed for the guest system.
Performance Emulators are really slow. Emulating the actual hardware usually makes the software run slower than it would natively.
Example:- Google's Android SDK
MORE INFO IN WIKI
Simulator:-
A mobile simulator is a software application for a personal computer which creates a virtual machine version of a mobile device, such as a mobile phone, iPhone, other smartphone, or calculator, on the computer. This may sometimes also be termed an emulator.
MORE INFO IN WIKI
Faster than emulators
Example :-Apple's iOS Simulator
I found Network Sharing on Win8 mobile. (nokia Lumia)...I am trying to write similar application for Win8. But could not find any support on windows website. On Nokia website also, all I could find is how to turn on, but nothing else.
So, I have a lot of questions in my mind:
Is Network sharing is even supported by Windows or is it Nokia that has their own app to do this?
How this network sharing works? Are we tethering WLAN or something else?
Is it possible to write a similar app with the existing Win8 mobile APIs provided?
Does it use DNSMasq? ( I am assuming it is)
Is there any possible way to find the installed apps and the app structures in Win8 phone, like we have in android phones.
Network sharing is fully implemented by WP8 OS but it is under tight control from your cellular operator. You need to pay extra to enable "tethering" (here in USA). The cellular connection (4G, LTE) is then shared and your phone turns into Wi-Fi access point for other devices. When I try to enable network sharing on my HTC 8X (I am not paying for tethering), the screen flics with Wi-Fi details - tells me Wi-Fi broadcast name, password and number of guests connected - and then one second later I get a dialog from T-Mobile to go online and add tethering to my phone plan.
See above.
No, I don't think it is possible. As an app you don't have any control over network configuration.
I'd assume it provides NAT, DHCP and DNS forwarding. I don't think it uses DNSMasq code directly though. :-)
For privacy reasons you can't get a list of installed apps. Only when you are writing apps for enterprises (that don't go through Microsoft Store), you can list other apps signed with the same enterprise key. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj207245.aspx.
I am a windows phone app developer. My PC do not have enough graphics to support windows phone emulator. So I am developing application by using the windows phone device (HTC HD7) for debugging and testing from almost 5 months now. Now my device is so hanging and switch-off automatically sometimes. Is it bad for the device to use the developing purpose rather than using emulator ?. Is my device have problem because of the continuous use for developing ?
I think it is not a problem in using device for the developing purpose.
Looks like a fault in the device - I'd send it in for repair. I've certainly not heard of debugging causing issues with devices.
Do check if your internal storage is about getting full. Also if you have minimum RAM config, try not using multiple apps while debugging. Probably this should help.
And nonetheless, you can just visit a technician and get your phone thoroughly checked for issues.
I want to develop app for windows phone but I got a big problem, my laptop can't run the emulator, after checking the requirements I know that my vga driver doesn't support it. My question is, are there any alternative for windows phone emulator instead of the officially one from Microsoft? Or any other way to tweak it to be run on my laptop? Thanks
From my understanding there isn't any other windows phone emulators. If you can get a hold of a windows phone 7 it would be possible to test on that. You can try to contact a Microsoft windows phone evangelist in your area, the one in my area helped me get a phone to test on.
I am not sure about tweakinging your laptop to get the emulator to work. Is your vga driver up to date? If not maybe try to update it. I know it takes quite a bit of computer power to run the emulator smoothly.
If you wanted you can try to register for a virtual lab, here you remote into a windows machine and are able to build and test on the remote machine, but it is time limted and is usually for a class to learn about it. https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032485600&%3bculture=en-US
I am planning on purchasing the new HTC phone running Windows Phone 7, and am planning on using it for development purposes only; however, I can't afford the expensive subscription to T-mobile's data network at the moment. Is a cellular subscription necessary to use the phone for application testing purposes; or can I just use my WiFi network? Yes; I am aware of the fact that there's an emulator, but it is difficult to reliably test applications using an emulator.
You can test programs on your device without a data subscription. Of course you will need to decide if your particular program needs testing on a 3G only connection (eg. to test response times on slow connections etc. It can be faked, but I would recommend you test as close to real conditions as possible).
Regardless, you do need to pay the annual developer fee ($99) to Microsoft.