In developing a number of WP7 apps, I have a need to show clients how the app will be when deployed. The clients are a) not in the same location as I am, b) not technical at all, and c) may not even be using a PC. The purpose is to demo, get feedback and make any needed changes.
I'm not finding any realistic options to just simply show them what it would look, feel and run on a Windows Phone 7 (using the ApplicationBar, etc.). I found this link - http://www.redmondpie.com/standalone-windows-phone-7-series-emulator-9140536/ - but it's rather hacky for me to ask someone to do to set up an emulator on their machine without also installing VS Express, etc.
Does anyone know of any links to an official emulator that can be run on a PC, has a simple install and can load WP7 apps?
Have you considered using a product such as Citrix GoTo. Clients do not need to be particularly technical to join such a meeting, you can then take them through a demo. This will cost you though.
A free alternative would be to set aside a PC running the emulator with your software loaded. Create a VPN for you clients to connect to and let them use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to the PC. They can then play around with it remotely.
Have you considered using SketchFlow? Although by default the UI is "sketchy" (sorry), you can apply styles to the controls you drop on your pages, including the very same styles that are used by Windows Phone controls.
If you use a Silverlight SketchFlow project, you can deploy the content to a web server and provide a link that can be consumed on any machine that will render Silverlight content...they can go through the navigation, provide feedback, etc.
Christian Schormann has a writeup on what is required to use it in the pre-release tools... http://electricbeach.org/?p=573
You should take a look at this: http://justinangel.net/WindowsPhone7EmulatorAutomation. I believe it will answer your question exactly.
Related
Maybe I have't looked hard enough, but I spent yesterday googling for a bit and found no relevant projects on hacking the DJI Phantom Drone in order to create new coordinating apps. This is besides the app for coordination DJI currently uses for their drone. I'm trying to see if there's a way to communicate with the Drone with a specific protocol in order to accept a set of procedures.
Any help would be awesome,
Thanks.
Great News for you and all us Droneys! DJI has launched their SDK since you asked this question. They released it last November and you can now apply for a license and write your own apps for the Phantom2 Vision+ using their SDK.
Check it out at https://developer.dji.com/
I am already building a project using the SDK - you can follow my progress on my blog / product site. I will also try to update it with good DJI related development links and tips.
This post is old but I think it is good to leave a foot print for others :)
There is this new company called NVdrones, which created a peace of hardware that you can attach to any drone (you need physical access to the flight controller), and once you do that you can use their SDK (Arduino, Java, Android and Javascript) to write your app without the need of hacking, soldering or anything else. It is just plug and play.
Another benefit is that you are not locked with a specific drone (DJI SDK or 3DRobotics SDK), you can use the board on anything you want. Which gives lots of flexibility.
The developer site is http://developers.NVdrones.com
Hope this helps.
This is a great topic!
You could check how to hack your copter here: https://github.com/flyver/Flyver-SDK/wiki/-2.2--How-To:-Flyver-Hack-a-Copter
By opening the drone, taking out the original controller, soldering a few wires and sticking an Android phone to it, you will have the ability to program your Phantom in a modern manner with an open source SDK and application based development. This means that you could add computer vision to it, automation or additional hardware. You could also use smartphones, web and other interactive devices for remote controlling the copter instead of using the standard remote controls.
The Phantom, however, is offcenter balanced due to the fact that most people use gimbal with it. Without the gimbal is a lot less stable from my experiments so you will have to put some extra work in center balancing it.
Based on this post, I wanted to ask if there is any program in windows 7 available, that could record events like
Clicked start button
Launched Netbeans
Clicked Options
Entered Value
...etc?
And then play it again so that I dont have to reconfigure something everytime or many other use cases like that?
Thanks
p.s. I am being more specific here and no intention of duplicating any post.
Plenty.
Free, you can use an application like Sikuli It has great documentation and we currently use it for iOS and Android application automation.
Professional/Enterprise tools are available from the usual vendors, IBM Rational suite, HP's WinRunner that serve all sorts of purposes.
I am an android developer and now I am trying to learn Mango too. What are the SDK, system requirements, IDE required to start development?
Also I am from a Java background so I know that apps for windows phone can be developed using C#. So please guide me how to set up a development environment and start development on Mango.
Everything you need to know is right here at Microsoft App Hub. Click on "Download the free tools. Get started now."
An important thing to know is that you have to be registered with App Hub which takes some time (they will be checking your ID) and costs some money (99$ the last time I checked). You need this to debug on your device and to publish to the Marketplace.
For you as an Android developer the Windows Phone Guide for Android Developers will be helpful.
The Channel 9 jump start sessions are also quite good as well as their training course for beginners. Apart from that there is plenty of information in the web right now and the MS documentation and tutorials are really good. Keep googling, you'll find them.
Regarding the xp question, I think the emulator requires at least Windows Vista, so if your employer limits you to xp, you are out of luck (in this respect also :-)
How could I go about presenting a Windows Phone 7 application with a laptop?
Do I need to install Visual Studio on the laptop with which I will be making the presentation? I've read somewhere about a stand-alone emulator but I haven't found any info on how to load the app to the emulator (total MS-anything newbie here).
Thanks in advance!
If demonstrating via the emulator you'll need to install the tools including VS.
Assuming you have an actual device.
Using an actual phone and a webcam can help give people a better idea about what the app will look like.
If you're showing it to people unfamiliar with the phone then the fact that the UI is so different to what they may have seen on phones before is likley to be a distraction. If you have a real phone then you can better demonstrate your app in context and in comparison with the other apps on the phone.
Tip. Try and use a HD camera if possible as this will make it easier to see the details on the screen.
I have an application for Windows Phone 7 that I need to bundle up and send to several doctors for a content review. Ideas on how this might be done? I can't expect the docs to install the full SDK, but if I could bundle the emulator with it that might work, or if there's an easy way to convert the app to a Windows EXE that would as well. All suggestions welcomed!
While the theory is that since it's SIlverlight it should just run on the desktop. Years of Compact Framework development have taught me that this theory is almost never correct and getting it to work is often a real chore.
Microsoft has not yet delivered a stand-along WinPhone emulator (no idea if they will, but they did for WinMo) so for now that option is off the table. Getting your end user to install the stand-alone emulator is a fair bit of work anyway.
To be honest, my experience has been that just doing a Camtasia capture of the developer screen while you step through the app is one of the easiest ways to get ideas across to these types of groups. No, the end result isn't interactive, so they can't clock on buttons themselves, but if you walk through the feature they want to see, you can usually answer 95% of the questions this way.
When you need to address that other 5%, my experience has been that it's easiest to just send them a physical device with the app installed.
If they are (or have ready access to someone who is) fairly tech-savvy, shipping a Virtual PC image of a PC with the emulator installed and the app installed on it sometimes works.
Dot NET code using MS libraries is partially upwards compatible and most runtime classes present on a mobile device are also available on desktop Windows (see MSDN docs for details). So create a copy of your source code, ask visual studio to create a desktop .exe from it, it'll tell you it can't for several reasons, and you will need to recode some sections of it, resize the frame window etc. to make it work.
If one is careful about what methods one uses, I have managed to actually use the exact same .EXE file on the desktop without problems!
You simply cannot present the application without the SDK, since Windows Phone 7 applications rely on a completely different subset of .NET Framework and require an emulator to run XAP packages. Although you might say that it's the same Silverlight, don't forget about Microsoft.Phone and derivatives - you need the SDK in order for those libraries to be properly handled.
Also, you cannot convert a WP7 application to a Windows executable due to difference in platform architectures.
What you could do is simply allow the doctors to test your application through TeamViewer or similar products.
i think a "killer app" for winphone7+silverlight would be a desktop browser based emulator. want to try the app? just have the store run the emulator in the browser. (yeah, lots of technical hurdles, limited multitouch etc, but it would be pretty slick!)