Windows 10 Developer tools preview now available to Windows Insiders
Microsoft has launched a preview version of the new Windows 10 Developer tools for its Windows Insiders users. Entry into the Windows Insiders program is free and open for all, if you’re ready to take the risk of running a developer preview version of the operating system and the developer tools.
Microsoft announced earlier at the Mobile World Congress that going forward, developers can target Windows on the desktop, phones, tablets and touchscreen enabled devices across sizes and forms with a single app. The company calls it the Windows 10 universal app platform, and that is starting to become a reality with these new developer tools.
Some key aspects of this release:
- Adaptive UX: Windows 10 provides the ability to use a single UI that can adapt from small to large screens. For developers with an existing Windows 8.1 app, you can quickly try this one out by (a) removing one of your UI projects (and going from three Visual Studio projects to one!) and (b) add the improved ViewStateManager to control how your UI adapts at runtime.
- User controls: A number of our Windows 10 UI controls will determine, at runtime, how the customer is interacting with your app and render the appropriate user experience (e.g. on a laptop with a touch-screen, an app fly-out control will provide larger touch-targets if tapped with touch, as opposed to clicked with a mouse).
- API contracts: With Windows 10, you can directly verify if a Windows feature is available rather than inferring based on the operating system version. This empowers you to start checking, at runtime, if a Windows feature is available on the device before you call a related API.
- Visual Studio Tooling improvements
Microsoft has made available a number of resources for developers to get started with these new tools and the UI/UX principles, which you find at the source link below.
