Microsoft launched the Windows 8 developer blog a number of months ago and in December the company launched the Windows Store developer blog site. Today, as part of the Consumer Preview release of Windows 8, Microsoft has now launched yet another new developer blog related to the OS. This time the blog directly addresses the needs of app developers who are making software products for Windows 8.
The first blog entry, written by Microsoft"s Aleš Holeček, gives an introduction to what they plan to discuss. He offers links to the company"s dev center web site where people can download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview as well as the Visual Studio 11 Express Beta software development tools. There"s also a link to the community forum for app developers can ask questions and get advice on making their Windows 8 Metro apps.
Holeček says that app developers will see a lot of differences between the Developer Preview version of Windows 8, launched back in September, and today"s Consumer Preview launch:
Tiles and tile notifications are more powerful and easier to implement; you need less code now for AppBars and navigation in Metro style HTML/JS apps; and for you DirectX developers, we have DirectX support in XAML. We’ll share more details in future posts.