Porting business apps to Windows Phone

Porting business apps to
Windows Phone
Michele Capra aka @piccoloaiutante

What is this talk about ?
‣ My personal experience on porting a business App from Android to
Windows Phone 8.
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Agenda
‣ The App
‣ Development tools
‣ Mockup
‣ Code and development (UI,
component, languages)
‣ Integration with OS
‣ App lifecycle
‣ App publish and store
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

The MDC client
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

The MDC client
The case study:
‣ Mobile Data Collection (M.E.A.P.)
‣ create mobile application from a Web interface using a series of widgets
‣ deliver Apps to Android Tablet and Phone, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry,
Windows Phone 8, Windows 8 RT/Pro
‣ developed by Gulliver, an italian company.
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Mdc architecture
App2
App1
App n
Mdc Client
App1
App2
Appn
Data sync Activated client
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Available control in MDC
‣ Close acquisition (checkbox, radio)
‣ Free acquisition (textbox, maps,
nfc, barcode/qrcode)
‣ Free Grid acquisition
‣ Lookup acquisition
‣ Touch screen acquisition
(signature, draw)
‣ Media (picture, video)
‣ Messages (show text)
‣ Control flow (if, loop)
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Android client example
Applications Add new customerSalesman visit app
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Android client example
Proposed product Visit outcome Notes
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Windows phone client example
Applications Add new customerSalesman visit app
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Windows phone client example
Proposed product Visit outcome Notes
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

MDC client
‣ Native clients (no Phone Gap)
‣ Proprietary protocol
‣ Occasionally connected
‣ Several different widget (picture, signature, position, textbox..)
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

First big question
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Which Windows Phone
version to support ?
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

First big question
To support Windows Phone 7 or not?
We chose not to support it:
‣ Clear Microsoft intent to dismiss Windows Phone 7
‣ Some of the components we needed were only for Windows Phone 8.
Android support from 2.3
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Development tools
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Visual Studio 2012
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Android IDE
‣ AndroidStudio
‣ Intellij Idea
‣ Eclipse
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

IDE
Both support:
‣ Code completion
‣ Emulator 
‣ Debugging
‣ Visual designer
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

IDE
Jet Brains solution could help you:
‣ Intellij Idea keyboard scheme and shortcut are available for Visual
Studio through ReSharper plugin
‣ Code navigation, refactoring shortcuts…
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Mockup
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Mockup
‣ UI + Controls + Navigation - Logic
‣ Didn’t look at Android app code
‣ Just investigate
‣ Trying to figure out how to translate App flow from Android to
Modern UI
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Mockup
‣ Windows phone app
‣ Navigation between pages
‣ No SketchFlow
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Mockup
Android Windows Phone
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Component
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Component
App capabilities:
‣ Take picture
‣ Read BarCode/QR Code
‣ Read NFC
‣ Get GPS coordinate
‣ Take signature
‣ Use web view
‣ Store data in a database
‣ Multi-language support
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Component
‣ Take picture (Intent → Request CameraTask)
‣ Read BarCode/QR Code (ZXing → ZXing.net)
‣ Read NFC (Intent → Microsoft library to do the job)
‣ Get gps coordinate ( LocationManager → GeoLocator)
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Component
‣ Take signature (Canvas & Path → InkPresenter)
‣ Use web view (WebView → WebBrowser)
‣ Store data in a database (SQLite → SQLite)
‣ Multilanguage support (Xml file → Multilingual App toolkit)
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Component - Database
‣ We had to make a choice between:
‣ LocalDb
‣ SQLite
‣ SQLite won because of the experience with other platform
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

So let’s start developing
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Code
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Java vs C#
Academic answer for similarities:
‣ Statically strong typed
‣ Class-based, Object-oriented
‣ Semi-interpreted
‣ Garbage collection
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Java vs C#
‣ convert basic type
‣ change data structure:
‣ Vector<T> → List<T>
‣ HashTable<Integer,Integer> → Dictionary<int,int>
‣ change method name i.e: string.startWith() → string.StartsWith()
‣ StringTokenizer → String.split(string)
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Java vs C#
Different pattern:
‣ Android: Model-View-Presenter pattern but View and Presenter highly
coupled.
‣ Windows Phone: Model-View-ViewModel pattern, Binding
mechanism.
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Framework
Caliburn as framework:
‣ Screen-conductor mechanism
‣ Screen: a stateful unit of work existing within the presentation tier of an
application. It’s independent from the application shell.
‣ Conductor: Conductors manage the life cycle state of one or more
screens.
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Framework
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store
Conductor
(ViewModel, Page)
Screen
(ViewModel,UserControl)

Framework
Caliburn as framework:
‣ EventAggregator: messaging between classes
‣ PhoneBootstrapper: custom bootstrapper designed to setup phone
applications.
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

UI
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

XML vs XAML
Similarity:
‣ LinearLayout → StackPanel
‣ TextView, TextEdit → TextBlock,TextBox
‣ ScrollView → ScrollViewer
‣ Radio Group, RadioButton → RadioButton
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Values vs Xaml style
Android Values:
<color name=“white”>#FFFFFFFF</color>
!
Windows Phone Xaml control style:
<Color x:Key="white">#FFFFFFFF</Color>
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Integration with OS
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Integration with OS
‣ Make a phone call
‣ Send an email
‣ Open Map 
‣ Navigate to a place
‣ Open link in browser
‣ Open pdf/office file
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Integration with OS
In Android you do this by intent and activity.
!
Intent callIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CALL);
callIntent.setData(Uri.parse("tel:0377778888"));
startActivity(callIntent);
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Integration with OS
In Windows Phone you use Tasks.
!
PhoneCallTask phoneCallTask = new PhoneCallTask();
phoneCallTask.PhoneNumber = "2065550123";
phoneCallTask.Show();
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Integration with OS
Sending email in Android.
!
Intent emailIntent = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_SEND);
emailIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, new String[]{to});
startActivity(emailIntent);
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Integration with OS
Sending email in Windows Phone.
!
EmailComposeTask emailComposeTask = new EmailComposeTask();
emailComposeTask.To = “michele@orangecode.it”;
emailComposeTask.Show();
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

App lifecycle
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Android activity lifecycle
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Windows Phone lifecycle
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Be careful
From Microsoft docs:
“It is possible, however, for an app to be tombstoned after the user
navigates away. In this case, the app is not preserved in memory, but
some information about the app is stored – most importantly for this
topic, the State dictionary of the PhoneApplicationPage object is stored”
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Be careful
‣ Serialised and deserialise the app state that is not a part of the page
‣ Rebind all the dependencies
‣ Update UI value (i.e: something typed from user before tombstoning)
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Be careful
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Store
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

App package
‣ Xap file which includes everything needed from the app.
‣ It’s almost like an apk file.
‣ You cannot install xap out of store.
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Google Play store
‣ Generate key pair
and certificate and
keystone 
‣ Sign your app and
verify signed app 
‣ Upload and
publish to Play
store
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Windows Phone store
Validation
‣ Package
verification
!
Certification
‣ Sign and
encryption
!
Publish
‣ Ready to be
published
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Windows Store Test Kit
The Windows Phone Windows Phone Store Test Kit (formerly named
Marketplace Test Kit) provides a suite of automated and manual tests to
help prepare your apps to be accepted in the Windows Phone Store the
first time you submit them.
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Testing for tombstoning
‣ Before upload your xap to store simulate tombstoning and test your
app manually.
‣ Tombstoning could be forced manually by Visual Studio.
Introduction
The App
Development tools
Mockup
Code
Integration with OS
App lifecycle
App publish & store

Recap
‣ The App
‣ Development tools
‣ Mockup
‣ Code and development (UI,
Component, languages)
‣ Integration with OS
‣ App Lifecycle
‣ App publish and store

My personal experience
‣ Java is not far from C#
‣ Build a mockup in order to explore new platform
‣ Keep an eye on app lifecycle

‣ No object mapping SQLite-net is too slow
‣ I doubt that i would reuse a framework
‣ I would rather use a toolkit

‣ MVP gave to Android app the possibility to have full access and
control of the UI
‣ MVVM gave to Windows Phone 8 a partial access to the UI
‣ ViewFirst approach was a part of the problem

Porting business apps to Windows Phone

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