&quot;Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript&quot; eBook finished and the PDF is available right now... (and still free as in free, and now 833 pages)

Monday, October 29, 2012

"Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript" eBook finished and the PDF is available right now... (and still free as in free, and now 833 pages)

Microsoft Press - Free ebook: Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Hello, Kraig Brockschmidt here. To help celebrate //build/, I’m delighted to announce the completion of Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript!

You can download the ebook in PDF format here: http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink/?Linkid=270056 (17.9 MB)

(Note: We will be providing EPUB and MOBI formats in the near future. We’ll add links here when those formats are ready.)

The ebook’s companion content is here: http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink/?Linkid=270057 (60.0 MB)

This free ebook provides comprehensive coverage of the platform for Windows Store apps. Since its second preview in August, we’ve added the remaining chapters on live tiles, notifications, background tasks, background transfers, networking, devices, printing, WinRT components, accessibility, localization, and the Windows Store itself. The final ebook contains 17 chapters. And of course all of the earlier chapters have also been reviewed and refined—over 800 pages in total, along with new and updated companion content!

It has been a wild ride these last few months to finish a book of this magnitude at the same time we were building up to the public release of Windows 8. At moments like these one would like to stop, let out a long “Whew!” and rest for a while. But truly, this is just the beginning! I primarily wrote this book for those developers who have yet to delve into Windows 8 but who will certainly be very interested in the platform as it gains momentum with consumers in the coming year especially. There’s going to be a great market out there for the wonderful apps you’ll be creating, and it is my delight to help serve as a guide to that territory.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I’ve endeavored in this ebook to coalesce the collective experience of app builders who have been working with this platform from the beginning, as well as the insights and understanding of the Windows engineering team itself. I’ve also made a focused effort to highlight the amazing resources that are available in the Windows SDK samples, because they contain thousands and thousands of lines of code that you won’t have to write yourself once you know where to look! I’m hoping that my efforts in doing that research will save you the trouble and help you write some great apps in a short amount of time.

I’ll also reiterate that while this book focused on writing apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, many of the later chapters are really applicable to apps written in any language because they focus on the WinRT API rather than the details of the HTML/CSS presentation layer. Chapter 16, “WinRT Components,” in fact, focuses on using multiple languages within the same app, something that allows you to use the best language for any particular problem! Chapter 17, “Apps for Everyone: Localization, Accessibility, and the Windows Store,” also goes into detail on writing apps for global markets, employing tools like the Multilingual App Toolkit that isn’t specific to apps written in JavaScript.

In the end, then, there is much in this ebook that will be highly valuable to developers working on Windows 8 apps in whatever language. And again, the ebook is free, so there’s no excuse to not have it in your library.

Of course, there are many bits and details that have crossed my path since I had to hand off the text to Microsoft Press. In the months ahead, then, I will be sharing those on my blog, http://www.kraigbrockschmidt.com/luminarity, as well as in postings here with Microsoft Press. I look forward to the continued journey with you!

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