Learning Windows Azure Mobile Services for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8

A short, fast and focused guide to enhance your Windows 8 applications by leveraging the power of Windows Azure Mobile Services

Overview

• Dive deep into Azure Mobile Services with a practical XAML-based case study game
• Enhance your applications with Push Notifications and Notifications Hub
• Follow step-by-step instructions for result-oriented examples

In Detail

Windows Azure is the most opted for cloud technology, and is getting better each day. With the increasing number of users of Windows Phone and Windows 8, the necessity for a good robust cloud service to support the apps is increasing. Windows Azure Mobile Services is a set of Windows Azure hosted services that are designed to quickly build, deploy, and manage a mobile web-connected app.

Using this concise and to-the-point guide, you will be able to utilize Windows Azure Mobile Services with your Windows apps and know how best to integrate them with the backend capabilities that Azure provides.

We start with setting up the portal, choosing a subscription, and taking the first steps into integrating services into our applications. From here, we explore security, scripts, and push notifications and finish with the requirements for store submission and how to improve user experience.

The book discusses different service permission options and demonstrates how to use an authentication provider in our applications. Scripts are examined throughout the book with examples of modifying table methods, creating custom APIs, and making push notification requests. We also explore how to extend scripts with NPM packages and manage them with Git version control. Push notifications is a major feature of Mobile Services so this subject is thoroughly examined with examples using the native PNS libraries and scaling up notifications with Notifications Hub.

Learning Windows Azure Mobile Services for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 is a great companion for anyone who is building or thinking of building an application that needs centralized data storage or push notifications.

What you will learn from this book

• Configure a Windows Azure Mobile Service
• Modify table APIs with scripts and create custom APIs
• Call HTTP services from scripts
• Implement NPM packages in scripts
• Manage scripts with Git version control
• Configure Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 applications to implement Push Notifications
• Use Notifications Hub to manage notifications more easily and efficiently
• Prepare your application for submission to the Store

Approach

This book is based around a case study game which was written for the book. This means that the chapters progress in a logical way and build upon lessons learned as we go. Real-world examples are provided for each topic that are practical and not given out-of-context so they can be applied directly to other applications.

Who this book is written for

If you are a developer who wishes to build Windows 8 and Phone 8 applications and integrate them with Windows Azure Mobile Services, this book is for you. Basic C# and JavaScript skills are advantageous, as well as some knowledge of building Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 applications.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Preparing the Windows Azure Mobile Services Portal
Chapter 2: Start Developing with Windows Azure Mobile Services
Chapter 3: Securing Data and Protecting the User
Chapter 4: Service Customization with Scripts
Chapter 5: Implementing Push Notifications
Chapter 6: Scaling Up with the Notifications Hub
Chapter 7: Best Practices for Web-connected Apps