Core Change: Only support Windows Phone 8 / VS 2013

[frostieDE]

Hey guys,

in order to make this project flexible for the future, we should fully switch from WP7 to WP8. Also, we should consider converting the solution-file to Visual Studio 2013.

Pros:

• targetting Windows Phone 8 is possible (this makes features like file-assiciation, new live tiles etc. possible, also WP8 is much faster than WP7)
• targetting Windows 8.1/RT is possible
• creating a PCL is possible, so we can share code for both WP8 and W8

Cons:

• no legacy support for Windows Phone 7.x
• everyone who wants to collaborate needs Visual Studio 2013 (Express versions are not supported)

Hint: Visual Studio 2013 is free for students (-> see https://www.dreamspark.com/Product/Product.aspx?productid=72)

What do you think?

Regards, Marcel

[framedynamic]

There is no reason why WP7 cannot be included to PCL. Using VS 2012 makes it still possible. The question is: Is it worth to support WP7 either? How many devices are still used?

[frostieDE]

Hey,

you're right - VS 2012 supports WP7, and thus you can include WP7 to PCLs. But in VS 2013 they removed support for WP7. So even Microsoft admits the death of Windows Phone 7. And as a developer for Windows Phone, I think so too.

I already developed some apps for both Windows Phone 7 and 8 and here is what I experienced:

Targetting both Windows Phone 7 & 8 in one project is very difficult and ugly. First, you cannot support the 720p display resolution (used by HTC 8X & Lumia 1080p devices). Users with these devices have a black border at the top of the display, which looks pretty ugly (this may lead to bad feedback in the store). Then, newer APIs (like fast-app resume or handling file URIs) cannot be used or we have to use reflection which makes the code pretty ugly and unreadable.

Targetting both Windows Phone 7 & 8 in two different projects doubles the amount of work for a new feature (as long as it is not possible to put this into the PCL). And although you can link files between projects you may run into API conflicts. You may resolve them using compile directives, but they also make the code very ugly. You also have to provide different view's for each target as (a) you have more controls in WP8 and (b) some controls live in different namespaces (compared to WP7).

And as Microsoft isn't adding missing features to Windows Phone 7, people are upgrading to Windows Phone 8 or Android/iOS.

My conclusion was to leave Windows Phone 7 behind and completly concentrate on Windows Phone 8.

Regards, Marcel

P.S.: Is this actually the right place to discuss the development of OwnCloud's Windows Phone App?

[framedynamic]

Hmm... conclusive arguments. But you could start a vote on the forum to be on the safe side.

I would poll against, because I only own a WP7 device. But I even know that I will upgrade in future.

[tcitworld]

Exactly the same, I use a WP7 device but I plan to move in the "not so distant future".

[altima]

Hi,

one oppinion to cross platform developing apps in eco system if microsoft. why you dont use vs2012 solution that targets wp7 and another one for wp8, but all code that can be excluded, e.g. viewmodels or so, to a portable lib and link code files from wp7 to wp8 project for minimizing recoding time with precompiler switches. in this case you got two solutions that targets both systems and you are abele to create a metro app and of course a xbox360 app from the portable lib.

when i find time, i can create a sample from a fork and you van thunk about it.

regards enno

[frostieDE]

Howdy guys,

I overthought my opinion concerning a Windows 8 app, because everyone running a real version of Windows 8(.1) can use the normal sync client. Only Surface RT and Surface 2 have the need for a modern UI client. I am not sure if we should spend time on developing a client for only that two devices.

This means, we don't have to use a PCL to share code, which makes development for Windows Phone much easier :-)

But concerning Windows Phone 7 there is still the question, whether we should spend time developing for a dead platform.

Sure, we can use VS 2012 to target both WP7 and WP8, but I think MS is dropping support for VS 2012 when they release the SDK for Windows Phone 8.1. Also, targetting WP7 and WP8 using linked files is a little tricky as we have to test everything twice. Besides, I already mentioned my optinion about linked files above.

Regards, Marcel

[framedynamic]

End of 2015. Mircosofts marketshare in windows phone increases slighlty (at least here in Europe), but I think WP7 is dead. WP8.x is getting upgraded to WP10, so we should start in developing in Windows 10 Universal App.

To bad my machine still doesn't supports the CPU-Phone-Emulator requirement :\