Visual Studio 2013 Cookbook: Understanding the latest features of Visual Studio can speed up and streamline your projects. And there's no better learning tool than this collection of focused recipes that gives you the fast, hands-on experience you need.

The appearance of the Windows Runtime (WinRT) brought forth a lot of attention when it was introduced as part of the shift in focus to Windows 8. Since the general availability of Windows 8-based systems and the OS itself, there is an opportunity to see first hand what the runtime meant. Essentially, Microsoft felt the need to advance the state of Windows application development by providing a new platform that recognized the rise of non-PC-based devices, touch interfaces, and to combine that with a method to obtain safe and secure Windows applications. WinRT abstracts away the underlying hardware, minimizes security risks, and prevents developers from making insecure or poorly performing calls via the traditional Windows API.

What WinRT offers developers familiar with Windows-based tools is the ability to easily create secure apps that run on Windows 8-based systems. Your users benefit from a straightforward shopping, purchasing, and installation process. As a developer, you...

In order for your local Windows apps to be run on your local developer machine, you will need a developer license. Note that this license is free and different from a developer account. The license allows you to develop and test Windows Store apps on your local developer machine. The account is used in conjunction with distributing your app through the Windows Store. There is no cost to obtain a license; it is merely used by Microsoft to track who is developing Windows Store apps. Conversely, a fee is charged by Microsoft to obtain a developer account.

A developer license is required because there would be security implications if a malicious Store app was distributed independent of Microsoft's ability to verify its safety. Consequently, each machine or device that you intend to test your app on must have its own developer license.

In this recipe, we will cover obtaining the developer license needed so that you can get started with writing Windows...

We'll begin by creating a basic Windows Store app that uses JavaScript/HTML. For this example, we will use the Hub app template.

Unless you're building a "Hello World" app, you're probably going to want to add more code files and assets to your project than are provided with the standard project templates. Since Microsoft wants Windows Store apps to not only offer great functionality, but to also meet the Windows Store design principles, it has provided a number of ready-made item templates for you to use as part of your development effort.

User interface item templates come with a common look and feel and subtle animations, so your app behaves like other Windows Store apps. Contract templates provide you with the boiler plate code and UI for building Windows 8 Contract support into your app.

In this recipe, you'll see how to use an item template to add functionality to a Windows Store app.

You may recall that one of the design goals of Windows Store apps was that they should run equally well on a multitude of devices, including tablets and other touch-enabled devices and they should also support a number of different views such as the Snapped and Full views.

As most developers use powerful desktops or high-end laptops for developing software, these machines exceed the capabilities of many portable devices. They also typically lack some of the other features found in portable devices such as GPS, or gyroscopes. To handle the differences between developer machines and the target devices, Microsoft includes a Windows Store app Simulator with Visual Studio that can be used to test your Windows Store apps without the need of a second physical machine to deploy to.

This recipe will show how to use the simulator to assist in developing your own apps.

Windows 8 provides Windows Store apps with the ability to communicate with any other app on the computer without prior knowledge of what those apps might be through a concept called Contracts. A Contract is an operating system level interface that consumers or providers of information implement. The operating system then keeps track of which apps support which contracts and coordinates the information between apps using those contracts.

Window 8, as part of its focus on improving the trust level in the apps it runs, expects Windows Store apps to communicate the capabilities they need. A Capability is a permission or access right that a Windows Store app requires for it to run correctly, for example, an app that requires Internet access or local network permissions. There is a range of capabilities that the operating system can provide to Windows Store apps. An app that doesn't request capabilities from the operating system will be provided minimum level...

Visual Studio 2013 has added additional app performance and diagnostic tools over what was found in VS2012. The Performance and Diagnostics menu provides the following tools:

For Windows 8 to correctly load and run a Windows Store app, it must be packaged in a particular format. The information contained in the package includes the capabilities and contracts that your app uses as well as information on the app user tile, the splash screen, and more.

This recipe will show you what you need to do to package your Windows Store app so that it is ready for the world to use.

Every app submitted to the Windows Store will be validated by Microsoft before being listed. Part of that validation process involves running the app through an automatic certification tool that Microsoft has included with Visual Studio. You should check that your app passes the certification tool before beginning the Windows Store submission process.