Hello Blog Reader Sample for the Windows Store in C#, Visual Basic.Net, JavaScript and even C++!

Today's Modern Monday post is kind of a repeat, but also kind of not. In the past we've highlighted building a "Hello RSS World" for Windows 8 series, Hello World... Building a simple RSS reader for Windows 8 Metro with HTML and JavaScript. Today's project takes so to a similar type of project, yet different. Not only does this project include C# and Visual Basic.Net versions (as well as HTML/JavaScript) but also includes a complete walk through and tutorial. When complete (or when you download the sample) you get a nice baseline for your own reader, with room for you to continue to extend and add features too.

Without further ado...

Getting started with C# and Visual Basic: Hello World and Blog reader samples

This sample includes the companion code for the Microsoft Visual Basic and C# tutorials in the Getting started node of the Windows Dev Center.

Specifically, this sample includes code for:

• Part 1: Create a "Hello, world!" app

  This sample and tutorial demonstrate how to create a simple "Hello, world"Windows 8 app using Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) with Microsoft Visual Basic or C#.

• Part 2: Manage app lifecycle and state

  This sample and tutorial update the "Hello, world" app to respond to lifecycle events, and save app and session data.

• Create a blog reader

  This sample and tutorial demonstrate some basic principles of Windows Store app development using Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML). It shows how to modify the Items Page, Split Page, and Basic Page templates in Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 to create a complete blog reader app that downloads the RSS and Atom feeds for several Windows-related blogs. It uses custom styles and animations to make a distinctive user interface, and has an app bar for navigation between pages. It also shows how to adapt the UI to different orientations and views, and save and restore app state.

This sample is written in XAML. For the HTML version, see the Getting started with JavaScript: Hello World and Blog reader samples .

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Part 4: Create a blog reader (Windows Store apps using C#/VB and XAML)

We introduce the essential code and concepts you need to create a Windows Store app using C# or Visual Basic. You'll use Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) to define the UI, and your selected language to write the app logic.

Note  You can download the complete Microsoft Visual Studio project for this tutorial from the Dev Center Sample Gallery. Download the source code. You can also view the source code on the download page.

If you'd rather use another programming language, see:

• Create your first Windows Store app using JavaScript
• Create your first Windows Store app using C++

Roadmap: How does this topic relate to others? See: Roadmap for Windows Store apps using C# or Visual Basic.

Before you start...

• This is the last tutorial in a series. Before you start this tutorial, we recommend that you read Part 1: Create a "Hello, world!" app, Part 2: Manage app lifecycle and state, and Part 3: Navigation, layout, and views. This tutorial introduces new concepts, and adds to concepts from the previous tutorials.
• You can complete this tutorial without reading the previous ones. However, concepts from previous tutorials might not be discussed in detail here.
• You can download the complete Visual Studio project for this tutorial from the Dev Center Sample Gallery. You can also view the source code on the download page. Download the source code.

Objectives

In this tutorial, we take a quick tour of the features that you'll use to build Windows Store apps. Through the process of creating a simple blog reader app, we introduce concepts that are core to development with XAML, including layout, controls, templates, and data binding. We learn how to use the page templates and navigation that are built into Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8 to quickly start our app development. We then learn how to use custom styles to modify the look of our app, and how to adapt the UI to various layouts and views. Finally, we briefly discuss integrating our app with Windows 8 and publishing it to the Windows Store. By the time you complete this tutorial, you'll be prepared to start building your own Windows Store apps.

In this article

• Before you start...
• Objectives
• Hello World
• Creating Windows Windows Store apps in Visual Studio
• Specifying app capabilities
• Getting data into an app
• Defining the app layout in XAML
• Adding controls and content
• Displaying data
• Adding pages and navigation
• Adding an app bar
• Adding animations and transitions
• Creating a consistent look with styles
• Adapting to different layouts
• Managing app lifecycle and state
• Adding a splash screen and logo
• What's next

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Here's a snap of the C# sample;

And here's it running;

What's always fun is taking a sample and tweaking it. With very few tweaks I took this Windows Team Blogs RSS Reader and turned it into a very simple Channel 9 Coding4Fun RSS Reader...

Of course this is no where near complete, but it's still a fun starting point. The article and sample provide some great Windows 8 App development pointers, techniques and ideas, enough to hopefully get you started on your own app's!