We have already seen in the earlier tutorial series on Windows Phone 7 on how to build a simple application like Hello Phone and deploy it . In this tutorial series I will guide you more gradually on a day-by-day basis, through all the concepts and features of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango OS.

Specifically, in this tutorial series, I will be talking to you about and touching upon some development concepts like:

All basic concepts, keywords, variables
Debugging methods and breaks
Loops, decision making statements
Accepting input and providing output
Operators, statements and expressions
Methods and classes
String, datetime (predefined classes)
Little about namespaces, collections
How to use XAML code to design interface
Silverlight events, input controls
Image controls
Resources and styles
How to navigate between xaml pages
Application bar
Use of canvas and isolated storage
Tombstoning
Input scopes, GPS, Location API
Orientation change, control visibility
Some other minor topics which might need our attention in some situations

We have separated tutorials into 4 days, each day having a number of tutorials. At the end of the day we will do one simple assignment based on topic learn on that day. Now all set for it? Let’s start with the summary.

The newly evolved Windows Phone 7.5 OS provides some great opportunities for developers to develop various applications, both interactive and attractive, without making any big fuss about programming.

Microsoft has provided several ways in which a normal developer can use various cloud services, using Windows Azure technology platform, and thus make their application highly scalable, powerful and reliable in terms of memory usage and resources. Microsoft has provided all these services with only one goal in mind: to extend the functionalities of applications beyond traditional desktop or laptop and make them truly portable.

To make you aware about the functionality of this new and robust operating system, we are presenting you a series of tutorials which will teach you to develop a simple application for Windows Phone and in due course we shall look at all the important features also.

Tools required to develop Windows Phone Apps

In this particular tutorial, we shall look at all the tools that we will need through out the series and their system requirements.

To start with developing, you will first need Windows Phone 7 developer tool, which can be downloaded for free. If you already have MS Visual Studio installed, then this tool will be integrated into that else it will be installed as an independent tool.

Requirements:

Windows Vista x86 or x64, with Service Pack 2 (all editions except Starter Edition) or Windows 7 x86 or x64 (all editions except Starter Edition)
4 GB of free disk space on the system drive
3 GB RAM
Windows Phone Emulator requires a DirectX 10 or later graphics card.

Failing to satisfy any single requirement of this, may result in functional errors. If you have covered this much, good!

For those of you, who don’t have much idea about Windows Phone 7.5 OS, it uses two languages to build its applications. One is C#, which is a standard language for Microsoft’s .NET framework and another is XAML (Extensive Application Markup language). C# is used for writing program logic in backend whereas XAML is used mainly for designing the user interface.

Let us now have a look at the new project page of developer tool.

This page provides you total 5 options, which we will see one by one later. For the start choose first option reading “Windows Phone Application” and click on OK after providing a file name of your choice. Once you press OK, you will be presented with a developer page. It has three sections, one is XAML section, another is C# section and third one is solution explorer and visual section.

We shall see all about them in next tutorial but as we prepare our next tutorial, just get familiar with the interface and all the elements.