New Developer Features in EdgeHTML 13

Microsoft’s big November Windows 10 update carried with it some significant improvements not only in the OS but also in the Edge browser and the components it exposes to developers.  EdgeHTML, the core rendering engine got updates including better HTML5 Support while Chakra, the Javascript execution engine got improved ES7/ES2016 support including async functions. EdgeHTML…

5 Questions with Todd Anglin

Todd Anglin, VP of Product Strategy for Telerik, talks about the overrun of web frameworks, how to choose the right strategy for building mobile apps, and the impact of Visual Studio support for Cordova. As the EVP of Cross-Platform Tools & Services at Telerik, Todd Anglin is responsible for Telerik’s growing line of tools for…

Convert a Windows Store App to the Web in Under 10 Minutes

Microsoft held an event called re//build in Atlanta and I had the opportunity to speak about what’s new with WinJS. The event used a lightning talk format so with only 30 minutes to present, I decided to make the presentation itself the demo. I wrote the re//build WinJS Windows Store app by starting with the…

Silverlight: Where Do We Go From Here?

Silverlight made its debut in 2006 with the confusing acronym WPF/E (that’s Windows Presentation Foundation, Everywhere). Indeed the original dream was that a slimmed down version of the .NET Framework could run as a plugin in any browser (including smart phones) and enable developers to wield their weapons of XAML, data-binding, and C# to write…

Angular: The Modern HTML5 Answer to Silverlight’s MVVM

First, let me say that I realize Silverlight in no way “owns” the Model-View-View Model pattern. I’ve written on this extensively in my article “MVVM Explained.” However, I believe it gained the most public exposure through various implementations on that platform and this is what led to its adoption on the web. In fact, you…

Throttling Input in AngularJs Applications using UnderscoreJs Debounce

There are numerous scenarios to throttle input so that you aren’t reevaluating your filters every time they change. The more appropriate term is “debounce” because essentially you are waiting for the input to settle before you invoke a function, so you stop bouncing to the server. The canonical case would be a user entering input…

MVVM on MVC: HTML is not XAML

I have to admit that I may have rolled my eyes a bit when I first learned about the KnockoutJS library. It sounded too much like forcing a square peg into a round hole. Isn’t Model-View-Controller (MVC) already it’s own pattern? Does it make sense to apply something like Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) to HTML? I already…

Windows Store Apps, SVG, and HTML Interoperability

There are several reasons you may wish to show HTML content in your Windows Store app. You may have information that is updated frequently and makes the most sense to consume as HTML data. Your app may aggregate feeds that contain HTML content. In some cases you may be creating a native client that accesses…

The Cascade Game: From Silverlight to HTML5 (part 2)

Game Loops and Timer-Based Animations Previous Entries in Series Part 1 – Introduction and Game Layout My next short term goal was to get some of spheres to show and animate. And that was going to entail using HTML5’s new <canvas> tag. I saw two ways of going about animating the spheres. The first way…

The Cascade Game: From Silverlight to HTML5 (part 1)

A few years ago I played a game on Facebook that had a simple premise, but became quite addictive for a while.  It consisted of progressing levels of spheres in which the player was tasked with exploding by initiating a chain-reaction.  You had one shot.  Placement, timing, and luck determined how well you scored.  At…

MIX Sessions Recap for Day One

My first day of MIX was an exciting one. I expected the keynote would cover the non-Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 topics so contrary to the reports of “oh no” you’ll invariably hear, it only served to stretch my own excitement as I look forward to today’s keynote and what it will have to offer.…

Silverlight and HTML5: Microsoft’s Official Stance

This weekend was a wild ride with speculation about the future of Silverlight and whether or not Microsoft was abandoning it. It produced a lot of misinformation as anti-Silverlight zealots proclaimed its official demise with a smattering of “I told you so” thrown in. My blog post on the topic where I detailed just why…