Visual Studio on DVLUP

Postmortem - Child node "2" compilation error after updating to 18362 SDK

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

[Update May 2020] This has been fixed in the 19041 SDK. Install the 19041 SDK, set your project’s Target SDK to 19041 and finally Rebuild the project/solution**.**

One of the more frustrating things for me is not being able to debug a problem. After updating my UWP app’s Target SDK to 18362 (Windows 10 1903), I was no longer able to compile. I got a very vague error. that I had to dig out of the msbuild logs:

Error XF001: Xamarin.Forms targets have been imported multiple times

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re in the process of updating a Xamarin.Forms app to a more modern style project set up (NET Standard 2.0, PackageReference, etc), you may get the following error.

Error XF001: Xamarin.Forms targets have been imported multiple times. Please check your project file and remove the duplicate import(s).

This can be because of the move to using PackageReference for your NuGet packages and a simple fix awaits you.

Close Visual Studio and navigate to the Solution in File Explorer
Delete the hidden .vs folder
Go into each affected project sub folder and delete the following files; project_name.nuget.props and project_name.nuget.targets
Open the solution in Visual Studio, do a Clean and Rebuild,

Invalid XAML error updating from WP7

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

We are now seeing the beginning of the fast decline of Windows Phone 7 as it exits the market over the next several months, many of you will need to act to update your app to at least Windows Phone 8. I did this for all of my WP7 apps and there was one error that was In just about every upgrade:

An error on this XAML namespace declaration:

xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls"

```Previous to Windows Phone 8, the Pivot and Panorama controls were part of a toolkit. The Windows Phone team did a solid by included these in the OS, they also added new controls like the LongListSelector to replace the toolkit's ListPicker . These controls are now found in the Phone namespace.

It's a very frustrating problem if you're seeing it for the first time. Don't worry, there is a really easy fix... Delete the xmlns:controls line and use only the xmlns:phone one or edit it and remove the ".Contols" part of the assembly pointer. Here is what it will look like after doing the edit option:

xmlns:controls=“clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone”

App Studio - Design-Time Sample Data

Wed, 02 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re like me, you like to fiddle and tweak things to get just the right result . Recently, Microsoft has really beefed up App Studio apps and if you explore the downloaded source code you’ll see a new Universal app structure leveraging MVVM. Let’s start with the before and after photo (click any image to view larger):

Before and after changes to the items lists

Creating Design-Time Sample Data

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

One of the best things you can have when developing a Windows Phone app is design-time sample data. I will show you in this post how to create sample data from a class using Blend. (click images to view larger)

You can apply this technique to an existing class you have, but for the purposes of this tutorial I’ll be using a File > New Visual Studio 2013 Windows Phone project. If you have an existing app, you can skip to Step 3, but I recommend skimming the first two.

Monetizing App Studio with Ads

Fri, 07 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So, you’d like to put some ads in your awesome App Studio app? No problem! I thought I would write a post to show just how easy it can be. Follow these easy steps and you’ll start earning money from ads…

Ad provider

The ad provider is the service the AdControl in your app gets the ad to display and also where you earn the revenue. As of Windows Phone 8 there is a PubCenter AdControl built into the framework, all you need to do is get an ApplicationId and an AdUnitId. You get that information from Windows Phone DevCenter , find out how to get your ApplicationId and AdUnitId in this great blog post .

Registering Extensions

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

With the entrance of Visual Studio 2012 we saw a new interface to edit your WMAppManifest file. This is a great tool to help you properly setup your app’s meta data. There is one limitation you should be aware of… there is no support for extensions. What are extensions? They are the added functionality that lets you tie your app into other parts of the OS and user experience. This blog post will cover the extensions for photos, but the process is the same for other extensions.

From The Ground Up

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This post is to get you started on Windows Phone Development “from the ground up” and is targeted towards people who have no prior experience with the Windows Phone SDK. At any time you can refer to my resources page for additional links to WPDev assets, tutorials and example code.

Ok, let’s begin.

The first thing you should know is that is does not cost a penny to develop for Windows Phone! The SDK and the tools are free. The only time you will need to pay is when you sign up for your Microsoft DevCenter account. The DevCenter is your portal to the Windows Phone Store. It is where you will submit, update and track your apps. I can help mitigate those costs for you. If you are an Android or iOS Developer and are porting an app, or a true “from the ground up” developer, I will pay for your first year’s DevCenter fee. Contact me for details.