Okra App Framework for Windows Phone 8.1 (beta)

[Cross posted from the Okra Framework blog]

Okra App Framework for Windows Phone 8.1

Following on from the recent v1.0 release of the Okra App Framework, preview support for Windows Phone 8.1 is now available. This will be wrapped up in an upcoming v1.1 release, but as of today a beta release is downloadable via NuGet (turn on support for preview versions and look for the v1.1.0-beta001 package).

This package includes,

• Windows Phone 8.1 support - Simply add a new Windows Phone 8.1 project and reference the NuGet package. The programming model is the same as for Windows 8.1, and most of your code should be sharable between projects.
• Portable Class Library support - In addition a PCL version is included, which allows sharing of logic and view-models in a single portable binary between Windows and Windows Phone projects.

Get in touch with any bugs or comments via the Okra.Core issue tracker.

Okra App Framework for Windows 10

In addition to the beta relase, progress is going well on a Windows 10 port of the Okra App Framework. Whilst this is not currently available via NuGet, you can check out and build the code via the Okra.Core/win-10 branch.

Okra App Framework v1.0 Released

[Cross posted from the new Okra Framework blog]


I am really happy to announce that version 1.0 of the Okra App Framework has officially been released. For those new to the framework, it is an MVVM framework designed from the ground up to be great for creating Windows apps. Dependency injection is baked in to allow you to create easy to maintain, test and reuse code. A number of advanced features allow simple integration with application settings, app-to-app sharing and search. In addition a full set of Visual Studio templates is available to get you started with MVVM development.
For more information checkout the Okra Framework website.
You can get the Okra App Framework now by installing the Visual Studio extension, from NuGet or GitHub. Full details on how to download the framework are available here.
In addition to the release of the framework we have,

• A new blog for all the latest news and updates on the framework
• Documentation covering everything from download instructions to advanced navigation scenarios
• Updated sample projects
• A new end-to-end application sample, Okra-Todo

Changes from v0.9.8

• Settings panes can now derive from SettingsFlyout - This allows you to use the full Visual Studio designer experience for the settings pane UI
• The Visual Studio settings pane template now derives from SettingsFlyout by default
• All classes/methods/properties/events marked as obsolete in v0.9.8 have been removed for the v1.0 release
• A number of other minor bug fixes

Okra App Framework vNext

The next step for the Okra App Framework v1.1 is to support other platforms, in particular Windows Phone 8.1 and preview support for Windows 10. Much of the development on these features is already complete so expect to see a beta release in the near future. You can check out progress and submit bugs and feature requests on the Okra.Core issue tracker. For more information on feature progress on the v1.1 release you can look at the v1.1.0 milestone progress page.