Is there a Windows Phone 7 reference application?

Question

Are there any solid Windows Phone 7 reference applications that demonstrate core APIs and best practices for Windows Phone 7 + Silverlight?

Specifically, I think there are a few major concepts that are not well-documented or well-built-out. Rather than fall back to frameworks, I'd like to have a better understanding of how these should operate in Windows Phone 7.

• Navigation - Navigating between pages, especially passing state information (like viewmodels)
• MVVM - I know there are frameworks out there, but I'd like to see a clean reference implementation of it
• Structure - I'm curious how best to organize the application, resources, etc.

Is there anything out there that really covers these concepts? I've reviewed countless web sites talking about them, but no one really seems to have elegant solutions.

Answer 1

You might want to take a look at Windows Phone 7 Training Kit for Developers - RTM Refresh

General overview:

This Training Kit will give you a jumpstart into the new Windows Phone world by providing you with a step-by-step explanation of the tools to use and some key concepts for programming Windows Phones. This release the training kit is bigger than ever. With five new labs the kit has now a total of 12 labs

Also, there is a great set of article links compiled here - you can find WP7-related tutorials and step-by-step guides for various aspects of WP7 development.

Answer 2

Although it is for the Beta release, I found the "Build a Newsreader" hands-on labs from the Swiss DPE Team to be handy in understanding the basics of design, handling data and push notifications. As mentioned by Dennis, I maintain a list of resources for Windows Phone 7 developers . You can follow the #wp7dev hash tag on twitter for the latest news and announcements on Windows Phone 7.

HTH, indyfromoz

Answer 3

MSDN has a number of Code Samples for Windows Phone which explain many of the concepts and core controls you should understand when developing for the phone.

The Windows Phone 7 Training Kit for Developers also includes many complete examples which not only show how to develop for WP7 but also good ways to lay out and structure your apps.

There are also a number of apps (of varying quality) on codeplex that may also be of use/interest.

Answer 4

There's also a Windows Phone 7 project from the Microsoft Patterns & Practices group on CodePlex:

http://wp7guide.codeplex.com/