www.it-ebooks.info Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 Quickstart Cookbook Get up to date with the exciting new features in .NET 4.5 Framework with these simple but incredibly effective recipes Jose Luis Latorre Millas BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI www.it-ebooks.info Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 Quickstart Cookbook Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information. First published: May 2013 Production Reference: 1160513 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK. ISBN 978-1-84968-698-3 www.packtpub.com Cover Image by Artie Ng ([email protected]) www.it-ebooks.info Credits Author Copy Editors Jose Luis Latorre Millas Insiya Morbiwala Aditya Nair Reviewers Laxmi Subramanian Stephen Cleary Layla Driscoll Project Coordinator Nauzad Kapadia Amey Sawant Leon Welicki Proofreader Ariel Woscoboinik Lawrence A. Herman Acquisition Editor Indexer Joanne Fitzpatrick Rekha Nair Lead Technical Editor Production Coordinator Dayan Hyames Manu Joseph Technical Editors Cover Work Chirag Jani Manu Joseph Soumya Kanti Veena Pagare www.it-ebooks.info About the Author Jose Luis Latorre Millas is a Microsoft Silverlight MVP, Toastmaster's Competent Communicator, TechEd speaker, INETA speaker, STEP member, trainer, technical writer, and reviewer. He is deeply involved with the technical communities through his collaboration with INETA Europe, Barcelona Developers, and other communities and user groups. He recently co-founded the Zurich .NET Developers user group at Zurich, Switzerland, which can be found at http://ZurichDev.net. Jose Luis Latorre is strongly focused on XAML technologies such as Windows Store Apps, Windows Phone Apps, Silverlight, and WPF. He has written several articles on these topics, reviewed books, and worked with and given several talks over the last few years on these areas of knowledge. Jose Luis works as UI Team Lead developer at Roche Diagnostics, where he does his best to develop and improve diagnostic software and its interfaces, which will help to save lives. www.it-ebooks.info Acknowledgment I'd like to first of all thank my girlfriend, Sandra Saenz Gonzalez, for her enormous support in taking on the project that this book was. I am greatly thankful for her constant understanding while having me closed up between four walls as I wrote and developed its contents. Thanks, Sandra, I love you. Big thanks as well to my friend Jesus Salillas, who helped me with style reviews and guidance. There are many good people out there who I have to thank, too. Thanks to Alfonso Rodriguez, who encouraged me to get into this "big .NET community world," and to Cristina Gonzalez, who has been my MVP Lead for—wow!—6 years already; easier said than done. Additionally, there is my good friend Paco Marin, who encouraged me strongly to write for him and his magazine, DotNetMania, now DNM, and during these years of collaboration, while writing for him, we have become good friends; thank you for all your support and care. On the way, I found great friends out there, versed in the community, who allowed me to jump right at my passion. Thanks to the INETA guys, Damir Tomicic, Tomislav Bronzin, Sander Gerz, Andrej Radinjer, Andre Obelink, Christian Nagel, Dobrisa Adamec, and, of course, Miguel Lopez. Thank you for being there and doing what you do, greatly empowering the European developers' community. And for letting me take part in it and letting me "live it." One simple word—outstanding. I'd like to give a big thank you to the staff of Packt Publishing for this opportunity, their support and patience on bringing this together, and for their understanding concerning my move to Switzerland, which had me a bit lost for a while (regarding the book). There you showcased that you are truly valuable, as a company and as people; special thanks to Rashmi Phadnis, Amey Sawant, and Dayan Hyames. And finally I would like to thank Layla Driscoll, former Product Manager of the .NET CLR team, and Leon Welicki, Program Manager of the Workflow Foundation, both of whom I have had the honor of having as technical reviewers for this book. Thanks! It's awesome to count on you as reviewers. www.it-ebooks.info I also have some friends who believed in me and encouraged me to write and said "I could do it"—thanks Braulio Diez, David Nudelman, Luis Franco, David Salgado, and Luis Fraile for your friendship, belief, and support. I wouldn't have been able to write enclosed in the 15 square meters—my home for almost four months of my initial stay in Switzerland—if I couldn't take my stress out, which I did with my friends at Crossfit Zurich, so I want to give a big thank you to Ozi, all the coaches, and friends I have found at the "box" for being there! And I will end by thanking those who started it all for me, that is, thanks to my father and mother for giving me birth and making me so curious; love you. Thank you all! www.it-ebooks.info About the Reviewers Nauzad Kapadia is an independent professional and founder of Quartz Systems, and provides training and consulting services for the entire Microsoft .NET and SQL Server stack. Nauzad has over 17 years of industry experience and has been a regular speaker at events such as TechED, DevCon, DevDays, and user group events. He has been a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for six years on technologies ranging from C# and ASP.NET to SQL Server. Whenever he is not working on his computer, he enjoys rock music, photography, and reading. Ariel Woscoboinik graduated as a Bachelor of Information Technology from the University of Buenos Aires, and as an IT technician from ORT school. Since his childhood he has been programing and getting more and more involved in the world of technology. Later on, he became interested in organizations and their business models and succeeded in converging both interests into his career—looking for the best solutions to involve people, processes, and technology. Currently, he works as a Software Development Manager for Telefe, the leading TV channel in Argentina. Ariel has been working with Microsoft technologies since high school. During his career, he has worked for highly prestigious companies from myriad industries—Microsoft, MAE, Intermex LLC, Pfizer, Monsanto, Banco Santander, IHSA, Disco S.A., Grupo Ecosistemas, Perception Group, and Conuar. Among his passions are acting in dramas as an amateur actor, travelling around the world, watching films, and soccer. You can reach him at http://www.linkedin.com/in/arielwoscoboinik or on twitter, @arielwos. www.it-ebooks.info www.PacktPub.com Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support files and downloads related to your book. Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at [email protected] for more details. At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks. TM http://PacktLib.PacktPub.com Do you need instant solutions to your IT questions? 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Simply use your login credentials for immediate access. www.it-ebooks.info Table of Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: Windows Store Apps 7 Introduction 7 Building our first Windows Store app 10 Adding a splash screen (and app tiles) to our app 21 Improving the application to make it compliant with the Windows 8 lifecycle model 24 Improving our application tile 33 Improving our application with toast notifications 40 Chapter 2: Exploring the Top New Features of the CLR 43 Introduction 43 Creating a portable library 45 Controlling the timeout in regular expressions 49 Defining the culture for an application domain 52 Overriding the default reflection behavior 53 Using the new ZipArchive class 56 Understanding async and await in .NET 4.5 59 Using the new asynchronous file I/O operations 63 Chapter 3: Understanding the New Networking Capabilities 67 Introduction 67 Using the HttpClient and the new System.Net.Http namespaces 68 Chapter 4: Understanding the new features of Entity Framework 5.0 75 Introduction 75 Creating our first "Code First" application 76 Using Code First Migrations 84 www.it-ebooks.info