Earlier this weekend I got a bit frustrated that Microsoft didn’t include a calculator based on the Metro (ne “Modern”) interface. The only one provided is the old fashioned “desktop” version that’s been in Windows since… Well, probably Windows 2k, if not earlier. Since I’ve been wanting to learn how to create Win8 apps with XAML for a while now, I thought creating a little very basic calculator would be a good introduction.
I have to say that Microsoft is nothing if not very consistent with how their various technologies work, and they’re pretty predictable, which is a godsend for learning a new programming technology. At first blush, XAML looks a lot like good old ASP.NET markup does, which is great. I’m seeing a lot of things that I’m used to– “Click” parameters for specifying which method gets called when a button is pressed is a pretty familiar concept.
I’ve got basic functionality working, and right now I’m working on getting key bindings to work. So far it’s been pretty easy to learn, although the layout is just static. I’ll look into getting a responsive layout for it next.
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