This Toolkit is now deprecated and is now

superseded by Windows Azure Mobile Services

During the early previews of Windows 8, the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 provided developers with the first support for building backend services for Windows Store apps using Windows Azure.  The main areas of feedback we received from mobile developers was that they wanted a turn-key set of services for common functionality such as notifications, auth, and data.   Windows Azure Mobile Services directly reflects this feedback by enabling developers to simply provision, configure, and consume scalable backend services. The downloads for this toolkit will be removed on the week of Feb 1st 2013.  Future improvements will be channeled into Windows Azure Mobile Services rather than this toolkit. 

To get started with Mobile Services, sign up for a Windows Azure account and receive 10 free Mobile Services.

Push Notification Worker Sample

The toolkit includes a sample application based on the same solution structure as the one created by the Windows 8 Cloud Application Services project template. The sample demonstrates how to off-load the job of sending Windows Push Notifications using a Windows Azure worker role. You can find the source code in the Samples\PNWorker folder. This folder contains a full version of the sample application showing how to use Windows Push Notifications using ASP.NET Membership as the authentication mechanism. 

The sample contains two different solution files:

• WATWindows.Azure.sln: This solution must be opened with Visual Studio 2010 and contains the projects related to the Windows Azure web and worker roles.
• WATWindows.Client.sln: This solution must be opened with Visual Studio 11 and contains the Windows Metro style application project.

Note: At the time of writing, only Visual Studio 2010 supports Windows Azure cloud projects so you currently need to use this edition to launch the server application. This will change in a future release of the Windows Azure tools when support for Visual Studio 11 is enabled.

Important: Setting up the PNWorker Sample

Before running the PNWorker sample, you need to register the application and configure it. To do this, follow these steps:

1. To register your application, go to the Windows Live Application Management site for Metro style apps at https://manage.dev.live.com/build and sign in with your Windows Live ID.
2. In the Windows Push Notifications & Live Connect page, enter the following information and click I Accept to submit the registration form.

   Package Display Name	PNWorker.Sample
   Publisher	CN=127.0.0.1, O=TESTING ONLY, OU=Windows Azure DevFabric

   

3. Once you register the application, make a note of the values shown in the portal for Client Secret, Package Name and Package SID.

   

4. Now, double-click the SetupSample.cmd file located inside the Samples\PNWorker folder to launch a tool that will guide you through the process of configuring the sample.
5. If you see a User Account Control dialog box, click Yes.

   Note: The next part of the setup runs a PowerShell script that requires running with administration privileges to allow the scripts to execute in your machine.

6. When prompted, enter the Client Secret, Package Name, and Package Security Identifier you obtained previously and wait until the tool finishes configuring your sample.

   

7. Press ENTER to complete the setup.

Running the PNWorker Sample

To run this sample, you must run both the client and the server application projects.

1. Open Visual Studio 2010 as an administrator.

   Note: At the time of writing, only Visual Studio 2010 supports Windows Azure cloud projects so you currently need to use this edition to launch the server application. This will change in a future release of the Windows Azure tools when support for Visual Studio 11 is enabled.

2. Open the WATWindows.Azure.sln solution located in the Samples\PNWorker folder.
3. Make sure that the start-up project of the solution is the cloud project. To set the start-up project, right-click the WATWindows project in Solution Explorer and select Set as StartUp Project.
4. Press F5 to launch the application in the compute emulator and open a browser window that shows its start page.
5. Now, open Visual Studio 11 and open the WATWindows.Client.sln solution located in the Samples\PNWorker folder.
6. Press F5 to launch the Metro style client application.
7. Next, in the client application, click Reopen channel and send to server. Once the application opens the channel and registers it with the cloud application, observe that the Output area shows the channel URI.

   

8. Return to the browser window showing the Push Notifications page and refresh it. Notice that the UI now lists the newly registered client.

   

9. You may now send notifications to the client application by clicking the Send Notification button. To learn how to use this feature, see Using the Windows 8 Cloud Application Services Application.