14 DAY TRIAL // Redmond-based software giant Microsoft has just announced that a new version of Windows Phone Developer Tools, namely the January 2011 Update, which brings a new, highly expected feature into the mix, namely copy and paste. The release follows a few days after Microsoft pushed a new version of Windows Phone Training Kit. Only available for developers at the moment, the feature should soon be accessible to end-users as well, via a software update that Microsoft promised ever since early January, and which is expected to be released in a matter of weeks.
The company also notes that most of the applications already available for download via the Windows Phone Marketplace should not need recompiling to take advantage of the new copy and paste functionality.
The new January 2011 Update to the Windows Phone Developer Tools was released with a series of bug fixes, a new emulator, and with various utilities included into the mix as well. There are two installation files that need to be downloaded.
The changelog for the Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update also includes:
Windows Phone Developer Resources Update – Fixes a text selection bug in pivot and panorama controls. In applications that have pivot or panorama controls that contain text boxes, users can unintentionally change panes when trying to copy text. To prevent this problem, open your application, recompile it, and then resubmit it to the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Windows Phone Capability Detection Tool – Detects the phone capabilities used by your application. When you submit your application to Windows Phone Marketplace , Microsoft performs a code analysis to detect the phone capabilities required by your application and then replaces the list of capabilities in the application manifest with the result of this detection process. This tool performs the same detection process and allows you to test your application using the same list of phone capabilities generated during the certification process.
Windows Phone Connect Tool – Allows you to connect your phone to a PC when Zune software is not running and debug applications that use media APIs.
Updated Bing Maps Silverlight Control – Includes improvements to gesture performance when using Bing Maps Silverlight Control.
There is also a Windows Phone Developer Tools Fix included in the new release, which was meant to allow developers to deploy XAP files over 64 MB in size to mobile phones, so that they could better test and debug their software.
According to Microsoft, developers would have to download both the WindowsPhoneDeveloperResources_en-US_Patch1.msp and the VS10-KB2486994-x86.exe files to get started with the new flavor of the Windows Phone Developer Tools.
The Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update can be downloaded from Softpedia too, via this link.