New Microsoft Advertising Ad SDK for Windows 8 Available Today

October 26th Windows 8 Launches

Today I’m proud to announce the general availability release of the Microsoft Advertising SDKfor Windows 8. I wanted to take a moment and thank the developer community for all your feedback and support in building the SDK. We have actively been incorporating feedback since the Technical Preview release last year. The team has been focused on offering a best-in-class consumer experience as well as creating a world where developers can best take advantage of all Windows 8 Ads in Apps has to offer their applications.

In the GA release we have made improvements in the SDKs performance, stability and the range of consumer experiences it supports. Below is a list of some of the improvements. The full updated API documentation can be found on MSDN.

• This SDK provides helper API’s for the XAML version of the SDK to work around the WebView control z-index issue. (The new Suspend/Resume API can be used to temporarily convert the WebView control into a WebViewBrush when content is covering the ad. See example below).
• Made performance improvements with scrolling/panning in XAML applications. This can be detected using the IsPerformanceScrollingEnabled property.
• Addressed a variety of stability improvements and bug fixes.

Handling the z-index issue is still far from ideal, but we tried making it as simple as possible. Below example suspends the ad control when the AppBarwill cover it.

// in AppBar.onbeforeshow handler

MyAd.Suspend(false);

// and in AppBar.onbeforehide handler

MyAd.Resume();

This is not it; you can rest assured we are going to continue trying to make the ways in which we solve the issue as seamless as possible.

We are only a month away from an unprecedented reach opportunity for app developers and we look forward in helping you provide ad funded applications to Window 8 consumers without risking their safety, privacy and overall experience with your application.

All the best with your Windows 8 applications!

Cheers

- Ian