While working through the task, I realized it was not a conversion of a Surface application built on version 1 to version 2.
It was a task in converting the application to conform to the newly integrated Windows 7 touch technology newly integrated with the Surface technologies.
Surface “contacts” are now called “touches” blending the language of surface into the Windows 7 environment. Additionally, another significant change is that manipulations are no longer processes that work on objects, but have been migrated to be functions within the UI elements. The application compiled successfully after addressing these two factors along with some additional minor tweaking.
The next step was to adjust the layout of the application. The resolution of a Surface 1 application is not only smaller, but also a different aspect ratio than the new Surface 2. This impacted what I will call the stage of the application or background. The interactive objects used in the original application went unchanged as a result of the update.
Generally speaking, the conversion went fairly well with the biggest effort being the adjustment to the manipulations to the UI element level. In addition, developers should be aware that there are some changes to the application icon dimensions and the XML configuration file when running on a physical Surface unit.
I would say that when developing or converting applications for Surface 2, try not to reference version 1 too much, but rather, embrace the new Windows 7 touch environment. It’s not just Microsoft Surface, it’s also Windows 7.
