Learn how UX and design thinking can make your site stand out from the rest of the internet. About This Book ? Learn everything you need to know about UX for your Web Design. ? Design B2B, B2C websites that stand out from the competitors with this guide ? Enhance your business by improving customer accessibility and retention. Who This Book Is For If you’re a designer, developer, or just someone who has the desire to create websites that are not only beautiful to look at but also easy to use and fully accessible to everyone, including people with special needs, UX for the Web will provide you with the basic building blocks to achieve just that. What You Will Learn ? Discover the fundamentals of UX and the User-Centered Design (UCD) Process. ? Learn how UX can enhance your brand and increase user retention ? Learn how to create the golden thread between your product and the user ? Use reliable UX methodologies to research and analyze data to create an effective UX strategy ? Bring your UX strategy to life with wireframes and prototypes ? Set measurable metrics and conduct user tests to improve digital products ? Incorporate the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to create accessible digital products In Detail If you want to create web apps that are not only beautiful to look at, but also easy to use and fully accessible to everyone, including people with special needs, this book will provide you with the basic building blocks to achieve just that. The book starts with the basics of UX, the relationship between Human-Centered Design (HCD), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and the User-Centered Design (UCD) Process; it gradually takes you through the best practices to create a web app that stands out from your competitors. You’ll also learn how to create an emotional connection with the user to increase user interaction and client retention by different means of communication channels. We’ll guide you through the steps in developing an effective UX strategy through user research and persona creation and how to bring that UX strategy to life with beautiful, yet functional designs that cater for complex features with micro interactions. Practical UX methodologies such as creating a solid Information Architecture (IA), wireframes, and prototypes will be discussed in detail. We’ll also show you how to test your designs with representative users, and ensure that they are usable on different devices, browsers and assistive technologies. Lastly, we’ll focus on making your web app fully accessible from a development and design perspective by taking you through the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Style and Approach This is an easy-to-understand step-by-step guide with full of examples to that will help you in creating good UX for your web applications.

Use the two popular web development stacks, Node.js and MongoDB, to build full-featured web applications About This Book ? Learn the new ECMAScript along with Node 8 and MongoDB to make your application more effective. ? Get the up-to-date information required to launch your first application prototype using the latest versions of Node.js and MongoDB. ? A practical guide with clear instructions to designing and developing a complete web application from start to finish using trending frameworks such as angular4 and hapi Who This Book Is For The book is designed for JavaScript developers of any skill level who want to get up-and-running using Node.js and MongoDB to build full-featured web applications. A basic understanding of JavaScript and HTML is the only prerequisite for this book. What You Will Learn ? Work with Node.js building blocks ? Write and configure a web server using Node.js powered by the Express.js framework ? Build dynamic HTML pages using the Handlebars template engine ? Persist application data using MongoDB and Mongoose ODM ? Test your code using automated testing tools such as the Mocha framework ? Automate test cases using Gulp ? Reduce your web development time by integrating third-party tools for web interaction. ? Deploy a development environment to the cloud using services such as Heroku, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure ? Explore single-page application frameworks to take your web applications to the next level In Detail Node.js builds fast, scalable network applications while MongoDB is the perfect fit as a high-performance, open source NoSQL database solution. The combination of these two technologies offers high performance and scalability and helps in building fast, scalable network applications. Together they provide the power for manage any form of data as well as speed of delivery. This book will help you to get these two technologies working together to build web applications quickly and easily, with effortless deployment to the cloud. You will also learn about angular 4, which consumes pure JSON APOIs from a hapi server. The book begins by setting up your development environment, running you through the steps necessary to get the main application server up-and-running. Then you will see how to use Node.js to connect to a MongoDB database and perform data manipulations. From here on, the book will take you through integration with third-party tools to interact with web apps. You will see how to use controllers and view models to generate reusable code that will reduce development time. Toward the end, the book supplies tests to properly execute your code and take your skills to the next level with the most popular frameworks for developing web applications. By the end of the book, you will have a running web application developed with MongoDB, Node.js, and some of the most powerful and popular frameworks. Style and approach A practical guide with clear instructions to designing and developing a complete web application from start to finish

Explore and use the agile techniques of SAP Activate Framework in your SAP Projects. About This Book ? Explore the three pillars of SAP Activate and see how it works in different scenario. ? Understand and Implement Agile and Scrum concepts in SAP Activate. ? Get to Grisp with SAP Activate framework and manage your SAP projects effectively. Who This Book Is For This book is for readers who want to understand the working of SAP Activate and use it to manage SAP projects. Prior knowledge of SAP Hana is must. What You Will Learn ? Understand the fundamentals of SAP S4/HANA. ? Get familiar with the structure and characteristics of SAP Activate. ? Explore the application scenarios of SAP Activate. ? Use Agile and Scrum in SAP Projects effectively and efficiently ? Implement your learning into a sample project to explore and understand the benefits of SAP Activate methodology. In Detail It has been a general observation that most SAP consultants and professionals are used to the conventional waterfall methodology. Traditionally, this method has been there for ages and we all grew up learning about it and started practicing it in real world. The evolution of agile methodology has revolutionized the way we manage our projects and businesses. SAP Activate is an innovative, next generation business suite that allows producing working deliverables straight away. Manage your SAP Project with SAP Activate, will take your learning to the next level. The book promises to make you understand and practice the SAP Activate Framework. The focus is to take you on a journey of all the phases of SAP Activate methodology and make you understand all the phases with real time project examples. The author explains how SAP Activate methodology can be used through real-world use cases, with a comprehensive discussion on Agile and Scrum, in the context of SAP Project. You will get familiar with SAP S4HANA which is an incredibly innovative platform for businesses which can store business data, interpret it, analyze it, process it in real time, and use it when it's needed depending upon the business requirement. Style and approach An easy to follow approach with concepts explained via scenarios and project examples

Learn C# in 7 days with practical examples, build a foundation for C# programming, and boost your skills to an advanced level About This Book ? Learn the basics of C# in 7 days ? Works as a reference guide describing the major features of C# ? Build easy and simple code through real-world example scenarios Who This Book Is For The book is for aspiring developers and absolute novices who want to get started with the world of programming. You do not need any knowledge of C# for this book. What You Will Learn ? Understand and set up the .NET environment ? Code in C# using the Visual Studio 2017 RC (preferable community edition) IDE ? Define variables, syntax, control flows, statements, and arrays etc through examples ? Understand the concepts of Object-Oriented Programming using C# ? Get acquainted with attributes, collection, generics, and LINQ ? Get your hands on class members such as Modifiers, Methods, Properties, Indexers, File I/O, Exception Handling, and Regex ? Build a real-world application using C# 7 In Detail This book takes a unique approach to teach C# to absolute beginners. You’ll learn the basics of the language in seven days. It takes a practical approach to explain the important concepts that build the foundation of the C# programming language. The book begins by teaching you the basic fundamentals using real-world practical examples and gets you acquainted with C# programming. We cover some important features and nuances of the language in a hands-on way, helping you grasp the concepts in a fluid manner. Later, you’ll explore the concepts of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) through a real-world example. Then we dive into advanced-level concepts such as generics and collections, and you’ll get acquainted with objects and LINQ. Towards the end, you’ll build an application that covers all the concepts explained in the book. By the end of this book, you will have next-level skills and a good knowledge of the fundamentals of C#. Style and approach Fast paced guide to get you up-to-speed with the language. Every chapter is followed by an exercise that focuses on building something with the language. The codes of the exercises can be found on the Packt website

Build fast and powerful applications by harnessing the power of protocol-oriented programming in Swift 4 About This Book ? Leverage the power of protocol-oriented programming in your applications and learn from real-world use cases ? Create a flexible code base with protocols and protocol extensions ? Leverage the power of generics in Swift 4 to create very flexible frameworks Who This Book Is For This book is for Swift developers who want to learn and implement protocol-oriented programming in their real-world applications.. What You Will Learn ? Understand the differences between object-oriented programming and protocol-oriented programming ? Explore the different types that Swift offers and what pitfalls to avoid ? Delve into generics and generic programming ? Learn how to implement Copy-On-Write within your custom types ? Implement several design patterns in a protocol-oriented way ? Design applications by prioritizing the protocol first and the implementation types second In Detail Swift has become the number one language used in iOS and macOS development. The Swift standard library is developed using protocol-oriented programming techniques, generics, and first-class value semantics; therefore, every Swift developer should understand these powerful concepts and how to take advantage of them in their application design. This book will help you understand the differences between object-oriented programming and protocol-oriented programming. It will demonstrate how to work with protocol-oriented programming using real-world use cases. You will gain a solid knowledge of the various types that can be used in Swift and the differences between value and reference types. You will be taught how protocol-oriented programming techniques can be used to develop very flexible and easy-to-maintain code. By the end of the book, you will have a thorough understanding of protocol-oriented programming and how to utilize it to build powerful and practical applications. Style and approach This book is written for developers who learn best by working with code, so every concept discussed in this book is reinforced with real code examples.

Rich Finelli's modern CSS training course, based on his bestselling Mastering CSS video, now available in a book. Master CSS from best practices to practical CSS coding. About This Book ? Learn CSS directly from Rich Finelli, author of the bestselling Mastering CSS training course ? From best practices to deep coding, Rich Finelli shares his CSS knowledge with you ? Rich Finelli covers the latest CSS updates with flexbox and works with retina devices Who This Book Is For This book is for web designers who wish to master the best practices of CSS in their web projects. You already know how to work with a web page, and want to use CSS to master website presentation. What You Will Learn ? Master fundamental CSS concepts like the anatomy of a rule set, the box model, and the differences between block and inline elements ? Employ flexbox to layout and align elements simply and cleanly ? Become proficient with CSS3 properties such as transitions, transforms, gradients, and animations ? Delve into modular, reusable, and scalable CSS for more organized and maintainable style sheets ? Understand media queries and other pillars of responsive web design ? Get creative with the @font-face property, Google Web Fonts, font services such as Typekit, as well as, icon fonts ? Understand the workflow for HiDPI (retina) devices using 2x images, SVG, and the srcset attribute In Detail Rich Finelli trains you in CSS deep learning and shows you the techniques you need to work in the world of responsive, feature-rich web applications. Based on his bestselling Mastering CSS training video, you can now learn with Rich in this book! Rich shares with you his skills in creating advanced layouts, and the critical CSS insights you need for responsive web designs, fonts, transitions, animations, and using flexbox. Rich begins your CSS training with a review of CSS best practices, such as using a good text editor to automate your authoring and setting up a CSS baseline. You then move on to create a responsive layout making use of floats and stylable drop-down menus, with Rich guiding you toward a modular-organized approach to CSS. Your training with Rich Finelli then dives into detail about working with CSS and the best solutions to make your websites work. You'll go with him into CSS3 properties, transforms, transitions, and animations. You’ll gain his understanding of responsive web designs, web fonts, icon fonts, and the techniques used to support retina devices. Rich expands your knowledge of CSS so you can master one of the most valuable tools in modern web design. Style and approach Let Rich Finelli train you in CSS! This book has a direct training style because it is based on Rich's bestselling Mastering CSS training course.

Use test-driven approach to develop highly-functional iOS apps with Swift 4 and Xcode 9 About This Book ? A practical guide to writing effective, organized, and clean code that works well ? Learn test-driven principles to help you build better-designed apps with fewer bugs ? A comprehensive overview of the techniques available for TDD in Swift Who This Book Is For To get the most out of this book, you will need some prior experience with Swift application development. You may have already heard about Test-Driven Development (TDD) but you don't need any prior experience of applying it to Swift applications. What You Will Learn ? Implement TDD in Swift application development ? Find bugs before you enter code using the TDD approach ? Use TDD to build models, view controllers, and views ? Test network code with asynchronous tests and stubs ? Write code that is a joy to read and maintain ? Develop functional tests to ensure the app works as planned In Detail Test-driven development (TDD) is a proven way to find software bugs early. Writing tests before you code improves the structure and maintainability of your apps. Using TDD, in combination with Swift 4's improved syntax, means there is no longer any excuse for writing bad code. This book will help you understand the process of TDD and how to apply it to your apps written in Swift. Through practical, real-world examples, you’ll learn how to implement TDD in context. You will begin with an overview of the TDD workflow and then delve into unit-testing concepts and code cycles. You will also plan and structure your test-driven iOS app, and write tests to drive the development of view controllers and helper classes. Next, you’ll learn how to write tests for network code and explore how the test-driven approach—in combination with stubs—helps you write network code even before the backend component is finished. Finally, the book will guide you through the next steps to becoming a testing expert by discussing integration tests, Behavior Driven Development (BDD), open source testing frameworks, and UI Tests (introduced in Xcode 9). Style and approach Using a step-by-step approach, you will develop an entire iOS app using TDD. During the course of the book, you will explore different strategies for writing tests for models, View Controllers, and networking code.

Bring the performance and security of SQL Server to Linux About This Book ? Design and administer your SQL Server solution on the open source Linux platform ? Install, configure, and fine-tune your database application for maximum performance ? An easy-to-follow guide teaching you how to implement various SQL Server CTP 2.x offerings on Linux—from installation to administration Who This Book Is For This book is for the Linux users who want to learn SQL Server on their favorite Linux distributions. It is not important if you are experienced database user or a beginner as we are starting from scratch. However, it is recommended that you have basic knowledge about relational models. More advanced readers can pick the chapters of their interest and study specific topics immediately. Users from Windows platform can also benefit from this book to expand their frontiers and become equally efficient on both platforms. What You Will Learn ? Install and set up SQL Server CTP 2.x on Linux ? Create and work with database objects using SQL Server on Linux ? Configure and administer SQL Server on Linux-based systems ? Create and restore database back-ups ? Protect sensitive data using the built-in cryptographic features ? Optimize query execution using indexes ? Improve query execution time by more than 10x using in-memory OLTP ? Track row-versioning using temporal tables In Detail Microsoft's launch of SQL Server on Linux has made SQL Server a truly versatile platform across different operating systems and data-types, both on-premise and on-cloud. This book is your handy guide to setting up and implementing your SQL Server solution on the open source Linux platform. You will start by understanding how SQL Server can be installed on supported and unsupported Linux distributions. Then you will brush up your SQL Server skills by creating and querying database objects and implementing basic administration tasks to support business continuity, including security and performance optimization. This book will also take you beyond the basics and highlight some advanced topics such as in-memory OLTP and temporal tables. By the end of this book, you will be able to recognize and utilize the full potential of setting up an efficient SQL Server database solution in your Linux environment. Style and approach This book follows a step-by-step approach to teach readers the concepts of SQL Server on Linux using the bash command line and SQL programming language trough examples which can easily be adapted and applied in your own solutions.

Learn how to unify Customer Experience, User Experience and more to shape lasting customer engagement in a world of rapid change. About This Book ? An introductory guide to Experience Design that will help you break into XD as a career by gaining A strong foundational knowledge ? Get acquainted with the various phases of a typical Experience Design workflow ? Work through the key process and techniques in XD, supported by most of the common use cases Who This Book Is For This book is for designers who wish to enter the field of UX Design, especially Programmers, Content Strategists, and Organizations keen to understand the core concepts of UX Design. What You Will Learn ? Understand why Experience Design (XD) is at the forefront of business priorities, as organizations race to innovate products and services in order to compete for customers in a global economy driven by technology and change ? Get motivated by the numerous professional opportunities that XD opens up for practitioners in wide-ranging domains, and by the stories of real XD practitioners ? Understand what experience is, how experiences are designed, and why they are effective ? Gain knowledge of user-centered design principles, methodologies, and best practices that will improve your product (digital or physical) ? Get to know your X’s and D’s—understand the differences between XD and UX, CX, IxD, IA, SD, VD, PD, and other design practices In Detail We live in an experience economy in which interaction with products is valued more than owning them. Products are expected to engage and delight in order to form the emotional bonds that forge long-term customer loyalty: Products need to anticipate our needs and perform tasks for us: refrigerators order food, homes monitor energy, and cars drive autonomously; they track our vitals, sleep, location, finances, interactions, and content use; recognize our biometric signatures, chat with us, understand and motivate us. Beautiful and easy to use, products have to be fully customizable to match our personal preferences. Accomplishing these feats is easier said than done, but a solution has emerged in the form of Experience design (XD), the unifying approach to fusing business, technology and design around a user-centered philosophy. This book explores key dimensions of XD: Close collaboration among interdisciplinary teams, rapid iteration and ongoing user validation. We cover the processes, methodologies, tools, techniques and best-practices practitioners use throughout the entire product development life-cycle, as ideas are transformed to into positive experiences which lead to perpetual customer engagement and brand loyalty. Style and approach An easy-to-understand guide, filled with real-world use cases on process, design, and techniques, helping you build a strong foundation in Experience Design.

Learn the art of leveraging PowerShell to automate Office 365 repetitive tasks About This Book ? Master the fundamentals of PowerShell to automate Office 365 tasks. ? Easily administer scenarios such as user management, reporting, cloud services, and many more. ? A fast-paced guide that leverages PowerShell commands to increase your productivity. Who This Book Is For The book is aimed at sys admins who are administering office 365 tasks and looking forward to automate the manual tasks. They have no knowledge about PowerShell however basic understanding of PowerShell would be advantageous. What You Will Learn ? Understand the benefits of *ing and automation and get started using Powershell with Office 365 ? Explore various PowerShell packages and permissions required to manage Office 365 through PowerShell ? Create, manage, and remove Office 365 accounts and licenses using PowerShell and the Azure AD ? Learn about using powershell on other platforms and how to use Office 365 APIs through remoting ? Work with Exchange Online and SharePoint Online using PowerShell ? Automate your tasks and build easy-to-read reports using PowerShell In Detail While most common administrative tasks are available via the Office 365 admin center, many IT professionals are unaware of the real power that is available to them below the surface. This book aims to educate readers on how learning PowerShell for Office 365 can simplify repetitive and complex administrative tasks, and enable greater control than is available on the surface. The book starts by teaching readers how to access Office 365 through PowerShell and then explains the PowerShell fundamentals required for automating Office 365 tasks. You will then walk through common administrative cmdlets to manage accounts, licensing, and other scenarios such as automating the importing of multiple users,assigning licenses in Office 365, distribution groups, passwords, and so on. Using practical examples, you will learn to enhance your current functionality by working with Exchange Online, and SharePoint Online using PowerShell. Finally, the book will help you effectively manage complex and repetitive tasks (such as license and account management) and build productive reports. By the end of the book, you will have automated major repetitive tasks in Office 365 using PowerShell. Style and approach This step by step guide focuses on teaching the fundamentals of working with PowerShell for Office 365. It covers practical usage examples such as managing user accounts, licensing, and administering common Office 365 services. You will be able to leverage the processes laid out in the book so that you can move forward and explore other less common administrative tasks or functions.

A C# beginners guide to the core parts of the C# language! About This Book ? Learn C#, Visual Studio, and Object Oriented Programming ? See practical examples of all the core C# language features so that you can easily master them yourself ? Use the C# programming language to work with code and data, which can be applied to other programming languages as well ? Complete a variety of programming assignments for hands-on practice, as you move through the course Who This Book Is For This book will appeal to anyone who is interested in learning how to program in C#. Previous programming experience will help you get through the initial sections with ease, although, it’s not mandatory to possess any experience at all. What You Will Learn ? Learn C#, Visual Studio, and object-oriented programming ? Learn all the core C# language syntax with hands-on working examples ? Learn everything from basic variable assignments to complex multidimensional arrays ? Go through practical examples of all the core C# language features so that you can easily master them yourself ? Use the C# programming language to work with code and data, which can be applied to other programming languages as well In Detail Beginning C# Hands-On - The Core Language teaches you core C# language and syntax in a working Visual Studio environment. This book covers everything from core language through to more advanced features such as object-oriented programming techniques. This book is for C# beginners who need a practical reference to core C# language features. You'll also gain a view of C# through web programming with web forms, so you'll learn HTML, basic CSS, and how to use a variety of controls, such as buttons and drop-down lists. You'll start with the fundamentals of C# and Visual Studio, including defining variables, interacting with users, and understanding data types, data conversions, and constants. You'll move on to checking conditions using if/else blocks, and see how to use loops to do things such as repeat blocks of code. After covering various operators to evaluate and assign control structures, you'll see how to use arrays to store collections of data. By the time you’ve finished the book, you’ll know how to program the vital elements of the core C# language. These are the building blocks that you can then combine to build complex C# programs. Style and approach A comprehensive book that blends theory with just the right amount of practical code implementations, to help you get up and running with the C# programming language. You’ll also get to work with other tools and technologies that complement C# programming. Each core part of the C# language is coded as you learn, and code output is tested every time to verify the syntax is working as expected, so it’s easy for you to learn directly from the working code examples.

Design, develop, and publish your own mobile apps for iOS and Android using C# and Xamarin Studio About This Book Explore the exciting features of Xamarin Studio while learning to develop your own applications Develop a complete application from conceptualization through to publishing it on the app store The book walks you through the basics of cross-platform development with Xamarin using examples and best practices and tips for cross platform solutions. Who This Book Is For If you want to develop your own applications and want to explore the features of Xamarin Studio, then this is the book for you. It is expected that you have a basic understanding of technologies in mobile development, but prior knowledge of Xamarin is not required. What You Will Learn Understand the software development lifecycle for mobile applications Use Xamarin Studio and its wide range of features to write your programs in C# Use different options to create multi-platform applications using Xamarin and develop a cross-platform extension method Work with Xamarin forms and various UI controls Integrate synchronous and asynchronous communication module within your app Render images to work with Android and iOS Link a third-party application to your solution In Detail The mobile app market is increasing exponentially every year. Xamarin Studio with its modern and powerful IDEs makes creating applications a lot easier by simplifying the development process. Xamarin will allow you and your team to create native applications by taking advantage of one of the most evolved programming language in the world: C#. This book will provide you with the basic skills you need to start developing mobile apps using C# and Xamarin. By working through the examples in each chapter, you will gain hands-on experience of creating a complete app that is fully functional by all means. Finally, you will learn to publish the app you created on the app market. Each project in this book will take you one step closer to becoming a professional app developer. Style and approach The step-by-guide will walk you through the process of creating an application of with the help of small projects that will teach you everything you need to know to build a complete application of your own.

Develop programmatic functions to create powerful database applications About This Book Write complex SQL queries and design a robust database design that fits your application's need Improve database performance by indexing, partitioning tables, and query optimizing A comprehensive guide covering the advanced PostgreSQL concepts without any hassle Who This Book Is For If you are a PostgreSQL developer with a basic knowledge of PostgreSQL development and you’re want deeper knowledge to develop applications, then this book is for you. As this book does not cover basic installation and configurations, you should have PostgreSQL installed on your machine as a prerequisite. What You Will Learn Write more complex queries with advanced SQL queries Design a database that works with the application exactly the way you want Make the database work in extreme conditions by tuning, optimizing, partitioning, and indexing Develop applications in other programming languages such as Java and PHP Use extensions to get extra benefits in terms of functionality and performance Build an application that does not get locked by data manipulation Explore in-built db functions and data type conversions In Detail PostgreSQL is the most advanced open source database in the world. It is easy to install, configure, and maintain by following the documentation; however, it’s difficult to develop applications using programming languages and design databases accordingly. This book is what you need to get the most out of PostgreSQL You will begin with advanced SQL topics such as views, materialized views, and cursors, and learn about performing data type conversions. You will then perform trigger operations and use trigger functions in PostgreSQL. Next we walk through data modeling, normalization concepts, and the effect of transactions and locking on the database. The next half of the book covers the types of indexes, constrains, and the concepts of table partitioning, as well as the different mechanisms and approaches available to write efficient queries or code. Later, we explore PostgreSQL Extensions and Large Object Support in PostgreSQL. Finally, you will perform database operations in PostgreSQL using PHP and Java. By the end of this book, you will have mastered all the aspects of PostgreSQL development. You will be able to build efficient enterprise-grade applications with PostgreSQL by making use of these concepts Style and approach Every chapter follows a step by step approach that first explains the concept , then shows you how to execute it practically so that you can implement them in your application.

Explore the features of Unity 5 for 2D game development by building three amazing game projects About This Book Explore the 2D architecture of Unity 5, and the tools and techniques for developing 2D games Discover how to use Unity’s 2D tools, including Sprites, physics, and maps, to create different genres of games Practical tutorial on the intermediate and advanced development concepts in Unity 5 to create three interesting and fully functional games Who This Book Is For If you've got the basics of 2D development down, push your skills with the projects in this hands-on guide.Diversify your portfolio and learn the skills needed to build a range of awesome 2D game genres. What You Will Learn Explore and understand the vital role of sprites in 2D games Move, animate, and integrate sprites into a 2D platform game Set up User Interfaces (UIs) to keep track of the progress through the games Apply 2D Physics to improve gameplay believability Learn the foundation of Level Design and how to quickly create 2D Maps Discover NPC design, event triggers, and AI programming Create an epic strategy game, challenging all the skills acquired in the book In Detail Flexible, powerful, and full of rich features, Unity 5 is the engine of choice for AAA 2D and 3D game development. With comprehensive support for over 20 different platforms, Unity boasts a host of great new functions for making 2D games. Learn how to leverage these new options into awesome 2D games by building three complete game projects with the Unity game tutorials in this hands-on book. Get started with a quick overview of the principle concepts and techniques needed for making 2D games with Unity, then dive straight in to practical development. Build your own version of Super Mario Brothers as you learn how to animate sprites, work with physics, and construct brilliant UIs in order to create a platformer game. Go on a quest to create a RPG game discovering NPC design, event triggers, and AI programming. Finally, put your skills to the test against a real challenge - designing and constructing a complex strategy game that will draw on and develop all your previously learned skills. Style and approach This is a practical and easy-to-follow guide that starts with the basics and gradually delves into the process of creating 2D games. With step-by-step instructions on how to build three games, followed by a detailed explanation of each example, you will understand the concepts not just in theory, but also by applying the knowledge you gain in practice.

Combine the power of ASP.NET Core with Bootstrap 4 to build elegant, responsive web apps About This Book Updated for Bootstrap 4 and ASP.Net MVC 6, this book shows how to take advantage of the latest new features introduced in both of these industry-leading frameworks Build responsive, mobile-ready apps by combining the power of ASP.NET MVC with Bootstrap Grasp the intricacies of Bootstrap and how to use it with ASP.NET MVC Build your own tools and helpers to assist you in creating ASP.NET MVC Bootstrap sites easily and quickly Master the use of Bootstrap components and plugins with ASP.NET MVC Who This Book Is For If you are an ASP.NET MVC developer and would like to know how to incorporate Bootstrap into your projects, then this book is invaluable to you. Developers with entry-level experience of ASP.NET MVC development and limited experience with Bootstrap will also benefit from this book. What You Will Learn Create a new ASP.NET MVC project that uses Bootstrap for its styling and learn how to include external libraries using the new package managers Learn to use the various Bootstrap CSS and HTML elements, and how to use the new Bootstrap 4 grid layout system Explore the different input groups and implement alerts, progress bars, and badges Explore JavaScript components by illustrating and walking through the process of using JavaScript/jQuery to add interactivity to Twitter Bootstrap components Build your own ASP.NET MVC helpers and tag helpers to reduce the amount of HTML needed to generate Bootstrap elements Convert a Bootstrap HTML template into a usable ASP.NET MVC project Use the jQuery DataTables plugin with Bootstrap and ASP.NET MVC In Detail One of the leading open source frontend frameworks, Bootstrap has undergone a significant change and introduced several features that make designing compelling, next-generation UIs much simpler. Integrating Bootstrap with ASP.NET's powerful components can further enhance its capabilities. This book guides you through the process of creating an ASP.NET MVC website from scratch using Bootstrap. After a primer on the fundamentals of Bootstrap, you will learn your way around and create a new ASP.NET MVC project in Visual Studio. You will move on to learn about the various Bootstrap components as well as techniques to include them in your own projects. The book includes practical examples to show you how to use open-source plugins with Bootstrap and ASP.NET MVC and guides you through building an ASP.NET MVC website using Bootstrap, utilizing layout and user-interface components. At the end of this book, you will find some valuable tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your Bootstrap-integrated and ASP.NET MVC-integrated website. Style and approach This is a compact, step-by-step guide that focuses on combining the power of Bootstrap with ASP.Net MVC to build next-generation web apps. With clear instructions, this book will show how to build a complete ASP.Net MVC-integrated web app from scratch using Bootstrap. It will also cover several tricks for integrating Bootstrap and ASP.Net MVC, and getting the most out of both frameworks.

Discover how to build your own smart Internet of Things projects and bring a new degree of interconnectivity to your world About This Book Learn how to extract and analyse data from physical devices and build smart IoT projects Master the skills of building enticing projects such as a neural network autonomous car, computer vision through a camera, and cloud-based IoT applications This project-based guide leverages revolutionary computing chips such as Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and so on Who This Book Is For If you are hobbyist who is keen on making smart IoT projects, then this book is for you. You should have a basic knowledge of Python. What You Will Learn Implement data science in your IoT projects and build a smart temperature controller Create a simple machine learning application and implement decision system concepts Develop a vision machine using OpenCV Build a robot car with manual and automatic control Implement speech modules with your own voice commands for IoT projects Connect IoT to a cloud-based server In Detail Internet of Things (IoT) is a groundbreaking technology that involves connecting numerous physical devices to the Internet and controlling them. Creating basic IoT projects is common, but imagine building smart IoT projects that can extract data from physical devices, thereby making decisions by themselves. Our book overcomes the challenge of analyzing data from physical devices and accomplishes all that your imagination can dream up by teaching you how to build smart IoT projects. Basic statistics and various applied algorithms in data science and machine learning are introduced to accelerate your knowledge of how to integrate a decision system into a physical device. This book contains IoT projects such as building a smart temperature controller, creating your own vision machine project, building an autonomous mobile robot car, controlling IoT projects through voice commands, building IoT applications utilizing cloud technology and data science, and many more. We will also leverage a small yet powerful IoT chip, Raspberry Pi with Arduino, in order to integrate a smart decision-making system in the IoT projects. Style and approach The book follows a project-based approach to building smart IoT projects using powerful boards such as the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and the IoT chip.

Learn how to build physical computing systems using BeagleBone Black and Python About This Book Get to grips with the fundamentals of BeagleBone Leverage Python *s to program BeagleBone for your requirements Build four exciting projects, from home automation to a tele-controlled robot Who This Book Is For This book is intended for hobbyists and consumers who wish to create impressive projects using BeagleBone. You must be familiar with Python programming. What You Will Learn Program on BeagleBone Black using Python Interface sensors and actuators to BeagleBone Black Build your own real-time physical computing systems Connect physical computing systems to cloud servers Build your own home automation and home security system Build your own tele-controlled robot with real-time video streaming In Detail BeagleBone is a low cost, community-supported development platform to develop a variety of electronic projects. This book will introduce you to BeagleBone and get you building fun, cool, and innovative projects with it. Start with the specifications of BeagleBone Black and its operating systems, then get to grips with the GPIOs available in BeagleBone Black. Work through four types of exciting projects: building real-time physical computing systems, home automation, image processing for a security system, and building your own tele-controlled robot and learn the fundamentals of a variety of projects in a single book. By the end of this book, you will be able to write code for BeagleBone in order to operate hardware and impart decision-making capabilities with the help of efficient coding in Python. Style and approach This book is a step by step guide that will walk you through the fundamentals of building different projects using BeagleBone Black.

Improve the performance of your PHP application to ensure the application users aren't left waiting About This Book · Make the optimum use of PHP coding to improve your programming productivity · Leverage the potential of PHP for server-side programming, memory management, and object-oriented programming · Packed with real-life examples to help the readers implement concepts as they learn Who This Book Is For This book is for those who have basic experience in PHP programming. If you are developing performance-critical applications, then this book is for you. What You Will Learn · Setup high performance development and production environment for PHP 7 · Discover new OOP features in PHP 7 to achieve high performance · Improve your PHP applications' performance · Attain improved database performance · Benchmark PHP applications to optimize them · Write quality code by learning to improve code reusability, simplicity, and expressiveness · Get rid of the bottlenecks in your PHP 7 applications by writing PHP code optimally · Tackle issues related to web applications, such as high user dependency and large datasets In Detail PHP is a great language for building web applications. It is essentially a server-side *ing language that is also used for general-purpose programming. PHP 7 is the latest version, providing major backward-compatibility breaks and focusing on high performance and speed. This fast-paced introduction to PHP 7 will improve your productivity and coding skills. The concepts covered will allow you, as a PHP programmer, to improve the performance standards of your applications. We will introduce you to the new features in PHP 7 and then will run through the concepts of object-oriented programming (OOP) in PHP 7. Next, we will shed some light on how to improve your PHP 7 applications' performance and database performance. Through this book, you will be able to improve the performance of your programs using the various benchmarking tools discussed. At the end, the book discusses some best practices in PHP programming to help you improve the quality of your code. Style and approach The book is a step-by-step guide to improve the quality of your code in PHP through real-time examples. The book takes a practical approach to improving the quality of your code.

Simplify and automate server administration tasks with PowerCLI About This Book Automate VMware’s VSphere environment by learning the essentials of PowerCLI Impress your peers by developing *s to perform administration tasks Discover the intricate workings of PowerCLI through simple and real-life examples Who This Book Is For PowerCLI Essentials is focused toward virtualization professionals and system administrators who want to discover and learn about the automation techniques associated with PowerCLI for complex virtual environments. What You Will Learn Download and install PowerCLI and its basics as well as the basics of PowerShell Enchance your scritping experience Build longer *s and simpler reports Relate a task in VMware administration to a PowerCLI * Discover methods to acquire and change information remotely Set up orchestrator to manage your workflow In Detail Have you ever wished you could automatically get a report with all the relevant information about your VMware environments in exactly the format you wantOr that you could automate a crucial task that needs to be performed on a regular basisPowerful Command Line Interface (PowerCLI) *s do all these things and much more for VMware environments. PowerCLI is a command-line interface tool used to automate VMware vSphere environments. It is used to handle complicated administration tasks through use of various cmdlets and *s, which are designed to handle certain aspects of VSphere servers and to help you manage them. This book will show you the intricacies of PowerCLI through real-life examples so that you can discover the art of PowerCLI *ing. At the start, you will be taught to download and install PowerCLI and will learn about the different versions of it. Moving further, you will be introduced to the GUI of PowerCLI and will find out how to develop single line *s to duplicate running tasks, produce simple reports, and simplify administration. Next, you will learn about the methods available to get information remotely. Towards the end, you will be taught to set up orchestrator and build workflows in PowerShell with update manager and SRM *s. Style and approach Each and every topic in this book is explained in a very easy-to-follow fashion with real-life, simple examples so you’ll get an idea not only about working with PowerCLI, but will also get an idea about *ing.

Master the art of writing beautiful and powerful Python by using all of the features that Python 3.5 offers About This Book Become familiar with the most important and advanced parts of the Python code style Learn the trickier aspects of Python and put it in a structured context for deeper understanding of the language Offers an expert's-eye overview of how these advanced tasks fit together in Python as a whole along with practical examples Who This Book Is For Almost anyone can learn to write working * and create high quality code but they might lack a structured understanding of what it means to be 'Pythonic'. If you are a Python programmer who wants to code efficiently by getting the syntax and usage of a few intricate Python techniques exactly right, this book is for you. What You Will Learn Create a virtualenv and start a new project Understand how and when to use the functional programming paradigm Get familiar with the different ways the decorators can be written in Understand the power of generators and coroutines without digressing into lambda calculus Create metaclasses and how it makes working with Python far easier Generate HTML documentation out of documents and code using Sphinx Learn how to track and optimize application performance, both memory and cpu Use the multiprocessing library, not just locally but also across multiple machines Get a basic understanding of packaging and creating your own libraries/applications In Detail Python is a dynamic programming language. It is known for its high readability and hence it is often the first language learned by new programmers. Python being multi-paradigm, it can be used to achieve the same thing in different ways and it is compatible across different platforms. Even if you find writing Python code easy, writing code that is efficient, easy to maintain, and reuse is not so straightforward. This book is an authoritative guide that will help you learn new advanced methods in a clear and contextualised way. It starts off by creating a project-specific environment using venv, introducing you to different Pythonic syntax and common pitfalls before moving on to cover the functional features in Python. It covers how to create different decorators, generators, and metaclasses. It also introduces you to functools.wraps and coroutines and how they work. Later on you will learn to use asyncio module for asynchronous clients and servers. You will also get familiar with different testing systems such as py.test, doctest, and unittest, and debugging tools such as Python debugger and faulthandler. You will learn to optimize application performance so that it works efficiently across multiple machines and Python versions. Finally, it will teach you how to access C functions with a simple Python call. By the end of the book, you will be able to write more advanced *s and take on bigger challenges. Style and Approach This book is a comprehensive guide that covers advanced features of the Python language, and communicate them with an authoritative understanding of the underlying rationale for how, when, and why to use them.

Build websites and applications using the latest techniques in modern web development About This Book Create amazing modern day applications that run seamlessly across multiple platforms Implement multiple methodologies by creating different apps with dynamic features This unique project-based guide will help you build your own websites efficiently Who This Book Is For This book is a must-have for web developers who want to stay on top of the latest trends in web app and site development. If you are a web developer who is already familiar with HTML, CSS, and functional JavaScript, and you want to learn the latest trends in web development, this is the book for you. What You Will Learn Find out how to create responsive websites Create websites using the principals of Flat design Create deep-dive sites using parallax scrolling Discover how to use Ajax in single-page applications Create responsive navigation with CSS and JavaScript Create responsive padding with the box model property In Detail The book delivers simple instructions on how to design and build modern Web using the latest trends in web development. You will learn how to design responsive websites, created with modern Flat User Interface design patterns, build deep-scrolling websites with parallax 3D effects, and roll-your-own single-page applications. Finally, you'll work through an awesome chapter that combines them all. Each chapter features actual lines of code that you can apply right away. Style and Approach Using real-world examples, Web Design Blueprints presents practical how-to projects for site enhancements, with a light-hearted, easy-to-understand tone. This book has individual projects that cumulate until you finally build a super-project at the end, using all the skills learned