Is there a URL for creating Microsoft tags for Windows Phone 7 Apps?

Question

I am developing a website that will feature applications for Windows Phone 7, and I would like to include a Microsoft tag so that users can point their phone to the screen and download the application that is shown.

So far, their website has been completely useless, and it looks like you need to sign up for the API if you don't want to generate them manually.

I was wondering if there is one URL in which I can post the application identifier hosted on Microsoft servers that will generate the tag for me?

Answer 1

If you only need a tag that redirects the phone’s browser to the application’s download site, I would suggest that you simply create a Microsoft Tag account and create the tag as “one”: Hardcode url in the tag manager and upload the generated tag image. After that, you just need to use this image on your website or print ads - you don’t have to worry about the tag API or even return to the tag manager (as long as your download URL remains the same).

Answer 2

There is more than one URL that will create a tag for you. But this is a stack overflow, here is a short program that uses the Tag API to create any number of tags. For the program to work, you need to:

• add the link to the service in the https://ws.tag.microsoft.com/MIBPService.wsdl tag API
• Be sure to insert your own tag API into creds.AccessToken.
• Increase the value maxArrayLength = "16384" in app.config to something higher. This is necessary to pull ~ 45KB tag images from the web service. I used 100,000.

Full blog post http://flyingpies.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/creating-several-microsoft-tags/ .

using System; using System.IO; using MakeTags.Tag; namespace MakeTags { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { MIBPContractClient tagService = new MIBPContractClient(); UserCredential creds = new UserCredential(); creds.AccessToken = "your-access-token-here"; int tagsToCreate = 10; string category = "Main"; string tagTitlePrefix = "My Sample Tag "; string tagImageFilePathFormat = "mytag{0}.png"; for (int i = 0; i < tagsToCreate; ++i) { Console.WriteLine("Creating tag " + i); string tagTitle = tagTitlePrefix + i; URITag tag = new URITag(); tag.Title = tagTitle; tag.MedFiUrl = "http://flyingpies.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/creating-several-microsoft-tags"; tag.UTCStartDate = DateTime.UtcNow; tagService.CreateTag(creds, category, tag); string tagImageFilePath = string.Format(tagImageFilePathFormat, i); byte[] tagImageBytes = tagService.GetBarcode( creds, category, tagTitle, ImageTypes.png, 1f, DecorationType.HCCBRP_DECORATION_DOWNLOAD, false); File.WriteAllBytes(tagImageFilePath, tagImageBytes); } } } } 

Answer 3

You saw these pages:

• http://tag.microsoft.com/create-your-own-tag.aspx
• http://tag.microsoft.com/create-your-own-tag-business.aspx