In one of my previous articles, I’ve mentioned the Background Transfer API for Windows 8, which allowed us to use BackgroundDownloader and BackgroundUploader classes for downloading and uploading files in our app. After mentioning it, I’ve decided to write an article about how we can use them.
Background Transfer API has many nice features that make our work easier, such as:
– Being able to download large files,
– Tracking download progress,
– Pausing / resuming download,
– Continuing download even when our app is in the background (suspended),
– If the app is closed mid-download, allowing us to continue the next time our app starts,
– Setting cost policy (wheter downloading when connected to metered connections or not),
– Handling network situations automatically (no need to catch exceptions if the network connection is lost mid-download, it’ll continue when internet comes back),
– Multiple downloads at the same time.
As always, we will create an example application that uses these features.
Alp Arslan Eren 