Hello open source developers!

For the past few years October has become synonymous with open source, so this year we’ve decided to opt-in our samples repositories to Hacktoberfest to encourage the community to join us in building dual-screen enhanced Android projects.

Figure 1: Build or contribute to apps for Microsoft Surface Duo 2

What is Hacktoberfest?

Hacktoberfest is a celebration of open source projects and contributions, run by Digital Ocean. It encourages developers to participate in open source projects with the offer of a free t-shirt for qualifying contributions.

We’ve added the Hacktoberfest topic to these Microsoft Surface Duo Developer Experience GitHub repositories, which are open for participation:

• Kotlin samples
• Java samples
• Xamarin samples
• Jetpack Window Manager samples
• Jetpack Compose samples

The rules for participating are outlined on the Hacktoberfest website. You’re encouraged to raise an issue that describes your proposed contribution and engage with the maintainer to agree on the goals and approach, then write the code and submit the pull request.

We’ve already started a list of issues you can tackle – check out each repo for ideas or raise an issue with your suggestion.

Microsoft Global Hackathon

While our community is engaging with open source projects across the internet, here at Microsoft we’re engaging in a hackathon of our own. The Global Hackathon is a time for people across the company to work together, learn together, and create amazing projects. Last year the Sketch 360 project was featured in the Surface Duo hacks, and went on to be released on Google Play in conjunction with Microsoft Garage.

Figure 2: Sketch 360 running on two screens

Microsoft Garage runs the hackathon, and is represented in locations around the world. This encourages teams across cities, countries, and timezones to work together on projects of all sizes. Although it’s an internal Microsoft event, you can follow the excitement on Twitter #MicrosoftHackathon.

Resources and feedback

For coding tips, visit the Surface Duo developer documentation , our samples, and Google’s Android large screen development guidance.

If you have any questions, or would like to tell us about your dual-screen apps, use the feedback forum or message us on Twitter @surfaceduodev. 

Finally, please join us for our dual screen developer livestream at 11am (Pacific time) each Friday – mark it in your calendar and check out the archives on YouTube.