Place your app title in the System Tray 11. February 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) I’ve been using the new Bing apps a lot and I really like how the app name is in the SystemTray. This looks awesome and frees up valuable space for your app! I have found that sometimes I remove the app title from pages to allow for more content. Accomplishing this for your apps is soooo simple! All you need to do is comment out the TextBlock that you are using for your title, and add the following bit of xaml to your page (outside of any grids and such) <shell:SystemTray.ProgressIndicator> <shell:ProgressIndicator Text="My Application" IsVisible="True" IsIndeterminate="False"/> </shell:SystemTray.ProgressIndicator> Make sure you have set the SystemTray to be visible by setting the IsVisible property to true. You still get the advantage of the text going away when the user taps the tray. If you do this, you will need to rethink how you show that the app is loading. The ProgressIndicator is suppose to be used to show tha... [More]
Increasing in app purchases in your Windows Phone apps 31. August 2013 Shawn Windows Phone (0) There are a few ways to increase the rate of in app purchases. One of these ways is to show a message prompt to the user explaining that an in app purchase is available and what the user can get from it. In a previous post I explained how to use Telerik’s RateApplicationReminder to increase reviews of your app. The RateApplicationReminder is great because it just works. No, really. No need for you to determine if you should show a reminder to rate the app. It handles all of the logic and it navigates the user to rate your app. Another benefit of the RateApplicationReminder is that it is built on a framework for showing reminders. This framework can be extended to create your own reminders. The is a decent framework to build reminders on. It has one abstract method, GetDataFilePath. This is just a file name for the data that will be saved. It has two virtual methods that can be overridden, but the power is in the properties that it has // Summary: // Setting this property... [More]
Increasing app reviews with Telerik’s RateApplicationReminder 26. August 2013 Shawn Windows Phone (0) I have seen a few blog posts that explain how to prompt a user to rate your app after a few visits. These posts describe how to store a setting for how many times the app has been opened and whether the prompt has been shown. Some use a custom message box and some use the built in MessageBox. There have even been NuGet packages for this. I have to wonder, Why are you not using Telerik’s RateApplicationReminder? After all, if you do not have Telerik’s controls, you might be doing something wrong. Telerik’s RateApplicationReminder is a great tool to have. It allows users to ignore further reminders. It allows you to specify if the reminder should not be shown any more if the user taps the yes button. The text it displays is fully customizable, including the buttons. It also allows you to show the reminder based on number of times the app has opened or days from the last reminder. Oh, and it helps increase app reviews. The RateApplicationReminder is used in conjunction with the Applica... [More]
Why do you not have Telerik's Phone controls for yours Windows Phone dev? 15. August 2013 Shawn Windows Phone (0) If you are doing Windows Phone development and you do NOT have Telerik’s Windows Phone control toolkit you are doing something wrong. For the price of a Windows Phone Store developer account (when not discounted) you can join Nokia’s Premium Developer Program. I have been in the program for almost a year and I’ll be renewing my subscription. The Premium Developer Program gives you the following: A Windows Phone Dev Center account (normally priced at $99, currently $19). You get a token for one year of membership to the dev center. This token can be used at any time. If you already have an account, you can use the token when the account expires. A free license for Telerik RadControls for Windows Phone. These controls and tools are priced at $99 per year (if you wish to receive updates). I have found this toolset to be very valuable. I have only used a few of the components, but it has well passed the $99 value. 12 months of access to Buddy.com. This cloud so... [More]