Migrating from the LongListSelector to the ListView in Windows Phone XAML Apps 28. April 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) Creating a jump list in Windows Phone Runtime app with ListView [More]
Creating live tiles with WriteableBitmap and transparent backgrounds 19. April 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) Creating live tiles with WriteableBitmap and transparent backgrounds [More]
Creating a behavior to control the new StatusBar (SystemTray) in Windows Phone 8.1 XAML apps 8. April 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) Modify the StatusBar (SystemTray) in XAML in Windows Phone Runtime apps [More]
Differences between the new StatusBar in Windows Phone XAML Apps and the SystemTray 7. April 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) With the release of Windows Phone 8.1 SDK comes a new StatusBar. The StatusBar replaces the SystemTray from Windows Phone Silverlight Apps. Unlike the SystemTray, the StausBar can only be accessed via code and some functionality has changed. This post will go in depth on how to access the the StatusBar and what the differences are. Just like the new StatusBarProgressIndicator, you can only access the StatusBar via code with the GetForCurrentView method. StatusBar statusBar = Windows.UI.ViewManagement.StatusBar.GetForCurrentView(); Once you have the StatusBar, you have access to the same capabilities as you did before, with a few changes. The table below shows SystemTray StatusBar Comments System.Windows.Media.Color ForegroundColor Windows.UI.Color? ForegroundColor System.Windows.Media.Color BackgroundColor Windows.UI.Color? BackgroundColor ... [More]
Using a behavior to control the ProgressIndicator in Windows Phone 8.1 XAML Apps 6. April 2014 Shawn Behavior, Windows Phone (0) Modify the ProgressIndicator in XAML in Windows Phone Runtime apps [More]
Showing the system ProgressIndicator in a Windows Phone 8.1 XAML app 6. April 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) If you have built a Windows Phone app before, you probably used the ProgressIndicator to indicate to the user that something was being done. The ProgressIndicator could show indeterminate dots floating from left to right to indicate that you have no idea how long the operation will take to complete. Or it would show a progress bar that would tell the user how much progress has been made. You could show the ProgressIndicator in code, but most likely used xaml. <shell:SystemTray.ProgressIndicator> <shell:ProgressIndicator IsIndeterminate="True" Text="Loading" IsVisible="{Binding Loading}" /> </shell:SystemTray.ProgressIndicator> The new Windows Phone 8.1 Apps for XAML also includes the ability to show progress with a ProgressIndicator, now called StatusBarProgressIndicator. Unlike Phone apps built with Silverlight, the new Phone 8.1 SDK does not include a way to interact with the StatusBarProgr... [More]
Transitioning your app from the Panorama control to the Hub control 3. April 2014 Shawn Universal Apps (0) At //build today Microsoft announced the new Universal Apps that will allow you to build desktop, tablet and phone apps using the same code. These are different than PCLs as they allow for platform functionality (I won’t get into differences between PCLs and Shared Projects here). These new apps will be based on the XAML platform that Windows tablet apps are built on. So this means that you can build Windows Phone apps with new XAML elements that are available in Windows [tablet] Apps like the GridView, ListView, Hub and more. This also means that Silverlight Windows Phone controls will not be available. One of these missing controls is the Panorama control. We’ll look at how we can take an existing Panorama app, and convert it to a Hub app. Migrating to the Hub control from the Panorama control is very easy. To start, I’ll create a new Windows Phone [Silverlight] Panorama app. I’ll call in PanoramaConversion. Next I’ll add a new project to the solution. For this project I’ll c... [More]
Working with location in an ArcGIS Runtime map app 31. March 2014 Shawn ArcGIS Runtime (0) This is the forth blog in a series of posts reviewing the new ArcGIS Runtime (beta) mapping SDK. The new SDK will be a great companion for any Windows developer wanting to add map functionality to their apps. In part 3, we looked at the MapView control within the SDK. One of the dependency properties that I left off in that post is the LocationDisplay property. This post will go into that property extensively. Working with location is probably my favorite part of the new ArcGIS Runtime mapping SDK because it is just so damn simple. In most mapping SDKs (eg: Nokia, Bing) you must do the work of hooking up to location changes, and updating the map. In the ArcGIS Runtime mapping SDK, it’s handled for you if you opt in for this functionality. Start off by downloading the sample application (if you have not done so already). The LocationDisplay property of the MapView provides access to the LocationDisplay class. This class provides access to all the properties that make working with locat... [More]
Working with the MapView control in the ArcGIS Runtime 24. March 2014 Shawn ArcGIS Runtime (0) This is the third in a series of posts covering the new ArcGIS Runtime SDK. In part 2, I discussed the basic mapping layers within the ArcGIS Runtime. Now that we know how to add a map and layers to your app, let’s see what we can do with the map! As I mentioned in the first post, the new ArcGIS Runtime has a MapView, rather than a Map that you put in your app. The MapView has a Map property that must be set, but all of the functionality lies in the MapView. We’ll start out with some of the key dependency properties. We’ll then look at the map events, and finish with the few methods. Dependncy Properties The new MapView control has 11 dependency properties (with one additional attached dependency property). In this blog we’ll focus on seven of them. Not to worry about the other four. One we have already covered (Map), one will be covered in the next blog and two more when discussing GIS focused work. In this blog I’ll cover the following dependency properties. MapGrid Maximum... [More]
Working with Basic Mapping Layers in the ArcGIS Runtime Map 15. March 2014 Shawn ArcGIS Runtime (0) This is a second in a series of posts covering the new ArcGIS Runtime (beta). In the last post we walked through creating a simple map app. In this post we’ll start to cover the different layers your map can have. A Layer can be map images like what you would see in Google or Bing Maps. Or a Layer can represent the physical location of items. Layers can be toggled on and off through the IsVisible property. You can also adjust the transparency of a layer with the Opacity property. The ArcGIS Runtime SDK comes with 12 different types of map layers that you can use in your app! Some of these I’ll cover in detail in this blog, some I’ll just barely cover, and some will have whole blogs dedicated to them. I like to group the layers into two basic categories. The layers for “basic mapping” and layers for “GIS users”. I consider basic mapping to be any app in the store that uses a map in any way. Some examples would be Four Square, or Disney Expedition. Layers for GIS users are needed ... [More]