Give your lists the space they deserve 26. June 2014 Shawn XAML (0) This blog serves as a public service announcement to give your ListBox, ListView, ItemsControl, whatever you choose the space that they deserve. I have seen a lot of apps (and often forget to do this myself!) that do not extend their lists all the way to the right of the page and keep the page too close to the bottom. It is easy to fall into this trap because of the defaults within Visual Studio. Take a look at the following examples: Notice that huge gap to the side? Now take a look at the settings apps Look mom! No gap! So what causes this gap? It’s the default template for pages in Visual Studio. When you create a new page for Windows Phone Silverlight apps you get the following <!--ContentPanel - place additional content here--> <Grid x:Name="ContentPanel" Grid.Row="1" Margin="12,0,12,0"> </Grid> Notice the side margin of 12? This is a design guideline to leave the gap, but lists give you this b... [More]
Creating a feathered (aka staggered) page transition 25. June 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) One of the most known page transitions on Windows Phone is the feather (or staggered item) transition. This is the transition you see when opening the mail app and the messages feather, or stagger in. This animation is also seen on the home page on the phone when the tiles stagger in. You usually see this transition whenever there is a list of items shown by any of the built in apps. This transition was previously only available through toolkits like the Windows Phone Toolkit or Telerik’s toolkit. Now this transition is available out of the box for Windows Phone Runtime apps. For background on page transitions in Windows Phone 8.1 Runtime apps, see my previous post. To get started, simply create a new Windows Phone Runtime app. Page transitions are enabled by default for all Runtime apps! To use this transition, you’ll want to set the page transition to use the NavigationThemeTransition with the CommonNavigationTransitionInfo. Make sure to set IsStaggeringEnabled to true for the Com... [More]
Page transitions and animations in Windows Phone Runtime apps 24. June 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) This is part of a series on migrating from the WP Toolkit. With the release of Windows Phone 8.1 Runtime (aka XAML apps) comes a lot of functionality that previously only existed in the Windows Phone Toolkit or other third party control suites. One of these are page transitions and animations on objects. In Windows Phone 8 apps your best option for page transitions was the Windows Phone Toolkit or Telerik. I’ve used both, but really enjoy the robustness and ease of use of Teleriks transitions. With Teleriks RadTransitionControl you could setup forward and backward animations with three lines of XAML! Contrast that with the Windows Phone Toolkit where it takes 20 lines of XAML!! Because I like Teleriks transitions this post will cover moving from the Windows Phone Toolkit or the Teleriks transitions to the new transitions in the Windows Phone Runtime. In both the Windows Phone Toolkit and Telerik you had to set the RootFrame of the App to be the control suite transition frame. ... [More]
Migrating from the Windows Phone Toolkit ContextMenu to the new Runtime MenuFlyout 29. May 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) Create a MenuFlyoutService (ContextMenuService) to show a ContextMenu in Windows Phone 8.1 using the MenuFlyout [More]
Migrating from the Windows Phone Toolkit ListPicker to the new XAML ComboBox (Display a ListPicker in XAML apps) 22. May 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) Discover how to display a ListPicker in Widows Phone Runtime (XAML) apps. [More]
Migrating from the Windows Phone Toolkit TimePicker to the new Runtime TimePicker 16. May 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) Moving from Windows Phone Toolkit TimePicker and displaying a TimePicker in a Windows Phone Runtime app [More]
Migrating from the Windows Phone Toolkit DatePicker to the new Runtime DatePicker 15. May 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) Moving from Windows Phone Toolkit DatePicker and displaying DatePicker in a Windows Phone Runtime app [More]
Migrating from the Windows Phone Toolkit ToggleSwitch to the new XAML ToggleSwitch 15. May 2014 Shawn Windows Phone (0) Moving from Windows Phone Toolkit ToggleSwitch and displaying ToggleSwitch in a Windows Phone Runtime app [More]
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]