Chris Craft's Blog

WP7 Dev Tip #031: Coding4Fun Tools - Toast Prompt

Chris Craft — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:04:49 GMT

The Coding4Fun Tools for Windows Phone 7 has a new version, 1.2, that includes some new controls.

One of them I was very excited to see was the Toast Prompt control.

http://coding4fun.codeplex.com/

You can read a great overview of the control here.

WP7 Toast Prompt in depth

WP7 Dev Tip #030: Windows Phone 7 Isolated Storage Explorer

Chris Craft — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:22:37 GMT

Project Description
WP7 Isolated Storage Explorer is a tool designed to help developers and testers interact with the isolated storage file for Silverlight Windows Phone 7 applications.
The explorer can work both as a desktop application for testers or integrated in Visual Studio for developers.
Whenever a WP7 application/project involves storing data locally the the device, it will be to the isolated storage file. A common difficulty is accessing the data for testing or rapidly restoring the application's data/state after the isolated storage has been reset, usually during the testing and development life-cycle.
One of the usual workarounds has been to add code to handle data transfers (to a WCF service or a remote Web Service) or just hard code test data, but this takes a lot of time and migrating the code from one project to another can take significant effort.
To help solve these issues and facilitate faster development for a WP7 application, the WP7 Isolated Storage Explorer includes the following features designed to make your life easier:

Easy installer. One simple setup file that sets everything up on a development or testing machine.
Easy integration. Add a single reference to your project and one line of code and you're done.
Display the isolated storage file from multiple applications at the same time.
Desktop client that handles all the common operations. The client handles operations such as bidirectional file transfer, creating folders, deleting files and folders and can perform parallel operations on multiple remote applications
The same intuitive client integrated in Visual Studio. Developers can debug and check the data in the isolated storage file without leaving the IDE.
Works in the background so your phone application will not be interrupted by operations. The explorer has been tested to handle invalid operations gracefully and to not interfere with the application's purpose.

Windows Phone 7 Isolated Storage Explorer

WP7 Dev Tip #029: The Metro Design Language

Chris Craft — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 13:39:38 GMT

You can learn more about the Metro design language and it’s history below:

The Windows Phone Developer Blog: From Transportation to Pixels

Clean, Light, Open and Fast

Alive in Motion

Celebrate Typography

Content, Not Chrome

Authentically Digital

WP7 Dev Tip #028: Open Marketplace from Windows Phone 7 browser or email

Chris Craft — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 19:53:02 GMT

Here’s a question I was able to get answered on Stack Overflow:

How can I open the Marketplace from web site being shown in the Windows Phone 7 browser app?

On the desktop you tend to use the following:

http://social.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=3cc99ca6-f0e6-df11-a844-00237de2db9e

On the device you should use the following:

zune://navigate/?appID=3cc99ca6-f0e6-df11-a844-00237de2db9e

NOTE: the zune: option works on the desktop as well.

WP7 Dev Tip #027: Mobile UI Patterns

Chris Craft — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:32:57 GMT

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
-- Isaac Newton

Mobile UI Patterns is a great site that feature great mobile UI patterns from some of the best mobile apps out there.

You should definitely check this one out. See below for the kind of things featured.

Splash Screens
Activity Feeds
User Profiles
Education Walk Throughs
Check-in Screens
Notifications
Comment Detail
UI that I Heart
Lists

WP7 Dev Tip #026: Windows Phone Development QuickStarts

Chris Craft — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:17:49 GMT

Windows Phone Development QuickStarts

New to Windows Phone development:The QuickStarts are presented in a prescribed order for those of you who want to start at the beginning and learn step-by-step. Think of the QuickStarts as the chapters of a book.

Have experience, but want to learn about specific features/scenarios: Although the QuickStarts are presented in a prescribed order for beginners, each QuickStart is a self-contained introduction to a feature rather than a dependent component of a larger whole. In other words, feel free to skip around to different QuickStarts.

Getting Started & Fundamentals (10 articles)
Visuals and Media (5 articles)
Working with Data (4 articles)
Sensors and Other Phone-Specific Features (4 articles)

WP7 Dev Tip #025: Starter Kits for Windows Phone 7

Chris Craft — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:47:26 GMT

Microsoft has created a set of three starter kits for Windows Phone 7.

Translator Starter Kit

This program provides the user with the ability to enter a word or phrase in one language and have it translated to another language. The starter kit demonstrates how to call a web service, use an XNA Framework API from within a Silverlight application to play a sound, maintain a history list in isolated storage, and animate an image in a ToggleButton. For more information, see Translator Starter Kit.

Download Starter Kit

Level Starter Kit

This program provides the user with the ability to use their phone as a level. The starter kit demonstrates how to make your application's color scheme match the user's theme choice, how to make your Silverlight application interact realistically with the accelerometer of the phone, and how to customize phone orientation sensing. For more information, see Level Starter Kit for Windows Phone.

Download Starter Kit

Unit Converter Starter Kit

This program provides the user with the ability to convert values from one unit of measure to another. The starter kit demonstrates how to apply the Model-View–ViewModel design pattern in creating your Windows Phone 7 application, how to optimize your application start up, and how to create a context sensitive menu. For more information, see Unit Converter Starter Kit.

Download Sample

Master List of Windows Phone Developer Tips

Chris Craft — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:36:26 GMT

Here’s the master list of all the Windows Phone 7 developer tips so far!

WP7 Dev Tip #024: Windows Phone 7 Facebook integration

Chris Craft — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:38:55 GMT

Everywhere you look you see social networking these days. And Facebook is leading the way. That’s why it is very common to hear developers saying I need to integrate Facebook with my application.

Well now it’s possible to integrate Facebook with Windows Phone 7 applications.

There is a great article on http://dotnetslackers.com/ that shows the way.

WP7 Dev Tip #023: Online Demo for Telerik RadControls for Windows Phone

Chris Craft — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:27:48 GMT

Telerik has some great controls and they recently released the following gauge controls for Windows Phone 7.

Telerik RadControls for Windows Phone

WP7 Dev Tip #022: Developers can now purchase Windows Phone 7 Devices without Carrier Contracts

Chris Craft — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:04:35 GMT

“Microsoft has entered into a partnership with Zones.com for all of our handset OEMs and mobile operator partners to sell phones to developers without requiring a voice or data contract.
“The phones are still carrier locked (varies by region), but you can purchase a Windows Phone 7 for your development purposes,” said Bruce D. Kyle, ISV Architect Evangelist, Microsoft.

“Here’s what you need to do: go to our partner’s site: http://www.zones.com/windowsphonedeveloperpurchase. Pick the phone you want to use (note: these devices are carrier locked, based on region). Go thru the site’s check-out process. You will have to pay all sales taxes and shipping charges,” Kyle added.

MSIT Standard Win 7 T Mobile HD7 Locked Phone
LOCKED W/O SERVICE
Manufacture #: BASTM-HD7
Item #: 05408459

HTC Surround
LOCKED W/O SERVICE
Manufacture #: ESGATT-SURROUND
Item #: 05408458

Samsung Focus
LOCKED W/O SERVICE
Manufacture #: ESGATT-FOCUS
Item #: 05408455

WP7 Dev Tip #021: Windows Phone Developer Tools January Update

Chris Craft — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 13:47:28 GMT

January 2011 Update to the Windows Phone Developer Tools providing bug fixes, a new emulator, and utilities. This update is composed of two installation files and includes the contents of the deprecated October 2010 Update.

Windows Phone Developer Tools Update

WPDT update

Visual Studio update

Release Notes

The Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update includes:

Windows Phone Emulator Update – Exposes copy/paste functionality in the Windows Phone 7 emulator. For more information, see How to: Test Copy and Paste in Windows Phone Emulator. End users can use the copy and paste functionality only after receiving the corresponding update to the Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Windows Phone Developer Resources Update – Fixes a text selection bug in pivot and panorama controls. In applications that have pivot or panorama controls that contain text boxes, users can unintentionally change panes when trying to copy text. To prevent this problem, open your application, recompile it, and then resubmit it to the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Windows Phone Capability Detection Tool – Detects the phone capabilities used by your application. When you submit your application to Windows Phone Marketplace , Microsoft performs a code analysis to detect the phone capabilities required by your application and then replaces the list of capabilities in the application manifest with the result of this detection process. This tool performs the same detection process and allows you to test your application using the same list of phone capabilities generated during the certification process. For more information, see How to: Use the Capability Detection Tool.
Windows Phone Connect Tool – Allows you to connect your phone to a PC when Zune® software is not running and debug applications that use media APIs. For more information, see How to: Use the Connect Tool.
Updated Bing Maps Silverlight Control – Includes improvements to gesture performance when using Bing™ Maps Silverlight® Control.

WPDT Fix includes:

Windows Phone Developer Tools Fix allowing deployment of XAP files over 64 MB in size to physical phone devices for testing and debugging.