I have developed a windows phone application and it works fine when it is open and running actively.
It tracks the user movements on the map and shows the position moves with push pins.
Now I want to ensure that the same application runs even the phone is locked when this app was open.
I have added the below code for it to work under lock screen. After this when I verified the app I realized it is not running when the application is locked.
Is there any other change I need to make to get this work under lock screen.Any help would be greatly appreciated.
private void initiliazesettings()
{
PhoneApplicationService.Current.UserIdleDetectionMode =
IdleDetectionMode.Disabled;
}
To have your app running under lock screen on Windows Phone 7.0/7.1/8.0, you need to set ApplicationIdleDetectionMode, not UserIdleDetectionMode. See details here.
Supossing you placed the method in the right place, that code only keeps the screen on, but doesn't make your app run in background when the lock screen is activated. Windows Phone 7 apps cannot run in background, they get tombstoned.
For Windows Phone 8 this is possible - see the sample here from MSDN.
However for Windows Phone 7/7.1 you can't do this.
You can prevent the screen from locking due to the user not interacting with it (as your code shows). However if you manually lock the screen the app will still be made dormant or tombstoned and your location code won't run.
Your only other option is to use a scheduled background task to read the location of the phone, but bear in mind that this is far from real time data (it is a cached location and you only run once every 30 minutes in the best case scenario).
Related
I am developing a windows phone app that uses users current location, I am making the app in 7 OS. My question is, Can I track the location in background, that is when the screen is locked?
I know this is a possibility in wp8 as it provides us with GeoLocator class, but can I achieve this in wp7? I am basically making a runtracker app hence I would like my app to track the location even when its in background, is it really feasible?
Your help is always appreciated!!
It is possible to keep the app running under lock screen, as it does, for example, Endomondo app.
Using Idle Detection, you can keep the app on, although screen is locked, and you can keep on tracking the location. Actually, it is not running in background, but in the foreground. Just the screen is locked. So, be careful not to drain user's battery.
You have to set the PhoneApplicationService.ApplicationIdleDetectionMode property to Disabled, for example in InitializePhoneApplication() method in App.xaml.cs:
PhoneApplicationService.Current.ApplicationIdleDetectionMode = IdleDetectionMode.Disabled;
Note that there are special certification requirements for this type of apps. Refer to section 6.3 (Apps running under a locked screen) of the following page:
Additional requirements for specific app types for Windows Phone
I got the same problem in one on my apps..
I don't think it' s feasible for wp7..
Bt if you want to do it with wp8 you can refer following link.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj681691%28v=vs.105%29.aspx
And to know about background supported and unsupported API's http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/hh202942%28v=vs.105%29.aspx/css
GeoCoordinateWatcher Class exists in WP7, but here is the documentation from MSDN -
This API, used for obtaining the geographic coordinates of the device,
is supported for use in background agents, but it uses a cached
location value instead of real-time data. The cached location value is
updated by the device every 15 minutes.
More Info : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/hh202962%28v=vs.105%29.aspx/css
My Windows Phone XNA game calls Guide.BeginShowKeyboardInput to get the user's name. While the Guide's input screen is shown, if the user presses the Home or Search (hardware) buttons, the game is deactivated as usual - but if the user then presses the Back (hardware) button, the game should resume but it doesn't. Instead it shows the "Resuming..." message until Windows Phone gives up trying to resume the game and kills the process.
Please note:
My app is failing Microsoft certification because of this problem - I really need to fix it!
This only happens in my game when the Guide input screen is shown - when it's not shown, the game
resumes properly after being deactivated.
This problem only occurs when the game is run on WP7.x (verified problem on WP7.5 and
WP7.8) - although the game seems to resume properly on WP8 devices.
I've created a blank XNA game project, called Guide.BeginShowKeyboardInput and tested it using WP7.x devices, and this problem-behavior doesn't occur.
I've tested the game without enabling Music & my Trial License manager (they use timers) and it still does this.
Exact same behavior occurs in the emulator (resume-failure on WP7.x emulators, works fine on WP8
emulator)
I used threads to asynchronously download content during the loading screen - but they already completed and exited.
I don't believe other threads are running, although this seems like
it could be a thread-blocking issue.
Any other ideas on what could be blocking the game from resuming when the Guide.IsVisible or how to debug/resolve this problem?
The solution to this issue was simply to NOT use SuppressDraw when dealing with any operation that passes control outside of the app, e.g. Launchers, Choosers and the Guide.
Have you tried calling "Guide.EndShowKeyboardInput" in either the Deactivating or closing events?
So that the guide is closed before the app suspends, you do get 10 seconds to suspend so this might be worth looking into.
If you want the guide to re-show on resume, then in your state saving code just have a flag and open the guide if it's set.
The application could not be launched for debugging. Ensure that the
target device screen is unlocked and that the application is installed.
How to get rid of this annoying message which appears every time I try to debug or run project from Visual Studio on Windows Phone 7 after 5 minutes of not-using phone (5 minutes is maximum time of sreen time-out I can set in phone settings).
I am missing something? Is it possible to avoid phone form locking/time-outing screen either from VS at start of debugging or in special application that I would manually start first before debugging so that app will be back on screen when debugging is finished and stopping phone from locking screen? But how to stop phone from locking screen? :-)
UPDATE: I have Omnia 7 which is AMOLED and doesn't have "never" setting. According to J. Loomis said in comment below, this is because "they can get severe burn in if left sitting on for extended periods" so best would be to unlock screen programmatically on start of debugging. I think this should work this way in VS.
In "Settings" select "lock & wallpaper" turn the password off and set "Screen time-out" to never.
It is important to note that the "never" option will only show if the password switch is set to off.
you can set UserIdleDetectionMode = Disabled to prevent the lockscreen from coming down on your app while debugging/developing/testing. Use it with caution in your released app. See MSDN for details:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.phone.shell.phoneapplicationservice.useridledetectionmode(VS.92).aspx
My phone (Lumia 800) does not have a setting for "Never" in lock+wallpaper settings, even with the password turned off. The only way I could get the phone to stop locking between debugging sessions is to have another app running in the background behind the app you are debugging that has UserIdleDetectionMode set to disabled. There is an app in the marketplace whose sole purpose is this call Phone! Dont Sleep! (note: I did not make this app nor do I know who made it, I am just sharing because I found it helpful)
I found when I lock my phone screen and unlock,The xaml page seems to be reload.This is not the point,the point is the whole program I wrote is just like fresh restart.It is true?What can I do with this issue?
You should read the Execution Model Overview. Your app is getting Tombstoned. You need to handle this.
An application in the foreground can continue to run when the phone screen is locked by setting the PhoneApplicationService.ApplicationIdleDetectionMode property.
By setting up your application to run when the phone screen is locked, a user is able to access the application quickly upon unlock. However, when your application runs under a locked screen, it could consume power outside of the user's control. For this reason, your application must minimize power usage when running under a locked screen
Is it possible to create an app the runs in the background? If so is there any samples out there for this?
In Windows Phone OS 7.1 you can actually use Background Agents now to perform tasks in the background.
from MSDN:
Scheduled Tasks and background agents allow an application to execute
code in the background, even when the application is not running in
the foreground. The different types of Scheduled Tasks are designed
for different types of background processing scenarios and therefore
have different behaviors and constraints.
You can use a PeriodicTask or ResourceIntensiveTasks. Read more about it in the MSDN article above.
And here's some sample code for you to integrate background agents into your existing app.
Sample Code: Background Agents in Mango
An application in the foreground can continue to run when the phone screen is locked(not background but...) by setting the PhoneApplicationService.ApplicationIdleDetectionMode property. By setting up your application to run when the phone screen is locked, a user is able to access the application quickly upon unlock. However, when your application runs under a locked screen, it could consume power outside of the user's control. For this reason, your application must minimize power usage when running under a locked screen
At the moment there is no way to create application that runs in background.
True multitasking for 3rd party Windows Phone 7 apps will come as an OS upgrade later this year. However, unless the app has to absolutely run in the background (like Pandora etc.), we as developers share some responsibility in making our apps feel at home with the rest of the OS.
Windows Phone OS offers app developers chances to save state of their applications to give the end users the feeling that it never stopped running; this is essentially the same as in other mobile platforms. As your app is being deactivated/closed, you have the option to "Tombstone" your state so that your users can come back to just where they left with BackStack navigation or future launches. Channel 9 had a nice set of demos & labs around tombstoning, found here.
Hope this helps!