I need to have capital letters (abbreviation of company name) in the panorama title, but writing in caps results in cutting off top part of letters. How to get the text normally visible in title of panorama?
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
The design language on Windows Phone has guidelines on how you would do things the way that is recommended. One of them is to keep application titles in lower case.
Although not an official Microsoft blog post, Jeff Wilcox (who does work for Microsoft Windows Phone team as the primary user interface developer though) has an excellent take on the Windows Phone design guidelines as well.
Maybe you should re-think your desire to write in upper case?
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I have a hard time finding information on how I would go about developing a keyboard layout that uses IME without it just being information on how I can simply add a new keyboard layout that uses the microsoft IME or how I can use the Microsoft IME in my applications.
What I want to do is making the whole thing from scratch. It's not supposed to be for an existing language (so it's not like any of the existing IMEs would be an alternative) but, obviously, having information on how I'd go about developing an IME for Japanese, Chinese or Korean is also a nice thing.
Google has their own IME that is cross platform so I assume that it is possible to do it but I just can't find any information on it.
Thanks
The OS is Windows 8.1, by the way.
I'm a bit late, but I don't like open questions (to which I know the answer) ;-)
Hope it still helps: Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator (MS KLC) is what you need. https://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/goglobal/bb964665.aspx
I've read a few books on Windows Phone 7 game development with XNA, and they all go directly how to work with sprotes etc but they dont tell how to make a game that starts with menu and then depending on what user clicked what to do. Is there a better way, than to do a variable that holds information on what state our game is in, Menu or game itself, and then Draw() method would draw according stuff? I thought there would be more separation of different type of games into different files, like in other programming languages.
The MSDN Game State Management (Mango, C#/VB) code sample is a fantastic demonstration of a basic menu implementation with XNA. I suggest you download and examine the code.
I have a mobile app. On the two major smartphone platforms, I employ tabbed UI - there are 3-4 screens with pretty much independent functionality, they exchange info very occasionally, most of the time screen switching is performed by the user, in arbitrary order.
Windows Phone 7 does not have a tab control, and page navigation assumes a stack model (you go back to where you came from). What would be a sensible WP7 alternative to that kind of UI?
The general Phone-7 replacement for the tab paradigm would be either a Pivot or a Panorama. Which you choose depends a lot on exactly on what you're showing, but generally speaking the Pivot is probably what you're after.
I would recomend a pivot control
WP7 UI is built around the metro style and it was a deliberate choice to not have a tab control. (have a look at the official guidelines here) I would recommend you use a metro control like panorama or pivot.
I am debating whether to hide or not to hide the system tray in a Windows Phone 7 application. I've not found any general suggestions on this issue -the official Windows Phone design guidelines don't address this issue at all - except for Jeff Wilcox's blog post who suggested that he personally likes to see the system tray in applications. I'd like some general advice on this issue from other Windows Phone developers.
Some reasons for showing the system tray are
Doesn't take up that much space
Users may want to see it at times
Reasons for hiding it are
You can't control its background: unless you're using PhoneBackgroundBrush as the background the top row will stand out
Lots of widely used / official apps already hide it: all games as well as the official Facebook and Twitter app.
I'd appreciate all advice on this.
Transparency and colors are now possible with Mango by setting its BackgroundColor and Opacity :
shell:SystemTray.IsVisible="True"
shell:SystemTray.BackgroundColor="Transparent"
shell:SystemTray.Opacity="0"
I would say by default show it unless it really gets in the way in a way you can't workaround, especially if its an app and not a game.
I would say it depends on the application/game you are writing
If the app needs a network connection or if you will be in the application for a long period of time show it so the user can keep an eye on network and battery.
If you need the extra screen space (for a game?), and you rarely need network hide it.
Or... I guess you leave it up-to the user and give them a setting to programatically hide/show it.
I think its best to use the tray in applications that are tools or utilities. Typically these users would prefer more info than less when they're using applications on the phone (battery, network, time).
Also adding the tray in there tends to make the application look more native on the phone (according to me and others I've asked), which is a big plus because the user associates your app as if it was built with the phone OS.
But if the application is a game, media, etc. type of application I recommend you take it off, especially on panorama because it takes away from the intended design. Also these types of applications focus on the content and seeing multiple little icons at the top can take away from the experience.
Really to me the space it occupies isn't really THAT much, so that shouldn't be too much of an issue. But rather the purpose of the app as stated above.
I do like the suggestions that have been given as far as giving the user the choice. Check out this code:
bool ShowTray;
//ASK USER WHAT THEY WANT
//ShowTray = true or false;
SystemTray.IsVisible = ShowTray;
I've been reluctantly hiding, at least on any view where I have a background image; otherwise it looks too strange to me. I've been considering a setting in my app that would allow the user to choose, and persisting that to isolated storage.
Also considering maybe having the top of the screen in phone background brush color and have it fade / blend into another color or background image. Not sure how well that would turn out but as long as it is not a cheesy looking gradient effect, perhaps.
I'm hoping eventually MS will soon add support for transparency in the system tray or otherwise help address this issue. As a user I wish that I could force the system tray to always be visible across all apps, but as a developer I realize that the visual effect often doesn't look good.
Perhaps if the community came up with a new UX metaphor where maybe double-tapping in the system tray area would toggle whether it is visible. A single tap could perhaps start to animate / pop / hint at the system tray...
We are planning to design a website for evaluating kids (games, quiz). Are there any specific user interface guidelines for targeting the kids (e.g. keyboard usage in a laptop or a standalone keyboard, ability to control a mouse, ability to navigate the user interface and its controls, size of buttons, page navigation)? We are looking for things which we need to be careful about.
Jakob Nielsen has a pretty decent Alert Box about usability for children. There's also a usability guide at the end of the alert box. In summary: kids don't scroll, they like reading, are suckers for advertising, and if Microsoft Bob was marketed to children, it would've been a hit.