On Windows Phone 7, go to Settings, email & accounts, add an account, the Windows Live (or any other). Note at the bottom there is the gray panel with a rectangular [sign in] button. Click in the email address field, and the on screen keyboard pops up ABOVE the gray panel. Rotate the phone, and the gray panel does not rotate, although the page does. That gray panel is the Application Bar, is it not?
I only find docs for adding an icon-based round button (and menu items). How do we put a rectangular textual button on the Application Bar?
Adding buttons in the Application Bar is not supported for third party developers. The Application Bar itself is not a Silverlight control; it's a native one. Only OEMs, certain partners and MS have access to the native SDK, so you won't be able to template the Application Bar to have buttons. Of course, you could create your own Application Bar that mimics the real one, but I don't recommend that approach as it would be very tricky to get it exactly right and be consistent between apps.
Yes, that's the application bar. Well, it's the non Silverlight version of it. (The built in apps are not built with Silverlight.)
Unfortuanately it is not possible to use text buttons on the application bar. It's only possible to use buttons with images.
Yes it would be nice/useful in a number of situations but it's just not possible with the current SDK (even Mango). I keep hoping it'll be there in a future version...
The applications that come with the phone are not restricted to using developer APIs and the one you mention likely uses C++ and / or restricted APIs. As a third-party developer your only option is to stick with icons on the application bar.
You can always create a Panel colored like the application bar, aligned along the bottom of the screen and display buttons or whatever other UI element you want to.
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Im writing an application for workers in our factory and one of requirements is that they should be able to take images using camera integrated in PDA with WM6.5.
The main difficulty is, that thay MUST NEVER EVER be able to enter windows, Start button, desktop etc. They are allowed ONLY to see my fullscreen application.
I succesfully deactivated BlueTooth + red, green and volume buttons (if you are interested, im pasting links here)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=546737
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb431750.aspx
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/vssmartdevicesvbcs/thread/a4f9f41d-47a8-4080-8613-2c2ddcf4c012/
And now I have to implement the camera function. But as CameraCaptureDialog opens a new dialog and shows start button, task bar and allows user to open list of applications, I must not use it.
I must create my own dialog that will show the Live Preview in a panel or in an imageBox and photo will be taken using a button.
I searched the whole internet and found only DirectShow.NETCF (but people do not recommend it) and CameraCaptureDialog.
Can I somehow redirect the CameraCaptureDialog to my dialog? Or can I access camera directly via .NET framework? Or can I modify the CameraCaptureDialog not to show Start button, menu etc?
Looks like you have a bit of a challenge. I agree that Directshow is a questionable solution, but it may be your only option. I did get http://alexmogurenko.com/blog/directshownetcf/ to work, but only on low resolutions.
A better option might be to find a device that does not show the menu bar/start button. AFAIK, the HTC HD2 has a very clean Cameracapturedialog..
Good luck.
I want to create an application bar like IE has in Windows Phone 7.1 ... it has a textbox in it instead of buttons, and it still works as the application bar with menu items under it.
Is this possible. I don't see anything under the Shell namespace, and just adding a Grid to the Application bar is not working.
No, the application bar is not derived from UIElement. So you cannot add other UIElements to it.
The closest you can get is to add a Grid along the bottom of your phone screen, color it like the application bar and add a TextBlock to it. I wouldn't recommend this approach though, because it makes your app non-standard compared to all other apps available for the platform.
If you are to go this route, you can use the PhoneChromeBrush theme resource to set the color to match the application bar.
If you open settings of wifi and choose any network you will see Password textbox and BUTTONS (not icons) in ApplicationBar. How it is made? Is it some kind of ApplicationBar template? Or it is some Border control, but how to show a Border above the SIP(keyboard)?
Any ideas how to make the same thing?
What are you describing was not created using Silverlight (all the "hero" applications are done in C++) and are therefore not limited by the current SL feature set.
In relation to your actual question, it is not possible to template the ApplicationBar nor is it even possible to determine when the SIP is displayed (or what its height is).
In short, I'd stick to icons if you want your application to work well across devices.
I have recently started on a project developing a window mobile/ce buisiness application. I have a ui design that uses a wizard to capture input data. To get the wizard started we open a windows form and maximize it. The form has one panel on it that is set to the size of the form. We pass a reference to the panel into the wizard controller as a container for the wizard user controls (each wizard step is a user control and the user control's size is set to that of the panel and thus the windows form. When viewed in a windows mobile emulator this works great the user control takes up the entire screen and the controls on the wizard step control are all visible on the screen with no vertical or horizontal scroll bars visible. When we load this onto one of the potential handheld devices the windows form doesn't fit exactly onto the screen as I would expect. There are both horizontal and vertical scroll bars and the controls aren't all visible. Does anyone have any hints and tips on getting around this problem? Is it possible to maximize a windows form in such a way that it exactly fills the screen on any mobile or ce device?
You need to check the screen resolution of your emulator and of your handheld device.
I suspect you are working on different screen resolutions.
If it's the case, then set the screen res for your emulator to match the screen res of your device. If for some reason this is not possible, just create your form to match the screen res of the device and try to fit all your UI in that limited space.
If you need to support many screen resolutions, you have 2 approaches:
1. Develop for the lowest res. This might look a bit ugly for higher res devices
2. Use anchors and control docking when defining your form layout.
I have a question about the windows mobile development.
I created a mobile form on the windows mobile 6.0 test project. But that example form slightly larger than the vertically normal pocketpc forms. I now everybody said you can press the scrollbar for accessing bottom or any location of the form.
But i need to use the finger for easy navigating form areas. This kind of iphone :)
Is it possible ? how can i make this ?
Windows Mobile 6.5 adds gesture support, that is supposed to allow such functionality for finger control. Of course, your code has to take advantage of it.
You can also write your own, which isn't difficult, but still cumbersome.
My answer could be classified as subjective. I try to now show the scroll bar when possible for just that reason. On most devices that have touch screen, you can scroll using you finger (and I'm a somewhat large guy -- 6'3" with farmer kid hands).
But if you are displaying a grid, that isn't always possible. The results can go off the screen very easily. Oh well, grab a pen and hit the scrollbar.
Other screen elements that can help: tab control. separate your controls into groups and put each group on a separate tab. I also do a lot of wizards with LARGE next and previous buttons.
But in all of this, if it is designed to be stylus free, just pray the user doesn't have to type anything using the screen soft keyboard. That just doesn't work with a finger.