I have a model with different properties, how can I save this on state and restore after resuming of application?
Jeff Prosise has a great series of posts on Real-World Tombstoning in Silverlight for Windows Phone that should tell you everything you need to know about tombstoning, including what to save, how, and when.
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I have a potential requirement of modifying the Windows 10 Start Menu structure. I know that you can customize the groups and tiles: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/deploymentguys/2016/03/07/windows-10-start-layout-customization/
My question is if there is any possible way (through API or any other option) that allows to, instead of only pinning windows desktop applications, display your custom code.
Example: we have a group called My work which pins windows applications, but we also have a group called Discover which displays custom code, not windows 10 apps.
I think it is not achievable, but want to give it a try and ask the community. Thanks a lot in advance!
Modify start menu should not be a feature of common UWP development. The start menu should only be controlled by customer themselves. So it's not possible for you to think about develop this kind of feature.
And as you've already see that OEM can modify OEM group. Actually you can find related info from here.
Well, I'd like to show up the On-Screen-Keyboard when the user clicks onto any control which needs a text-input. System-wide.
The reason: I am using a touchscreen for some projects I've been working on and needed to open the On-Screen-Keyboard manually every time me or someone else had to type something.
Are there any possibilities, capturing a system-wide event for that? Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions!
I am currently looking into a solution like this. It's been a feature well implemented on mobile platforms, but nothing on the desktop! Hopefully something will come along as a result of the Touch Centric strategy for Windows 8.
The closest, but most expensive thing I found is M T Soft TS Keyboard http://www.imgpresents.com/mtsts/mtsts.htm?babelfish=translate
WP7 mango now supports background agents (with some limitations): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/danielegan/archive/2011/10/18/background-agents-in-wp7.aspx
How can I inspect the user's current activity? specifically, here is what i'd like to determine:
what is the active application
when was the last user interaction
I think the Microsoft way of doing this would be to provide developers with an API to modify Lock Screen system settings. This is not possible at the moment, but there is a petition to enable setting the wallpaper from an app here: http://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/110705-app-platform/suggestions/1720049-provide-a-wallpaper-api-to-enable-in-app-setting-o?ref=title
This combined with the ability to change the screen timeout (not possible yet) would achieve the desired effect.
I take it you are probably after custom screensaver with some other information on it and/or rendered/animated content. This wouldn't make sense. The whole point of the screen saver is to save the screen.
There is no better way to save the screen than to turn it off, which mobile devices handle pretty well.
You can't do either. Windows Phone does not support inspecting the users activity or anything else that goes beyond the boundary of a 3rd party application's own domain.
The background agents are limited to the application that created them, and the data related to that (in it's isolated storage).
And this is a good thing, since it means creating mal- and spyware is a lot more difficult. Also, a application like you're attempting to make, would principally be considered spyware.
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...
I recently got myself a second monitor and I have been looking at software which offers the possibility to extend the taskbar to the second monitor. Softwares such as UltraMon and MultiMon offer such possibility.
I'd be interested to know what is the method they are using to replicate the tasbar? More precisely:
Is the second taskbar completely generated and managed by the software or is it some sort of extension/modification of how Windows behave?
How are the additionnal buttons on the window handle added? Is there some sort of templating system similar to what Stardock does?
How can you replicate the taskbar feel?
How can you remove open software icons from the main taskbar in order to move them to the software's taskbar?
Would creating a second start button actually be some sort of image of the said button, and the software would require to do POSSIBLE calls to the Windows API? (by possible, I mean I have no idea if such calls exists)
Finally, I'd be interested to know what field of knowledge is required to program such software.
I'd be glad to receive any pointers to articles or information that would lead to answers. If you have in depth knowledge that you'd gladly share, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks to all for your replies.
They completely re-create the experience. DisplayFusion uses the Desktop Window Manager API to capture live thumbnails. Scott Hanselman has a very good rundown on just how close they got and where they're different.
I would imagine there is a lot of ugly code required to get it as close as they've gotten it.