Windows Phone 8.1 on DVLUP

Page Transitions for Universal XAML Pages

Sat, 07 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Normally, if you want different page transitions (NavigationThemeTransition ) for your Universal XAML Windows Phone 8.1 app, you’d set it on the page’s XAML directly. For example, let’s do a ContinuumTransition:

<Page.Transitions> 
 <TransitionCollection> 
 <NavigationThemeTransition> 
 <NavigationThemeTransition.DefaultNavigationTransitionInfo> 
 <ContinuumNavigationTransitionInfo /> 
 </NavigationThemeTransition.DefaultNavigationTransitionInfo> 
 </NavigationThemeTransition> 
 </TransitionCollection> 
</Page.Transitions>

However, if you have a XAML page in your Universal app’s shared folder, you can’t use XAML because page transitions are not available for Windows 8.1 apps. Since there isn’t a conditional compilation for XAML, we’ll need to do it from the code behind.

Report progress - IAsyncActionWithProgress

Mon, 12 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

One of the best things you can do for your app’s users is to report the progress of an operation. Showing a progress bar can greatly increase the patience of the user, not knowing how long something is going to take can make the operation just feel longer.

Luckily, many WinRT Tasks will return an IAsyncActionWithProgress . I’ve seen many blog posts about this topic, but most are deeply involved and weren’t suited for a quick lookup. This post will show you a quick example, which you can apply in your app..

How to disable display timeout in WinRT

Wed, 07 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

For those of you who are building multimedia related apps, you’ll want to consider disabling the display timeout of the user’s device. This prevents the screen from dimming or locking while the user is playing/recording media.

In my case, I have a view where the user is doing some video recording. so I don’t want the screen to time out on that page

1) Create a class scope variable::

private DisplayRequest dRequest;

Adding Telerik Universal

Mon, 10 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Telerik has released a new toolset, UI for Windows Universal . You can now use many components like Charts and Calendars in a shared XAML page in your application. If you already have the Telerik Windows Phone or Windows 8.1 XAML controls, you now have a license for the Universal controls, too.

It is very simple to add it to your project. Let me show you in a quick File > New example:

Attend Publish Boston & Win Big

Fri, 18 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Since the prizes are really awesome for this event (May 17th), I’m going to start off with them. We will be rewarding the best student, best individual, and best company in each of the categories below:

Top Windows 8.1 app
- Trip to the 2014 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix in Austin, TX.
- 9 runner-up Nokia Lumia 1520 prizes
Top Windows Phone app
- $10,000 to build your own “Dev Cave”
- 9 Runner-up Nokia Lumia 1520 prizes
Top Cross Platform app
- MakerBot 3D printer
- 9 Runner-up Nokia Lumia 1520 prizes
Breakthrough in App Innovation and Design
- MakerBot 3D printer
- 9 Runner-up Nokia Lumia 1520 prizes

But wait, there’s more! I will be giving away these prizes at the end of the day…

Build 2014 Videos

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This year’s Microsoft Build conference was jam packed with Windows Phone goodness. In fact, there is too much to take in at once. So what I’ve done for you is break it down into sections so that you can bookmark this page and come back at your leisure.

These videos are in no particular order, so review them all before you choose, enjoy!

Windows Phone Development

Windows and Windows Phone Design related