uwp xbox app XYNavigation in Pivot Control - xaml

I am an experienced uwp developer but a beginner for uwp xbox platform. I am trying to set the XY Navigation for my app and trying to test it with keyboard (as I don't own a xbox myself).
I am using a Pivot view and I can easily navigate between the pivot items with right and left arrow keys, which makes sense. but when my settings page is selected with pivot option (settings pivot header is focused and settings pivot item is in view) then I try to shift my focus vertically downwards to the first control in the settings page (radio buttons) but I am not able to do it the focus remains on settings header and doesn't shift downward on the page.
So how can I shift the focus downwards from a pivot header to the 1st control within the page on pressing down, and vice versa i.e : when 1st control is focused I should move up to go back to the header of the pivot of that page, because I think that is the traditional navigation with pivot control on uwp xbox right?
Secondly the docs and the xbox app dev videos I watched recommended to set the focus on an element which makes sense, when the app loads, should that be done with this.Focus() method or is there a more efficient way to do it with xaml?
Code:
Pivot.xaml
<Grid x:Name="MainGrid">
<Pivot x:Uid="PivotPage" x:Name="MainPivot" >
<PivotItem x:Uid="PivotItem_OnNow">
<Frame>
<views:OnNowPage/>
</Frame>
</PivotItem>
<PivotItem x:Uid="PivotItem_Guide">
<Frame>
<views:GuidePage/>
</Frame>
</PivotItem>
<PivotItem x:Uid="PivotItem_Settings">
<Frame>
<views:SettingsPage/>
</Frame>
</PivotItem>
</Pivot>
</Grid>
Settings.xaml
<Grid>
<Grid Margin="{StaticResource MediumLeftRightMargin}">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="48"/>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<TextBlock
Grid.Row="0"
x:Uid="Settings_Title"
x:Name="TitlePage"
Style="{StaticResource PageTitleStyle}" />
<StackPanel Grid.Row="1">
<TextBlock
x:Uid="Settings_Personalization"
Style="{StaticResource SubtitleTextBlockStyle}" />
<StackPanel Margin="{StaticResource SettingsSubheaderMargin}">
<TextBlock
x:Uid="Settings_Theme"
Style="{StaticResource BodyTextStyle}" />
<StackPanel Margin="{StaticResource EightTopMargin}">
<RadioButton
x:Uid="Settings_Theme_Light"
GroupName="AppTheme"
IsChecked="{x:Bind ViewModel.ElementTheme, Converter={StaticResource EnumToBooleanConverter}, ConverterParameter=Light, Mode=OneWay}"
Command="{x:Bind ViewModel.SwitchThemeCommand}">
<RadioButton.CommandParameter>
<xaml:ElementTheme>Light</xaml:ElementTheme>
</RadioButton.CommandParameter>
</RadioButton>
<RadioButton
x:Uid="Settings_Theme_Dark"
GroupName="AppTheme"
IsChecked="{x:Bind ViewModel.ElementTheme, Converter={StaticResource EnumToBooleanConverter}, ConverterParameter=Dark, Mode=OneWay}"
Command="{x:Bind ViewModel.SwitchThemeCommand}">
<RadioButton.CommandParameter>
<xaml:ElementTheme>Dark</xaml:ElementTheme>
</RadioButton.CommandParameter>
</RadioButton>
<RadioButton
x:Uid="Settings_Theme_Default"
GroupName="AppTheme"
IsChecked="{x:Bind ViewModel.ElementTheme, Converter={StaticResource EnumToBooleanConverter}, ConverterParameter=Default, Mode=OneWay}"
Command="{x:Bind ViewModel.SwitchThemeCommand}">
<RadioButton.CommandParameter>
<xaml:ElementTheme>Default</xaml:ElementTheme>
</RadioButton.CommandParameter>
</RadioButton>
</StackPanel>
</StackPanel>
<TextBlock
x:Uid="Settings_About"
Style="{StaticResource SubtitleTextBlockStyle}"/>
<StackPanel Margin="{StaticResource EightTopMargin}">
<TextBlock
Text="{x:Bind ViewModel.VersionDescription, Mode=OneWay}" />
<TextBlock
x:Uid="Settings_AboutDescription"
Margin="{StaticResource EightTopMargin}" />
<HyperlinkButton
x:Uid="Settings_PrivacyTermsLink"
Margin="{StaticResource EightTopMargin}" />
</StackPanel>
</StackPanel>
</Grid>
</Grid>

The MSDN has listed several scenarios that XY navigation might not work the way you expect:
The IsTabStop or Visibility property is set wrong.
The control getting focus is actually bigger than you think—XY navigation looks at the total size of the control (ActualWidth and ActualHeight), not just the portion of the control that renders something interesting.
One focusable control is on top of another—XY navigation doesn't support controls that are overlapped.
If XY navigation is still not working the way you expect after fixing these issues, you can manually point to the element that you want to get focus using the method described in Overriding the default navigation.
Please first check these scenarios, after that, if you still could not solve this issue. Please provide a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example. I will help you diagnose it on my side.

Related

How do I create a two column layout using xaml RelativePanel?

I'd really like to use RelativePanel in a UWP app I'm writing, to simplify visual state.
This is what I want
I've tried to achieve this with the following XAML:
<RelativePanel>
<TextBlock x:Name="Title" Height="50" Margin="15" FontSize="24"
RelativePanel.AlignTopWithPanel="True"
RelativePanel.AlignLeftWithPanel="True"
RelativePanel.AlignRightWithPanel="True">
</TextBlock>
<TextBox x:Name="Editor" Margin="15" Padding="20" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
RelativePanel.AlignLeftWithPanel="True"
RelativePanel.Below="Title"
RelativePanel.RightOf="FileList">
</TextBox>
<ListView x:Name="FileList" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="15"
RelativePanel.AlignRightWithPanel="True"
RelativePanel.Below="Title">
</ListView>
</RelativePanel>
This isn't working. Editor does not stretch. If I set Editor to RelativePanel.AlignRightWith="FilesList", it stretches past files list and fills the window.
Is there any way to do what I want with RelativePanel? Please don't post suggestions on how to do this in Grid, I can already do that - I want to use RelativePanel in this case
Your Editor control should have -
RelativePanel.AlignLeftWithPanel="True"
RelativePanel.Below="Title"
RelativePanel.LeftOf="FileList"
RelativePanel.AlignBottomWithPanel="True"
Note it should be LeftOf, not RightOf. You will also need AlignBottomWithPanel set to True.

UWP - GridView : how to add an "Add" button after the last item?

I use a GridView to display photos and I search an elegant way to allow user to add a new item to a form.
The form contains a lot of fields: it is displayed in a Pivot, where each PivotItem represents a category of the form.
Some categories contain one or more child items: they are displayed through a Master-Detail page.
It's in this page that I need to display a list of photos: as a photo represents a "sub sub item" of the form, I wouldn't manage the add of a new photo through the CommandBar. But I would like to use an "Add" button after the last item of the GridView containing the photos.
At this time I only found a solution that partially work:
Here is the XAML:
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<TextBlock Text="Photos" Grid.Row="0"/>
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Grid.Row="1">
<GridView ItemsSource="{Binding images}">
<GridView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Border BorderBrush="Gray" BorderThickness="1"
Padding="10"
Height="150" Width="190">
<Image Stretch="UniformToFill"
Source="{Binding bitmap_image}" />
</Border>
</DataTemplate>
</GridView.ItemTemplate>
</GridView>
<Border BorderBrush="Gray" BorderThickness="1"
Padding="10"
Height="150" Width="190">
<Button Command="{Binding Path=DataContext.AddPhotoCommand, ElementName=DetailsPage}"
Height="100" Width="100">
<Viewbox>
<SymbolIcon Symbol="Add"/>
</Viewbox>
</Button>
</Border>
</StackPanel>
</Grid>
As I use a StackPanel, the Add button is no longer visible if I display 3 photos...
=> Is there a better way to do this? Or do you see a an alternative? I'm looking for doing this through a DataTemplateSelector, but that would require me to create a "false" object for displaying the add button...
As I use a StackPanel, the Add button is no longer visible if I display 3 photos...
If you don't mind the button is in the next line of your last photo, you can use WinRTXamlToolkit's WrapPanel instead of StackPanel to avoid the pictures goes out of the window and put the button inside the GridView's FooterTemplate:
Xaml:
<Page
x:Class="AddButtonSample.MainPage"
xmlns:controls="using:WinRTXamlToolkit.Controls"
...
mc:Ignorable="d">
<Grid Background="{ThemeResource ApplicationPageBackgroundThemeBrush}">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<TextBlock Text="Photos" Grid.Row="0"/>
<controls:WrapPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Grid.Row="1">
<GridView ItemsSource="{Binding images}">
<GridView.FooterTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Button Command="{Binding Path=AddPhotoCommand}" Height="100" Width="100">
<Viewbox>
<SymbolIcon Symbol="Add"/>
</Viewbox>
</Button>
</DataTemplate>
</GridView.FooterTemplate>
<GridView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Border BorderBrush="Gray" BorderThickness="1"
Padding="10"
Height="150" Width="190">
<Image Stretch="UniformToFill"
Source="{Binding bitmap_image}" />
</Border>
</DataTemplate>
</GridView.ItemTemplate>
</GridView>
</controls:WrapPanel>
</Grid>
Result:
If you really want to put the Button side by side after the last item of GridView. The only Option is DataTemplateSelector.
The best solution might be to use a CommandBar and put the "Add" button in the very bottom of the panel, as that would be most consistent with UWP design guidelines. GridView also has a FooterTemplate, which allows you to add some XAML in the footer of the whole GridView (but not directly after the items).
If you still want to have the add item as part of the GridView contents, you will really need to use the fake item and a DataTemplateSelector. This solution is not very clean, but probably is the only simple way.
I tried to do something similar for my own app too, but there really isn't an obvious way to achieve it. A little background on what my app does: it's a flashcard app that displays decks of card in a gridview on the homepage, with an add button being at the front of the gridview. This is what I did:
for my deck class, I gave it a bool attribute isButton
in the observablecollection of decks, set the first item's isButton to true
make two datatemplates for the gridview (deck and button) and make a data template picker for the gridview, and check the isButton attribute
if isButton is true, the template picker will use the button template
otherwise use deck template

How do I enable Scrollbars on a UWP GridView

I have a UWP where I am loading from an XML file and showing it in a GridView and I am trying to enable Scrollbars in a way that allows me to stack and wrap items in all the available space like in the image below. The problem that I am having is that I cannot figure out how to enable the scrollbars so that I can scroll the boxes until I get to the end of the list.
So far I have got it to do what you see in the picture, which is wrapped the way I want but it fills all the available space and doesn't allow you to scroll vertically or horizontally (I only want to scroll one way but I have tried to see if I could go either way). Through a lot of trial and error I was able to get it to scroll one row or one column at a time to the end of the list but that is not the desired result either. Here is where I am with the XAML right now (trimmed down version of the screen shot).
<GridView x:Name="DataGrid1">
<GridView.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsPanelTemplate>
<ItemsWrapGrid Orientation="Horizontal"
ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Visible"
ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Disabled" />
</ItemsPanelTemplate>
</GridView.ItemsPanel>
<GridView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Border Width="270"
Height="200"
Margin="5"
BorderBrush="Black"
BorderThickness="2">
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="70" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<StackPanel Grid.Row="0"
Grid.Column="0"
Grid.ColumnSpan="2"
Background="#87CEFA">
<TextBlock Margin="2"
HorizontalAlignment="Center"
FontSize="16"
FontWeight="Bold"
Text="{Binding Company}" />
</StackPanel>
<TextBlock Grid.Row="1"
Grid.Column="0"
Margin="2"
HorizontalAlignment="Right"
FontWeight="Bold"
Text="Code: " />
<TextBlock Grid.Row="1"
Grid.Column="1"
Margin="2"
Text="{Binding Code}" />
</Grid>
</Border>
</DataTemplate>
</GridView.ItemTemplate>
</GridView>
So what do I need to do to enable the scrollbars the way that I want?
Make sure your GridView is in a Grid and not a StackPanel. It does not expand in a StackPanel.
To make it scroll in a StackPanel you have to specify the height of the GridView. This was the issue with mine :)
To my knowledge gridviews that are not showing scrollbars automatically are due to stackpanel's presence. So my solution here is to try remove stackpanel what so ever, and if I find the stackpanel that's responsible replace it with other kind of panel and work my way back up. It's totally a brute force kind of approach but it works most of the time.
And another piece of advice. In that process of replacing the stackpanel try to replace it with grid and try to divide it's rows and columns with widths and heights set to auto or star sizing instead of specifying it with actual numbers to see if it works this way. If it works then work your way up speicifying it with actual numbers.
Here's your problem, in the definition of the ItemsWrapGrid you have:
ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Disabled"
this is going to mean that even if the scrollbar is shown it wont work.
Remove this line and you should get a working scrollbar.

Docking Windows Phone controls to the bottom of a StackPanel

Is there a way to dock a Windows Phone control to the bottom of a StackPanel? This is my basic layout:
<StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">
<TextBlock />
<TextBlock />
<UI:AdControl />
</StackPanel>
My StackPanel is filling up the whole window. The TextBlocks are aligned toward the top of the panel, that's what I want.
But I want the AdControl to dock at the bottom of the StackPanel (and therefore the bottom of the window).
I've found controls like DockPanel, but they seem to only work for WPF or Silverlight as far as I can tell.
This can easily be accomplished with a simple grid
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<StackPanel>
<TextBlock />
<TextBlock />
</StackPanel>
<UI:AdControl Grid.Row="1"/>
</Grid>
If you want exactly DockPanel for future use, make sure you look into open source implementations, there should be plenty of those out there!

Gridview scrolling stutters

I've been experimenting with Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 express but I can't achieve my goal.
I've been trying to create a grid of tiles that expands horizontally (much like the 'start' screen does).
The items are added at runtime and although scrolling horizontally works, it's not good enough.
When using my touchpad, it seems to clip to something, on a tablet this would feel laggy.
Scrolling with the cursor seems fine.
I'd like to know how I can give it a smooth experience by using XAML, unfortunately I'm not very good at it (yet).
XAML: (the stackpanel should be pointless but I was experimenting)
<Grid Background="White" ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Visible">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="19*"/>
<RowDefinition Height="109*"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<StackPanel x:Name="stackPanel1" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="622" Margin="97,93,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="0" Orientation="Horizontal" Grid.RowSpan="2"/>
<GridView x:Name="gridView1" ItemTemplate="{StaticResource Standard250x250ItemTemplate}" Margin="0,0,0,0" Background="Red" Grid.Row="1" ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Hidden"/>
<Image HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="90" Margin="1206,11,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="106" Source="Assets/SmallLogo.png"/>
</Grid>
Not 100% sure if this is the issue you're facing though, but maybe it helps:
By default the ItemsTemplatePanel of a GridView is a VirtualizingStackPanel. If you don't have many items in your GridView, the scrolling of your GridView can indeed seem to be stuttering.
Try setting the ItemsPanelTemplate to a StackPanel in stead of VirtualizingStackPanel (unless you insist that your control GridView virtualizes its items).
<GridView.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsPanelTemplate>
<StackPanel Width="Auto"
HorizontalAlignment="Left"
Orientation="Horizontal" />
</ItemsPanelTemplate>
</GridView.ItemsPanel>
Hope this helps!