I have a requirement to create a button in a Windows 8.1 app which has an icon and a text label. The icon will be a symbol from Segoe UI Symbols and the text label will be Segoe UI Semibold at a smaller text size.
I want to be able to reuse the button in different places within the app, using different icons and text labels.
How show I go about this? I could create a button and then edit the ContentPresenter to have a horizontally oriented stack panel with two TextBlocks, but then how could I reuse this? And how could I change the text in the two different text blocks?
Should I create a separate custom control with separate dependency properties for each of the textblock strings? I'm interested in hearing what you would do.
thanks
Create a simple Style. To make it easy, I would base it off the standardized AppBarButton style. You can format it to whatever size you want (I have done something similar to make a larger button or one with text on the side).
Have the main icon simply be a ContentPresenter which binds to the Content using a TemplateBinding. Make sure to set the FontFamily to Segoe UI Symbol. Have the text label pull from AutomationProperties.Name, similar to how the AppBarButton style does.
Then, whenever you want to use this just do:
<Button Style="{StaticResource MyCustomButtonStyle}"
Content="" // Where "000" is replaced by the number of the icon you wish to use.
AutomationProperties.Name="Text Label"/>
This should be extensible and easily reproducible to whatever location you need. When copying over the AppBarButton style, I suggest removing the artificial size limits (specifically the width of the main content Grid). I do suggest either giving the Text Label a fixed size or having it pull its size from the specified parent Width, so that it will Wrap correctly.
Hope this helps and happy coding!
Are you desiring to create something like for an AppBar? Take a look at AppBarButton and the style/types it supports. In Windows 8.1 we added some things around SymbolIcon specifically. Since you basically want two pieces of 'content' for your style you'll have to re-purpose one property (unless you create a custom control which doesn't sound needed for this scenario). Using AutiomationProperties.Name for the visible label is a good idea because it will also help with accessibility by default for those users.
Investigate the style for AppBarButton to get you started.
Related
I have a UWP app that I am working on, and using absolute position creates problems when using the app on screen sizes different than the one it was designed for.
I'm not sure how exactly i should place elements at distances from each other without using margin and absolute position. How should I be doing this?
Edit: I am using XAML to design the UI.
Well, it depends on what UI you want to build up.
There are various panels and, usually, there is NO need to use absolute position in most cases.
Usually, the Grid panel is used to create flexible layouts, by adding rows and columns: for example, if you want to create a page with some content and a bottom app bar with buttons on it, you usually create a Grid with as many rows as you need for your content controls, plus one for the bottom appbar itself.
Years ago, I also started building UIs by using absolute position for every element, but then times passes and you start having a flexible mind in order to build flexible layouts.
Sorry to not answer any further, but your question is just TOO broad to give any precise answer.
Best regards
How do you properly position elements in XAML without using absolute position?
You should use an appropriate layout panel:
Layout panels are containers that allow you to arrange and group UI elements in your app. The built-in XAML layout panels include RelativePanel, StackPanel, Grid, VariableSizedWrapGrid, and Canvas.
I have a ComboBox with thousands of items bound to it.
The problem I'm facing is when I run the app on a tablet the scrollviewer's scrollbar is very thin hence I cannot hold and drag it and can only swipe to move inside the ComboBox.
Hence I was wondering is there a way to change the style template of the ScrollViewer inside the ComboBox inorder to make the ScrollBar width larger.
You'll have to dig in to the style template and change some hard set properties for Width / Height that sit on the parts like the Thumb that you will find on the default style template. You can extract a copy via selecting a Scrollbar -> Right Click -> Edit Style -> Edit a copy. Save the copy wherever you need it, like a resource dictionary if you plan to use it multiple places or to the instance where you need it.
(Note: Generally folks start at the ScrollViewer level, then find a Scrollbar in it, and apply the style changes there so they can apply the style directly to ScrollViewers)
Once you have your changes made to the control template you then need to pass them to your ComboBox. If you only need it for the one ComboBox, You can just put the style template in it's Resources and remove the x:Key name you gave it so it hits the instance of the TargetType via inheritance for just that ComboBox.
However if you want it to hit EVERY ComboBox, then you'll need to edit the ComboBox style template and add a reference to the Style template you just made to it's embedded ScrollViewer.
You'll find long tutorials out there for stuff like WPF/Silverlight that pretty much the same concept but little nuance differences in the templates and syntax of properties.
Hope this helps, give it a shot and if you get stuck come on back and we'll get you sorted.
I am making a windows 8 phone app and I want to add arabic text items to a longlistselector. Its orientation is supposed to be right from left but I cannot get it to align in the proper direction. Is there a way in Windows 8 xaml to detect the reading order of the text and adjust alignment accordingly?
At the Window/Page level, add the following property
FlowDirection="RightToLeft"
This is a Bindable property, so it can be set at Application Level, and the changes reflected with minimal amount of code.
I'm trying to make my WP7 app work well on WP8 (by compiling it as a WP8 app).
In my app, I'm changing the PhoneAccentBrush's Color which seems to work fine still, however TextBox's in WP8 now seem to show a border around it when the textbox is in focus (this wasn't happening for me on WP7). This border seems to always use the System's accent color instead of using the changed color like every other control.
Any idea what's going on here and how to change it? The red accent (if that's what the user has chosen) really clashes with my app's colors!
I would call overriding the accent color a hack. I would avoid setting the accent color and create a template for your textBlock.
Blend makes this very easy by allowing you to copy the default template and make changes to it.
Right Click the textBox in the Objects and Timeline pane, then select Edit Template -> Edit Current. Then select the States tab and select the Focused FocusState, then edit the border brush. Save and reuse the template as needed.
I did notice the textBox control template has changed in 8 and now defines the focus state border brush, although it does default to the PhoneAccentBrush.
I'm trying to create a live tile for my application, using a user control.
The user control contains a grid, an image and a rectangle filled with color.
Now here comes the funny part.
I want the rectangle to act as a background for the tile's title, and the image to fill the rest of the tile. And i said to myself, well, lets put some rows in that grid and set the like you usually set them in a WPF/SL application.
I then write the entire thing in a WBM and save it to isostore.
The problem is, the parser seems to ignore the presence of grid's rows. regardless of what I try, the rectangle is not shown, and the image covers the full tile, when it should only cover the first row. It is as if the grid didn't even existed.
Another funny aspect is that it doesn't matter if I use rows or columns, the result is the same.
Any ideas?
Are you using the following method?
Dynamic LiveTile - adding background image?
I recently implemented a Live Tile using a Grid with Rows and Columns for layout of some TextBlocks. I encountered similar challenges, so I placed the control that I was using for my Live Tile on a blank page in my app to better see what was happening. Does the control render correctly when displayed on a page (versus being rendered to a WriteableBitmap)?
Another idea. Instead of trying to position the Rectangle relative to the tile's Title, why not leave the Title property blank and put the same text in a TextBlock within the user control?
If you are careful about the font and positioning of the TextBlock, the text on the resulting background image can appear indistinguishable from text displayed from the Title property. I decided to follow this strategy myself. I found the font information in the following answer:
Font size and family for a tile's title
Otherwise, could you post an example of the XAML you are using?