Windows Phone ThemeManager - windows-phone

is it possible to for example - write a background service, which randomly changes the windows phone theme, I mean is it possible to access the windows phone theme under settings via code? and change it?
if so can you please give me an example of the API's I can use or additional libraries I can dl
thank you

Unfortunately you can't. It is not possible to change the Windows Phone theme by code. The only one who can is the user. This is part of the Windows Phone concept.
The only thing you can do is defining themes that are used in your own apps.
Sorry for the bad news...

You are allowed to change the theme for your application. There is a Nuget package available that makes this even easier. You could accomplish changing it in a background task by setting a property that you check when the app opens.
// background agent code
// get random value
IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings["Theme"] = randomValue; // this is just a string or something simple
IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings.Save();
When your app opens, you would check this value
var theme = "Standard";
if(IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings.ContainsValue("Theme"))
{
theme = IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings["Theme"];
// Set the theme
}
You can modify the source of the Theme Manager by downloading the source from github. Here is some more info on the Theme Manager. If you would like to change values yourself, you can accomplish this by setting the resource values when the papp starts
((SolidColorBrush)Resources["PhoneAccentBrush"]).Color = myAccentBrush;
((SolidColorBrush)Resources["PhoneBackgroundBrush"]).Color = myBackgroundBrush;
((SolidColorBrush)Resources["PhoneChromeBrush"]).Color = myChromeBrush;
((SolidColorBrush)Resources["PhoneForegroundBrush"]).Color = myForegroundBrush;

Related

Changing language in UWP doesn't change system features language - only on app restart

I have a UWP application.
And i have a need to change locale on the fly, so i have this for language changing:
Windows.Globalization.ApplicationLanguages.PrimaryLanguageOverride = language.FourDigitCode;
ResourceContext.GetForViewIndependentUse().Reset();
ResourceContext.GetForCurrentView();
But there is a problem that system features language doesn't switch ( only after application relaunch ) how can i fix it?
Here is an example:
Now i run this code:
Windows.Globalization.ApplicationLanguages.PrimaryLanguageOverride = "lv-LV";
ResourceContext.GetForViewIndependentUse().Reset();
ResourceContext.GetForCurrentView();
The UI gets localized, but system features still remain unlocalized:
But when i restart the app, all is OK:
Any ideas how can i fix it?
I'm afraid there is no fix for this and what you've seen is by design. Ref Remarks of PrimaryLanguageOverride property:
When you set the PrimaryLanguageOverride, this is immediately reflected in the Languages property. However, this change may not take effect immediately on resources loaded in the app UI. To make sure the app responds to such changes, you can listen to the QualifierValues property on a default resource context and take whatever actions may be needed to reload resources. Those requirements may vary depending on the UI framework used by the app, and it may be necessary to restart the app.
For your scenario, a restart is needed. I'd suggest that you can add a tip to tell users to restart the app and also a button to close the app like what used in News App.
And to close the app, we can call Application.Exit method like the following.
Application.Current.Exit();
Maybe page reloading can fix it? Try to re-navigate to the same page.
Found the example below here.
//like this
private bool Reload(object param = null)
{
var type = Frame.CurrentSourcePageType;
Frame.Navigate(type, param);
Frame.BackStack.Remove(Frame.BackStack.Last());
}
// or like this
private bool Reload(object param = null)
{
var frame = Window.Current.Content as Frame;
frame.Navigate(frame.CurrentSourcePageType, param);
frame.BackStack.Remove(frame .BackStack.Last());
}

How do I add my privacy policy link to the Windows Settings charm with Unity?

Windows Store rule 4.1.1 mandate that:
You must provide access to your privacy policy in the Description page
of your app, as well as in the app’s settings as displayed in the
Windows Settings charm.
The Description page is easy, since when you setup your app in the store there's a field where you can enter the URL.
However I'm a bit clueless about how to add this entry in the Windows Setting charm in a Unity project. I've found this answer but that assumes you are in full control and knowledge of your Windows Store app, while I'm just exporting from Unity, so I've no clue on where I would put that code.
So, how do I do that?
Unity is exporting the game as JS or C#.
So have a look to these samples http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/Windows-8-Modern-Style-App-Samples. In these samples, there are a few Setting Charm screnios that you can use in your application.
But remember that, you should add setting charm after export the game.
The plugin prime31/MetroEssentials has the function registerSettingsCommand, which allows you to do just that.
// Registers a settings item with an associated message that will be displaed in a popup when clicked
public static void registerSettingsCommand( string title, string message )
// Registers a settings item with an action. When the settings item is clicked the action will be called.
public static void registerSettingsCommand( string title, Action onActivated )

User Specific App Settings

I have started working with server side app settings and it would appear the default mechanics for a shared app is to save the app settings across the entire project scope; so if an individual makes changes to the app settings, those changes are reflected for all future users. This is not the ideal use in my specific case. I would like it if I could have different settings for each user, without them each adding separate instances of my custom HTML. Is this possible using server side settings, or will I need to look into using cookies to save the settings on each user?
Note: I've read the documentation on app setting scope (https://help.rallydev.com/apps/2.0rc1/doc/#!/guide/settings-section-define-scope) but it doesn't appear as though "user" is an option.
Thanks!
Conner, you're making a good argument for User-level settings for an app.
Unfortunately, we don't support that currently. The settingsScope option in AppSettings only supports the values app, project, or workspace.
Creating an instance of the app for each user (such as on their individual dashboard) is the best alternative I can think of. But as you mentioned, this is not ideal for you.
I have solved this issue by prepending the user ObjectID to each setting value before I save or load it from the Rally servers. Here is the code for my user settings set/get functions:
setUserSetting : function(settingName, settingValue, callback) {
var settings = {};
settings[App.getContext().getUser().ObjectID + settingName] = settingValue;
App.updateSettingsValues({
settings : settings,
success : function() {
App.setSettings(Ext.Object.merge(App.getSettings(), settings));
callback();
}
});
},
getUserSetting : function(settingName) {
return App.getSetting(App.getContext().getUser().ObjectID + settingName);
}
BTW, it seems kind of strange that I have to save the settings in the way I have. The "updateSettingsValues" function sets the settings on the next load of the app and the "setSettings" function sets it for the current runtime of the app. It's a strange way to have to do it, but it works.

Safari Extension: "on install" event?

I am developing an extension for Safari 6 and I want to set some default values for my settings. These default values depend on window.navigator.language, so setting them in Settings.plist does not the trick – I need to run some JS code to set them.
Obviously, this code should only run once right after install. And it shouldn't run after simply reenabling the extension.
Is there an "official" event that I can attach a function with addEventlistener to? Or do I really need the trick with setting a helper variable?
There is no official event that I know of. But it's pretty easy to do something like this in your global page:
if (!safari.extension.settings.hasRun) {
safari.extension.settings.hasRun = true;
safari.extension.settings.lang = window.navigator.language;
}

Windows 8 Themes

While searching for a method to determine which theme is currently in use for Windows 8, I came across this article. It states that the theme is set per application and cannot be changed. I didn't realize that this was the case, nor did I do anything to set my theme to "Dark" (although it seems to be so). If this is correct, then how is the app theme set or, if not, how can I determine which theme is currently in use?
By default new applications use the "Dark" theme, this is set by a property called RequestedTheme on the Application object. To change to the "Light" theme you can set the property in the App.xaml file on the Application element. You can read that same property to determine which theme isn't being used, but since it cannot be changed by the user it's value will only ever be what you set it to be.