Windows 8 appbar on selected item (like startup screen) - windows-8

Question

What I want to achieve in my application is the same as what windows did on their start up screen. When you select an item, open the appbar and show more items. When you just open te appbar when not selecting anything, don't show those items.
So far so good and it works like I want it to be. But there is some issue I can't solve. When you select an item on the start up screen, you can't close te appbar when right clicking anywhere on the screen. You have to deselect the item.
I just can't figure out how to disable that right click to close the appbar. Because then I am in a state where I have a selected item, but no appbar. I don't want that...
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

There is a property called IsSticky
this can be used to stop you appbar from collapsing.
the other option you have is to hooking into Closed event and force it to re-open.
Based on the screen you provided aka the Metro UI :) i'd say that create a page that just hosts other tiles.
I have done a similar thing in one of my apps, have a look at
http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-gb/app/cineworld/7adfde16-33c3-4b51-b758-00366325288d
Have a look at Coding4Fun or Callisto

Answer 2

Set the AppBar property IsSticky="true" and handle the event RightTapped on your GridView/ListView, and in the event handler set e.Handled = true;
This will stop the rightclick/swipe routed event from reaching Page and it won't close the AppBar.

Answer 3

You could override the hide() function of the appbar and replace it with something like this:
appBar.hide = function () {
/// <signature helpKeyword="WinJS.UI.AppBar.hide">
/// <summary locid="WinJS.UI.AppBar.hide">
/// Hides the AppBar, if visible, regardless of other state
/// </summary>
/// </signature>
// Just wrap the private one
var listView = document.getElementById("yourListView").winControl;
var count = listView.selection.count();
if(count <1)
this._hide();
}
It's not a great workaround, but it works like a charm :)