I trying to build a Windows Phone 8 Application which is able to sync data from a webservice.
While I'm syncing the data I want to display a little Popup / overlay / flyout but I still want to be able to navigate between my pages while my overlay persists between this pages.
I did this successfully with a Windows RT App: I simply added a Frame-Control on a RootPage which also display the flyout. I navigated then within this frame and the flyout was always there.
How can I achieve this goal within a Windows Phone 8 Application?
You can do it as you did on Windows8 which is to restyle the ``RootApplicationFrame to add your indicator. For an example see http://www.jeff.wilcox.name/2011/07/creating-a-global-progressindicator-experience-using-the-windows-phone-7-1-sdk-beta-2/
Or you could just use the progress indicator in the system tray of the page to add indication there. This is probably the most common approach taken in apps. See how at http://blog.duc.as/2011/10/08/using-the-system-tray-to-show-progress-in-windows-phone-7-mango/
Related
Can anyone enlighten me as to how one would be able to trigger a "non standard" realtime notification on a Windows 8 machine? My objective here was simply to find a slick method through which the end user is presented with an enhanced notification slide displayed via a slide in/5 second fade out dialog box.
Best example I can think of to illustrate what I am trying to achieve would be thinking of it like when the charms bar is presented which can automatically fade away. I simply require that this enhanced notification layer is somewhat customizable in order for me to provide summary content along with 3-4 buttons a user can press directly. This notifications needs to be triggered automatically upon the system receiving a push notification.
I have loomed into various "notification" methods such as default windows notifications, offline Google Apps notifications,... problem however is that they all seem not to allow me to customize the notification window to meet my needs.
Any suggestions / examples would be very helpful.
BTW - as an alternative solution - is there simply a way that I might be able to have Windows automatically load and "snap" into view the contents of a specific Windows app containing my content to the left or right side of the screen (upon receiving a push notification vs displaying the standard toast bubble?
Are you looking for something like growl?
How do I add an appbar with buttons to a Windows Phone 8.1 app using the Hub template?
I do not see any clear examples of how to do this.
Specifically, using the Hub template, I want to add appbar menu items to the ItemsPage.xaml.
In Windows Phone 8.1 projects you have to use the CommandBar API.
Take a look on this guide, it's for Windows 8.1, but the syntax is exactly same. Note that you have to only use the BottomAppBar where the PrimaryCommands are displayed as standard AppBar buttons as we know them, and the SecondaryCommands are displayed as Menu Items.
With windows 8, is it possible to create an application that is always visible? For instance, in previous versions of windows, there is the task bar with quick launch icons. Can I create something similar to the quick launch icons that are always on the screen?
If you are referring to a Windows 8 Store app then the answer is no. You can have a live tile and toast notifications that provides updates to the user which may cause the user to launch your application.
A good article to read to understand how your Windows Store apps will run on Windows 8 go here to learn about Application lifecycle (Windows Store apps). This will explain the App execution state.
It is not possible in the RT version, but the same is possible in the desktop version. If you have a desktop app, you can pin it to the taskbar. But any Window store app cannot be pinned to the taskbar. What you can do instead is move the app to the beginning of your Home screen, so anytime you click the Windows button your app will be visible right in front.
Do you mean always visible in the Star Menu screen? If so, you can add tile updating functionality to your application. As long as the user has the application pinned to the Start Menu, he would see the updates. Check the link below for an introductory tutorial.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsappdev/archive/2012/04/16/creating-a-great-tile-experience-part-1.aspx
"Quick Launch" has a very specific meaning, which you may or may not have been referring to in your question.
Below is the Quick Launch bar in Windows 8 - essentially a toolbar pointing to a location in your %AppData% directory. Prior to Windows 7 it was available by default, but the ability to now pin items directly to the taskbar rather supersedes it. Here's how you can restore Quick Launch if you really want to :)
It's, of course, available only in the Desktop mode and not on the Modern UI, where pinning a tile is the best you can hope for, and it's all up to the user to pin it AND to determine where it shows up on their Start Screen.
Another option worth mentioning (although more like system tray than quick launch) is lock screen presence. If the user chooses so and your app supports that, he can add it to his lock screen:
either as a a badge (up to 7 apps)
or as a tile notification (single app only)
This is not a way for the user to quickly start your app (other answers have already covered these options) but a way to stay visible and keep your user informed.
I've got an old Visual Studio 6-made program, and when I install it on Windows 8, it has a default tile. Problem is, it's the smaller tile and the name of the program is too long to fit in comfortably, plus the icon is resized and looks bad.
Is there a way to create a custom Windows 8 tile that's got a different size and icon, without actually creating a specific Windows 8 program? I'd like to be able to do this with batch files as well if possible.
Metro apps in Windows 8 have the full experience of creating live tiles, secondary tiles, wide tiles, etc. Only Metro apps can customize their tiles, not desktop apps. The tile APIs exist only in WinRT for Metro apps.
For a desktop app like you have (the "old Visual Studio 6-made program" that is not Metro), you can try this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc144119(v=vs.85).aspx. Make sure to click on the other topics in the left sidebar too.
Edit:
This method can change the icon for older applications. Since the icon is what is used in the start menu, this is a way to give older apps a more attractive static icon in the new start menu.
Whilst live tiles are not supported for desktop applciations in Windows 8, you can improve the appearence of the icons by ensuring your Icon resource has sizes for 48px, 64px, 96px and 128px
To create the tile, right click on the executable (.exe, .com, .bat, etc), then left click on "Pin to Start".
To resize the tile, right click on the tile and select the size you want.
To move the tile, drag and drop to where you want it.
If you want to change the name, make a shortcut, change the shortcut name to what you want, then pin that to start.
If there a way to display a normal Notification/Toast/Popup in Windows Phone 7, which is not a Push Notification?
All I want to do is to be able to give the user a message when something occurs...
I assume you wish to display something while your application is not running in the foregorund. Because, when your application runs in the foreground, you can do whatever you want.
Your application can't run in the background, therefore you don't really have any means of invoking anything. This means you can't really display a message when somethien occurs.
What exectly occurs on the phone that you need to notify the user? Is that really not back-end related?
There are two great sample chapters on Windows Phone and Silverlight for Windows Phone on the LearningWindosPhone.com site. There is great Windows Phone Trainng material , and dont forget the Windows Phone Develoeprs Blog
You can use MessageBox.Show(), though this creates a modal dialog box.
If you want to display the notification while your app is not running (but when you're doing some background work) then I believe this is what you want:
ShellToast toast = new ShellToast();
toast.Title = "My app";
toast.Content = "Hello from my app's background task!";
toast.Show();
For some reason, this doesn't display anything if your app is already running. If you want to display a message then, you can use MessageBox.Show() (if you're OK forcing the user to click OK), or you can use the Coding4Fun Tools that Haider links to.
It would be fairly straight forward to reproduce the visual effect of a toast from within your app. You could use a fixed height, full width canvas with a TextBlock control and animate it's appearance using a storyboard.
How to bind toast notification with schedule in windows phone