I would like an exact copy of the windows 8 startpage (or windows phone if you like) as a control in my WinRT application..
Like this one in silverlight telerik but than for WinRT
Must be clickable (the easy part) and dragable (the hardest part)
I've been searching for examples but couldn't find any good.. does anybody has a good starting point or tip?
You should try Telerik HubTile.
Telerik offers different types of tile type
Windows 8 Style Tiles
Rotating and Sliding Tiles
Other Tile Types
Related
I like to make an overlay with the following properties:
should work at least on Windows 8.1
should be on top on everything, like a mouse cursor
should incorporate the pixels which are already on the background, like a blur filter
no flickering
Details to each of this points:
1) I assume that WDM is activated and DirectX 11.2 is used. Sure it would be nice to have it working on other Windows versions but this has no priority.
2) The problem is that with simply using the WS_EX_TOPMOST, menus from applications are over my overlay. In my case this really hurts as I like to display something with the same properties as a cursor. Imagine that a cursor suddenly is hidden if you open a menu -> unacceptable.
3) I like to read the pixels from the Windows desktop, including any effect Windows applies (like blur), and use this information for my filter. If I add my overlay, as described in 2, I should be able to get a fresh unobstructed copy of the background in the next frame and not read out my own overlay.
4) If I just write something into the Windows desktop directly, it gets overwritten immediately on the next frame by Windows itself. This is not acceptable.
One example of such an application is a magnifying glass, which exactly has all the properties I need. But for this case Windows 8.1 has an API. In contrast I like to write a program which displays a hand on the desktop (which is controlled by Leap Motion) which influences the Windows desktop, so you almost "feel" how you move your hand over the desktop.
If I write a tiny DirectX and/or OpenGL application for myself this is all very easy:
render all the regular stuff to a texture
use this texture for a post processing filter and add all my stuff on top of it
render just a quad to the back buffer
But I like to do that for the whole Windows desktop.
I found many different application, but they are to no use for me:
application which claim to be on top, are still behind menus. This normally doesn't really hurt, but is unacceptable for a cursor-alike thing
screen capturing programs which hook them self in all running programs are nice, but I want to hook myself into WDM
normally screen capturing programs do not draw anything into the back buffer, so they get every frame a new unobstructed back buffer
My questions can be boiled down to: How can I write my own magnifying glass for Windows 8.1.
I fear that my only serious option is to hook myself into WDM, what I try to avoid.
I'm happy to hear any idea how to achieve this, or hints to application which are doing what I describe.
I want to add a color picker control to a windows store App (using VB), I came to know that there is no standard control for that. So any ideas about what could be a good purchased or open source option?
So I started building one into WinRT XAML Toolkit here but never got round to finishing it. Mainly because I figured there would need to be very different designs for different platforms. The control isn't finished, but a lot of the components that are there you could use to build a color picker that fits your design. There's a ColorExtensions class that might help you convert between HSL/HSV/RGB models, there's a FromString() method in it that can parse a color string in the formats available in XAML (e.g. "Transparent" or #FFAA0080 or #FB0) and there's a WriteableBitmapColorPickerExtensions class that you can use to render a hue ring, 2D color selector bitmap or a 1D color bar. I'll probably create some usable controls one day to use all of these primitives, but for now - you have that power! :)
I've created a simple color picker for Universal Apps, you can read about it from this blog post...
My XAML application could use some 3d elements. Is it possible to mix Direct3D content in a WinRT XAML application?
Yes, it's actually very easy to do. See the SurfaceImageSource class. That provides a DirectX surface that can be drawn to like any other surface. See this doc for a lot of detail on this.
I'm developing a Windows 8 Metro-style application and I want to use vector images. As there seems to be no direct support for svg images, I am trying to use a xaml fragment consisting of multiple shapes (a path and some lines) as an image. I would like to have a resource dictionary entry with the composite shape and be able to include it in different pages. Ideally, I would also like to be able to resolve a specific composite shape from a data bound property.
From what I've read, the WPF approach was to have a VisualBrush or DrawingBrush consisting of the shapes, but there are no such classes in Windows 8 (and it seems like it's not even possible to derive from Brush).
How am I supposed to do this using WinRT UI?
No, you cannot use a DrawingBrush as the value of a background property in WinRT XAML. It's too bad, huh? Seems like a very powerful features to setup the fill of an object with vector layouts. In fact DrawingBrush is not even part of Windows 8 yet. It is what it is. For now, images are a fine solution. But we feel your pain.
I might as well toss in that VisualBrush is not part of WinRT-XAML either.
Each XAML fragment is really a UI element. I think the simplest approach would be to put the XAML into it's own user control and then add the user control to each page you wanted to display the "drawing" on. If you want the user control to display different shapes, you can expose a property on the control, data bind to that property, and inside the setter of the property read the value and toggle the visibility of the various XAML shapes to show or hide whatever parts of the composite image you want. It is a bit brute force, but will do what you want.
Windows8 way to have vector graphics in it is just to use ViewBox+Canvas and Path elements. It works well in my opinion, though I do miss VisualBrush.
Building XAML WinRT application & noticed the RadialGradientBrush is nowhere to be found?
Where is the RadialGradientBrush in WinRT XAML?
The radial gradient brush, which is an essential part of xaml IMHO is not supported. I'm hoping this will change. I heard Microsoft felt the brush was not very metro but it is used in huge number if otherways like logos, games etc.
Unfortunately, in this initial version, RadialGrandientBrush is not supported.