I'm building an app for Windows Phone 8, and the nature of the app requires that it keeps running in the foreground with no user interaction (similar to turn-by-turn navigation apps). While I can find plenty of information on how to keep an app running in the background (for location tracking, etc), I can't find anything specifying how to keep the app running in the foreground without locking.
Does anyone know how this is done? Thanks in advance.
Are you looking for IdleDetection on Windows Phone?
Short answer is, you'll need to change the PhoneApplicationService.UserIdleDetectionMode property to Disabled. (Note that you're after UserIdleDetection not ApplicationIdleDetection).
Changing IdleDetection is one way, but your application will likely be deactivated and in some cases tombstoned... but there is a better way to increase the chances for your application to keep running, specially if you are doing location tracking take a look to Running location-tracking apps in the background for Windows Phone 8
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Helloo all
I'm currently developing an app for surface pro 3 that should be capable of:
detecting whether touchscreen was tapped and where
getting device information (product ID, amount of RAM, CPu model etc.) done by launching console application first which is capable of getting this information and saves it to a specific folder, UWP app can read its results from there and log them.
accessing sensor data like: accelerometer, gyroscope and ambient light sensor
testing cameras as i can command an app to make picture using either front or rear camera
testing microphones (both front and back)
testing speakers (i made synthesizer that is able to make beeps at given frequency at given stereo mode (left or right if both)
testing wifi - so it can connect to desired wifi network
bluetooth (swill working on it...)
I have already figured out quite a lot and put out a lot of work into it already, all listed tests are already developed on that UWP application so switching to completely different platform means rewriting whole app which I don't have time anymore.
UWP was chosen because this can run on different windows 10 devices and after completing this app the same app (with minor modifications) will be used on other windows 10 devices (like other surfaces and many different windows 10 phones)
This app will be automatically installed on a factory-resetted surface pro 3 that has no special configurations enabled, so tinkering with its settings is resource-hungry and not recommended process at all.
Now I have some other serious issues regarding of device:
how can I test the functionality of all the buttons Surface pro 3 has ?
It has 3 buttons: Volume up, Volume down and power button
but pressing power button sets screen to clack and locks device.
Can I make app override basic functionality of a button so that if button is pressed it detects it and logs its result.
same question goes to volume up and down buttons.
Only similiar questions about this are here:
Another thread on StackOverflow
I also cannot use same solution as I did with getting device information because test must be repetitive while app is running. (and UWP app cannot launch console application by itself)
Any help regarding this topic is highly welcome.
First for the power button behavior try this :
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-customize-power-button-action-when-pressed-windows-10
I don't have a surface so I cannot test it
also, I do have some inputs and thoughts about your app:
it seems to me that you are doing some sort of sanity check software for pieces of hardware I'd suggest looking into this
https://support.microsoft.com/en-my/help/4037239/surface-fix-common-surface-problems-using-surface-diagnostic-toolkit
https://www.lovemysurface.net/surface-diagnostic-toolkit/
additional thoughts of mine :
Overriding hardware behavior programmatically ould be considered as a harmful action especially when it comes to prebuilt devices such as the surface and by extension, I don't foresee MS providing API's for such a capability also such button might be communicating to the hardware directly rather and doesn't go through the software, runtime or the OS at all, changing it manually using the link i provided might be reflecting some registry settings changes but since UWP apps run in containers and cannot directly edit registry there is a dirty workaround look into this
read/write registery key file in uwp
hope this would help
You can use SystemInformation helper class from windows community toolkit it gives you a lot of details about the device.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/communitytoolkit/helpers/systeminformation
I want to make an application which will send information to a server about user's location every 30min. It is needed to provide location specific push notifications.
I need such functionality for Android/iOS, which would work in background (also if device is restarted). I found some articles covering background services and I created background service doing that, but after phone is restarted it won't work.
Is it possible with Android and iOS? How can I achieve that?
With iOS, no. With Android, yes.
Apple has gone to great lengths to limit what apps can do. You can do some things in the background for an extended period of time (GPS, play audio, Voip, etc), but after a reboot your app will not be restarted until the user opens it again. There are exceptions to this. Voip apps are allowed to restart after a reboot, but apple will not approve your app for the App Store unless you actually have a place for a user in your app to use the Voip feature. Geofences are a possibility, but I haven't had experience with that feature yet. In my experience, Apple does whatever they can to make sure your app doesn't run forever.
With android, there is more flexibility and what you propose is totally possible. I've listed some important links below, since most of those solutions are far better documented than what I can do here.
Essentially you need to register as a boot receiver and then send an intent to start a titanium android service when the boot event is received. I don't have experience with starting a titanium service, but I'm sure its a simple intent you need to fire. Either way you'll need a module for this native code. I attached a link to a bencoding titanium module that may help you, although there may be some others out there. You may even need to code one yourself.
Samsung is notorious for stopping your app with their SPCM feature. You may want to familiarize yourself with it. I've added a stackoverflow discussion link below.
I don't know all of your system requirements but honestly, for any app I would try my best to not run forever. It will hurt the battery life for your users and will add a lot of complexity. Maybe you could simply have the app check the GPS coordinates when it receives a push notification and decide right there and then whether to present a notification to the user? Just something to consider.
Either way good luck!
How to start an Application on startup?
http://docs.appcelerator.com/platform/latest/#!/guide/Android_Services
https://github.com/benbahrenburg/benCoding.Android.Tools
Dealing with Samsung SPCM killer
At my current level of knowledge, I think it is not possible, to develop an emergency or time critical alarm app for Windows 8.1 as a Windows Store App (no Desktop).
Maybe also Windows Phone 8 would fit such app scenario, for having smaller devices to carry around.
For (fictitious) example you have a blind person walking down a road, now he or she unfortunately enters a area, where no one should walk around without seeing something, then the app should warn the person with a toast notification (with sound or vibration) or some UI related function if the app is on top but the Screen is turned off.
As Windows 8.1 sets time limits to the background tasks to safe battery life, I think it is not possible to build such an app on that plattform.
A similar scenario is this question Location tracking windows 8, but it was Windows 8 he asks about and now it is 1 year over and I hope there is something new which I have missed.
Maybe there is way to hook up the Tracking Service?
If the interaction works for you, you would want to create a windows phone app that supports running in the background much the way that GPS navigation applications work (the application must be navigating for it to run in the background).
How to run location-tracking apps in the background for Windows Phone 8
Monitoring geolocation this way will be timely and you can create toast notifications, but you have to be wary of when the application will be deactivated. Whether the platform will work for you depends on your requirements and centers around deactivation. Take a look to see if the conditions for deactivation don't meet your standards, and implement a proof of concept.
A colleague recently asked a similar question ( How to start a MetroApp directly in Snapped mode? ), but this question is not a duplicate...
Programmatically forcing a Windows Store app to open in snapped view does not seem to be possible – by design. But can you do this or something similar on a Windows Embedded 8 machine? Similar things could include:
automatically start an app in snapped view on system start up, or
always start a specific app in snapped view
???
What we are trying to achieve:
The user logs in (on a preconfigured machine, assembled by us, possibly running Windows Embedded 8), starts our app and a snapped communication app (e.g. Skype or Lync) is (A) automatically there alongside our app, or (B) can be opened by pushing a button in our app.
Developers have the API necessary to take their app from SnapView to Fill or FullView. This is usually a less-advertised API because it could easily be abused. To that end, the reverse is not available. There is no API to move to SnapView.
I might also caution you, that unless you are sure of the device resolution, starting in SnapView (which is not possible as it is) would be a dangerously unreliable step as many (most?) displays do not support it (too small). And since you are talking embedded, I imagine this might be exaggeratedly so. Since it sounds like you might know the hardware, you can take that as a general rule, not for your circumstance.
I need to be able to do these few things:
Run my app on phone startup
Keep it running in the background all the time
No UI is needed - this is a statistics app so it will gather all the data it needs and the user should not be bothered with anything.
Are these things possible?
Not really. Setting aside jailbreaking and the universe of things that aren't Apple-approved, running in the background full-time is explicitly banned on iOS. Similarly, you can't sell an app on the App Store that doesn't have a user interface, and you can't set apps to run on start up.