Windows 8 ads showing up on top of settings flyout - windows-8

Question

First, a screenshot:
The title and image explain it pretty well. I have an ad set on the right side of my app's main group view (very very similar to the default grid template in this example), and when I pull up my About screen, the ad bleeds through.
The About screen is a user control set on a SettingsFlyout that I borrowed from some code samples handed out at a dev-camp (below).
class SettingsFlyout
{
private const int _width = 346;
private Popup _popup;
public void ShowFlyout(UserControl control)
{
_popup = new Popup();
_popup.Closed += OnPopupClosed;
Window.Current.Activated += OnWindowActivated;
_popup.IsLightDismissEnabled = true;
_popup.Width = _width;
_popup.Height = Window.Current.Bounds.Height;
control.Width = _width;
control.Height = Window.Current.Bounds.Height;
_popup.Child = control;
_popup.SetValue(Canvas.LeftProperty, Window.Current.Bounds.Width - _width);
_popup.SetValue(Canvas.TopProperty, 0);
_popup.IsOpen = true;
}
private void OnWindowActivated(object sender, Windows.UI.Core.WindowActivatedEventArgs e)
{
if (e.WindowActivationState == Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindowActivationState.Deactivated)
{
_popup.IsOpen = false;
}
}
void OnPopupClosed(object sender, object e)
{
Window.Current.Activated -= OnWindowActivated;
}
}
And, because I know it will be asked for, here is the line of XAML defining the ad on my page:
<ads:AdControl Visibility="{Binding IsTrial, Source={StaticResource License}, Converter={StaticResource BooleanToVisibilityConverter}}" Grid.Row="0" Grid.RowSpan="2" x:Name="LandscapeAdControl" ApplicationId="test_client" AdUnitId="Image_160x600" Width="160" Height="600" VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Right"/>
So, why is this happening, and how do I prevent it?
Suspicions
I am still on Consumer Preview b/c I have a show-and-tell Monday and didn't have time to work on migrating the OS on this box without risking being non-functional when I am showing this. As such, upgrading might fix it if it's a bug.
1.a. Update I have upgraded to Release Preview and have the same issue.
Is there some fancy ad-hiding-but-still-getting-impressions prevention technique at play here? Perhaps it thinks I am trying to cover the ad with a ui element and still get credit for it's impression without the user seeing it. If so, how do I manage this entirely legit use case?
Spoiler Alert: ZIndex isn't set anywhere.

Answer 1

It presents the same problem with overlaying the AppBar (top or bottom). I used the Opened and Closed events on the AppBar instance to hide/show the ad. This means the AdControl is bound to a local page property instead of binding directly to a ViewModel. Like you said, it's unfortunate but it works.
private void bottomAppBar_Opened(object sender, object e)
{
if (App.ViewModel.IsTrialVisibility == Visibility.Visible)
this.DefaultViewModel["AdVisibility"] = Visibility.Collapsed;
// else do nothing as we don't want to show it since it's not a trial
}
private void bottomAppBar_Closed(object sender, object e)
{
if(App.ViewModel.IsTrialVisibility == Visibility.Visible)
this.DefaultViewModel["AdVisibility"] = Visibility.Visible;
// else do nothing as it's not shown in the first place (not a trial)
}

Answer 2

There is a property on AdControl named: UseStaticAnchor
Setting this property to true will fix both performance problems with scrolling, as well as the AdControl drawing on top of everything else.
Original answer - this method is now outdated:
The AdControl has two methods on it: Suspend() and Resume().
Whenever you open a popup window or AppBar, you will want to call Suspend(), and Resume() when it is closed again.
I believe under the covers, the AdControl uses a WebView to display the ads. For whatever reason, a WebView will always display on top of everything else in your application. The fix for this is to temporarily disable the WebView, and instead display a WebViewBrush.
(This technique is described here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/windows.ui.xaml.controls.webviewbrush) So when you call Suspend() and Resume(), the AdControl is doing this under the covers.
What I've ended up doing is creating a UserControl (named SuspendingAdControl) that simply contains an AdControl and can be used anywhere in the app. Then whenever a window is opened or closed, I use Caliburn Micro's EventAggregator to publish an event. The SuspendingAdControl will subscribe and handle these events, and then appropriately call AdControl.Suspend() or Resume().

Answer 3

I ended up crafting some code to listen to an event on the flyout when it closed so I could high/show the ads manually. It's unfortunate that I had to do a workaround, but it works.

Answer 4

None of this is now necessary, as the flyout in 8.1 now is at the top of the Z-order.

Answer 5

I am still on Consumer Preview b/c I have a show-and-tell Monday and
didn't have time to work on migrating the OS on this box without
risking being non-functional when I am showing this. As such,
upgrading might fix it if it's a bug.
I haven't used any advertisements in my own metro applications yet, so I haven't seen any problems like this occurring. I'm using the Release Preview, and was using Consumer Preview prior to May 2nd.
There were some significant changes between the Consumer Preview and Release Preview. As such, upgrading might fix this, or it may break something else.
You're going to have to upgrade eventually. I'd suggest trying that first before you attempt to solve the problem.