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Windows Application Development Cookbook

By : Marcin Jamro

Windows Application Development Cookbook

By: Marcin Jamro

Overview of this book

Need to ensure you can always create the best Windows apps regardless of platform? What you need are solutions to the biggest issues you can face, so you can always ensure you’re making the right choices and creating the best apps you can. The book starts with recipes that will help you set up the integrated development environment before you go ahead and design the user interface. You will learn how to use the MVVM design pattern together with data binding, as well as how to work with data in different file formats. Moving on, you will explore techniques to add animations and graphics to your application, and enable your solution to work with multimedia content. You will also see how to use sensors, such as an accelerometer and a compass, as well as obtain the current GPS location. You will make your application ready to work with Internet-based scenarios, such as composing e-mails or downloading files, before finally testing the project and submitting it to the Windows Store. By the end of the book, you will have a market-ready application compatible across different Windows devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktops.

Preface

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Sections

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

1. Getting Started

1. Getting Started

Introduction

Setting up the IDE

Arranging windows

Creating a new project

Running the application

Adding a new page

Placing a control

Handling events

Navigating between pages

Passing data between pages

Handling the back button

Changing a default page

Modifying the back stack

Utilizing additional features of the emulator

Breakpoints-based debugging

Step-by-step debugging

Executing code while debugging

Logging information while debugging

Monitoring the CPU and memory usage

2. Designing a User Interface

2. Designing a User Interface

Introduction

Adding a button

Adding a text block

Adding a textbox

Adding a password box

Adding a checkbox

Adding a combobox

Adding a listbox

Adding an image

Adding controls programmatically

Arranging controls vertically

Arranging controls horizontally

Arranging controls in a scrollable view

Defining a page-limited style

Defining a global style

Applying styles programmatically

Arranging controls in a grid

Arranging controls in absolute positions

Choosing date and time

Adding icons to app bars

Creating and using a user control

Presenting a message dialog

Adjusting design based on the device type

Localizing content in XAML

Localizing content programmatically

Forcing the current language

3. MVVM and Data Binding

3. MVVM and Data Binding

Introduction

Creating the view model for a page

Introducing bindings and commands

Binding a value to a textbox

Binding with a value converter

Using value converters with parameters

Showing a progress bar during calculations

Binding a collection to a list view

Binding a collection to a grid view

Binding a collection to a combobox

Binding a collection to a hub

4. Data Storage

4. Data Storage

Introduction

Creating a directory

Reading a structure of directories

Creating a file

Iterating through files

Renaming a directory

Renaming a file

Removing a directory

Removing a file

Writing a text file

Reading a text file

Writing an XML file

Reading an XML file

Writing a JSON file

Reading a JSON file

Writing a binary file

Reading a binary file

Creating a SQLite database and tables

Storing data in a SQLite database

Selecting data from a SQLite database

Updating data in a SQLite database

Removing data from a SQLite database

5. Animations and Graphics

5. Animations and Graphics

Introduction

Animating the showing of controls

Using animation to hide controls

Adding animation to show the collection of items

Animating the repositioning of items' collection

Animating the color of an element

Animating the size of an element

Animating the position of an element

Animating the rotation of an element

Animating the font size of an element

Drawing shapes programmatically

Handling the tap touch event

Handling the pinch touch event

Handling the rotate touch event

Handling the pinch and rotate touch events

Rendering 3D graphics

6. Multimedia

6. Multimedia

Introduction

Playing a movie clip

Playing an audio file

Presenting a collection of photos

Preparing a photo album with captions

Modifying an image

Converting an image into grayscale

Recoloring an image

Choosing a file to open

Choosing a file to save

Taking an image from a camera

Recording a movie from a camera

Scanning a QR code

Synthesizing speech

Recognizing speech

7. Built-in Sensors

7. Built-in Sensors

Introduction

Detecting motion using an accelerometer

Reading data from a compass

Obtaining the orientation of a device

Reading data from a light sensor

Launching vibrations

Reading NFC tags

Obtaining the current GPS location

Disabling switching off the screen

8. Internet-based Scenarios

8. Internet-based Scenarios

Introduction

Opening a website in a default browser

Presenting a website within a page

Composing an e-mail message

Starting a phone call

Launching a Skype call

Opening a map in an external application

Showing a map within a page

Drawing icons, polylines, and polygons on a map

Adding a custom marker to a map

Getting the coordinates of a clicked point on a map

Launching GPS-based navigation

Calling API methods

Downloading a file from the Internet

9. Testing and Submission

9. Testing and Submission

Introduction

Creating a unit test

Running a set of tests

Adding a project to the Windows Dev Center

Associating an application with the store

Adjusting the manifest file

Obtaining a map token

Receiving push notifications

Preparing files for submission

Submitting the application

Updating the application

Generating promotional codes

Browsing reviews and ratings

Analyzing acquisitions

A. Useful Resources

A. Useful Resources

Getting started

Designing a User Interface

MVVM and data binding

Data storage

Animations and graphics

Multimedia

Built-in sensors

Internet-based scenarios

Testing and submission

Customer Reviews

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Utilizing additional features of the emulator

The provided emulators are equipped with some additional features that simplify the testing of applications. In this recipe, you will learn how to use such features of the smartphone-based emulators available within the IDE.

Getting ready

To complete this recipe, you need an automatically generated project.

How to do it...

To utilize additional features provided by the emulator of a smartphone, you need to perform the following steps:

Select Fit to Screen to automatically adjust the size of the emulator. You could specify zoom directly using the Zoom option.
Use the Rotate Left and Rotate Right options to rotate the emulator, either counterclockwise or clockwise, respectively.
Check various input modes by clicking on the small icons located on the right-hand side of the emulator, such as:
- Single Point Mouse Input
- Single Point Touch Input
- Multi-touch Input
Run the application in Mobile Emulator (...) WXGA 4.5 inch 1GB. Then, wait until the application is loaded.
Click on the Tools option (double arrow) to open the window with the additional features available within the emulator, which are organized into tabs, such as:
- Accelerometer: This is used to simulate data from the accelerometer sensor
- Location: This is used to simulate the current GPS location
- Screenshot: This is used to capture and save the screenshot from the emulator
- Network : This is used to enable or disable the network for an emulator as well as to specify the network speed and signal strength
- SD Card: This uses the local folder as an SD card within the phone
- Checkpoints: This is used to manage the saving states of the emulator
- Optional Settings: This is used to mark which hardware should be emulated
- Notifications: This is used to simulate push notifications sent to the application
- NFC: This is used to emulate NFC-based scenarios

How to do it...

See also

The Running the application recipe
The Creating a unit test and Running a set of tests recipes in Chapter 9, Testing and Submission

Visually different images

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