VLC Remote control

Our free application VLC Remote control was published today!

Check  our setup video instructions on how to install and use it.

Where are also availiable instructions for Windows Mac and Linux

WP7 Textbox, PasswordBox, AutoCompleteBox e.t.c. light theme problem

Hi everyone, I'm going to tell you about one annoying problem with standart windows phone textbox behaviour.

Here comes the problem:

1)  Let's assume you want to use a dark background image as a background for your application with a textbox on main page.
2) When WP7 theme is set to dark you have no problems and everything seems to be OK.
3) But if you run the light theme you can see that textbox or textbox text while editing are invisible, problem may occure in other visual effect such as transparent background while editing and so on depending on your applciation color usage (e.g with light backgound you'll have as much problems in dark theme)

Here comes the solution


First of all, the solution for textbox already exists and it's working.

You just need to correct some style colors in standart textbox template.


But the next thing you'll deal with: and what about other controls which behaves similar to textbox?


Googling it you'll find a similar solution for Coding4Fun PasswordBox.


AutoCompleteBox



In my app i deal with autocompletebox. So i've discovered the way to solve it.



First of all you need to get the default AutoCompleteBoxStyle. You can easily extract it from expression blend! Just create the new project -> add reference to silverlight toolkit -> right click on AutoCompleteBox and choose 'Edit Style' -> 'From default' when in XAML you'll see the needed style.


You will see that AutoCompleteBox consists of textbox and PoPup so the last thing you should do is to apply the windowsphonegeek textbox style to that particular autocompletebox style.


Here is the xaml for TextBox:

   <ControlTemplate x:Key="PhoneDisabledTextBoxTemplate" TargetType="TextBox">
  
     <ContentControl x:Name="ContentElement" BorderThickness="0" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" Margin="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxInnerMargin}" Padding="{TemplateBinding Padding}" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch"/>
  
   </ControlTemplate>
  
   <Style x:Key="TextBoxLightDarkStyle" TargetType="TextBox">
  
     <Setter Property="FontFamily" Value="{StaticResource PhoneFontFamilyNormal}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="{StaticResource PhoneFontSizeMediumLarge}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="Background" >
  
       <Setter.Value>
  
         <SolidColorBrush Color="LightGray"/>
  
       </Setter.Value>
  
     </Setter>
  
     <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxForegroundBrush}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxBrush}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="SelectionBackground" Value="{StaticResource PhoneAccentBrush}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="SelectionForeground" Value="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxSelectionForegroundBrush}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="{StaticResource PhoneBorderThickness}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="Padding" Value="2"/>
  
     <Setter Property="Template">
  
       <Setter.Value>
  
         <ControlTemplate TargetType="TextBox">
  
           <Grid Background="Transparent">
  
             <VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
  
               <VisualStateGroup x:Name="CommonStates">
  
                 <VisualState x:Name="Normal"/>
  
                 <VisualState x:Name="MouseOver"/>
  
                 <VisualState x:Name="Disabled">
  
                   <Storyboard>
  
                     <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="Visibility" Storyboard.TargetName="EnabledBorder">
  
                       <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0">
  
                         <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame.Value>
  
                           <Visibility>Collapsed</Visibility>
  
                         </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame.Value>
  
                       </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame>
  
                     </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
  
                     <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="Visibility" Storyboard.TargetName="DisabledOrReadonlyBorder">
  
                       <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0">
  
                         <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame.Value>
  
                           <Visibility>Visible</Visibility>
  
                         </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame.Value>
  
                       </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame>
  
                     </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
  
                   </Storyboard>
  
                 </VisualState>
  
                 <VisualState x:Name="ReadOnly">
  
                   <Storyboard>
  
                     <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="Visibility" Storyboard.TargetName="EnabledBorder">
  
                       <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0">
  
                         <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame.Value>
  
                           <Visibility>Collapsed</Visibility>
  
                         </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame.Value>
  
                       </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame>
  
                     </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
  
                     <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="Visibility" Storyboard.TargetName="DisabledOrReadonlyBorder">
  
                       <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0">
  
                         <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame.Value>
  
                           <Visibility>Visible</Visibility>
  
                         </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame.Value>
  
                       </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame>
  
                     </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
  
                     <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="Background" Storyboard.TargetName="DisabledOrReadonlyBorder">
  
                       <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxBrush}"/>
  
                     </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
  
                     <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="BorderBrush" Storyboard.TargetName="DisabledOrReadonlyBorder">
  
                       <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxBrush}"/>
  
                     </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
  
                     <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="Foreground" Storyboard.TargetName="DisabledOrReadonlyContent">
  
                       <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxReadOnlyBrush}"/>
  
                     </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
  
                   </Storyboard>
  
                 </VisualState>
  
               </VisualStateGroup>
  
               <VisualStateGroup x:Name="FocusStates">
  
                 <VisualState x:Name="Focused">
  
                   <Storyboard>
  
                     <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="Background" Storyboard.TargetName="EnabledBorder">
  
                       <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0">
  
                         <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame.Value>
  
                           <SolidColorBrush Color="White"/>
  
                         </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame.Value>
  
                       </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame>
  
                     </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
  
                     <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="BorderBrush" Storyboard.TargetName="EnabledBorder">
  
                       <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxEditBorderBrush}"/>
  
                     </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
  
                   </Storyboard>
  
                 </VisualState>
  
                 <VisualState x:Name="Unfocused"/>
  
               </VisualStateGroup>
  
             </VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
  
             <Border x:Name="EnabledBorder" BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" Background="{TemplateBinding Background}" Margin="{StaticResource PhoneTouchTargetOverhang}">
  
               <ContentControl x:Name="ContentElement" BorderThickness="0" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" Margin="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxInnerMargin}" Padding="{TemplateBinding Padding}" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch"/>
  
             </Border>
  
             <Border x:Name="DisabledOrReadonlyBorder" BorderBrush="{StaticResource PhoneDisabledBrush}" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" Background="Transparent" Margin="{StaticResource PhoneTouchTargetOverhang}" Visibility="Collapsed">
  
               <TextBox x:Name="DisabledOrReadonlyContent" Background="Transparent" Foreground="{StaticResource PhoneDisabledBrush}" FontWeight="{TemplateBinding FontWeight}" FontStyle="{TemplateBinding FontStyle}" FontSize="{TemplateBinding FontSize}" FontFamily="{TemplateBinding FontFamily}" IsReadOnly="True" SelectionForeground="{TemplateBinding SelectionForeground}" SelectionBackground="{TemplateBinding SelectionBackground}" TextAlignment="{TemplateBinding TextAlignment}" TextWrapping="{TemplateBinding TextWrapping}" Text="{TemplateBinding Text}" Template="{StaticResource PhoneDisabledTextBoxTemplate}"/>
  
             </Border>
  
           </Grid>
  
         </ControlTemplate>
  
       </Setter.Value>
  
     </Setter>
  
   </Style>  

XAML for AutoCompleteBox:

 <Style x:Key="AutoCompleteBoxStyle1" TargetType="toolkit:AutoCompleteBox">
  
     <Setter Property="Background" Value="White"/>
  
     <Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxEditBorderBrush}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="{StaticResource PhoneBorderThickness}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="FontFamily" Value="{StaticResource PhoneFontFamilyNormal}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="{StaticResource PhoneFontSizeMediumLarge}"/>
  
     <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="Black"/>
  
     <Setter Property="ItemTemplate">
  
       <Setter.Value>
  
         <DataTemplate>
  
           <ContentControl Content="{Binding}" Margin="8,7"/>
  
         </DataTemplate>
  
       </Setter.Value>
  
     </Setter>
  
     <Setter Property="Padding" Value="6,0,6,4"/>
  
     <Setter Property="Template">
  
       <Setter.Value>
  
         <ControlTemplate TargetType="toolkit:AutoCompleteBox">
  
           <Grid>
  
             <TextBox x:Name="Text" BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" Background="{TemplateBinding Background}" Foreground="{TemplateBinding Foreground}" FontWeight="{TemplateBinding FontWeight}" FontStyle="{TemplateBinding FontStyle}" FontSize="{TemplateBinding FontSize}" FontFamily="{TemplateBinding FontFamily}" InputScope="{TemplateBinding InputScope}" Opacity="{TemplateBinding Opacity}" Padding="{TemplateBinding Padding}" Style="{StaticResource TextBoxLightDarkStyle}"/>
  
             <Popup x:Name="Popup">
  
               <ListBox x:Name="Selector" BorderBrush="{StaticResource PhoneTextBoxEditBorderBrush}" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" Background="White" Foreground="{TemplateBinding Foreground}" FontWeight="{TemplateBinding FontWeight}" FontStyle="{TemplateBinding FontStyle}" FontSize="{TemplateBinding FontSize}" FontFamily="{TemplateBinding FontFamily}" IsTabStop="False" ItemTemplate="{TemplateBinding ItemTemplate}" ItemContainerStyle="{TemplateBinding ItemContainerStyle}" Opacity="{TemplateBinding Opacity}" Padding="0,8"/>
  
             </Popup>
  
           </Grid>
  
         </ControlTemplate>
  
       </Setter.Value>
  
     </Setter>
  
   </Style>  

Windows Phone Development: Libraries

In previous post we were talking about windows phone developers communities and now we will tell you about some features in application developement.

First thing to deal with is designing of your applciation. If you take a look and windows phone you'll see a lot of animation in it's enternal design. Live tiles, page transitions, gestures, dragging controls and so on. So you may have a questions on how to do such things. One of the answer is to use controls which were designed by someone else. Hopefully there are some availiavle windows phone controls toolkits:

1. Official Siverlight toolkit Which has some extremelly neccessaty controls such as page transitions and tilt effect. AutoCompleteBox, DatePicker, TimePicker, WrapPanel, Toggle Buttons, LongListSelector and few other controls are also the part of the toolkit. If you will use phone apps such as Contacts, Settings, Matketplace even a Desktop you will see that all of them were made using silverlight toolkit.

2. Coding4Fun Toolkit including some nice own controls and good adjustments on silverlight toolkit. Also it includes text.Binding.UpdateSoutceOnChange helper for whose who will want to work with MVVM Pattern which is as good for windows phone as for standart wpf and silverlight.

Where are a lot of other toolkits which are availiavle for developers

3. Windows azure toolkit for working with cloud data.

4. Some toolkits for MVVM (model - view - viewmodel) pattern. Simple toolkit on codeplex or galasoft MVVM light toolkit.

5. Balder toolkit for working with 3D Models in windows phone

6.Sterling NoSQl OODB for .Net 4.0 availiable on windows phone too.

7. Windows Phone isolated storage explorer for easy working with isolated storage which is the analog of file system in windows phone

8. And the last but really making things faster project is Windows Phone Icon Maker which will help you to make all required for certification icons (4 icons with diffrent sizes. Two for marketplace on zune and phone and two for inside list and desktop icon) from a single image!

All in all these toolkits are needed in diffrent cases of development, but using them makes live much easier than trying resolving everything by yourself. In Our Applications we mostly use this toolkits, but we always try to discover others or made our own helpers and controls in particular unresolved situations.

In out next posts we will tell you about our already developed applications and try to provide you a video survey.

AdControl Issue

About two weeks ago i have found an extremelly annoing problem in microsoft adcontrol for windows phone.

I'was trying as to find solution on the web as discover it myself but nothing gave me the result.

The issue was so:

1) I published my application in marketplace
2) My application free version has the adcontrol on main page
3) In a week i've recieved a crash report telling me that in my adcontrol crushes my app.
So i decided to find the reason of the crash.
4) I've found a reason of the crash in one day: My app crushed after following:
     a) Going to main page
     b) Press Start button before adcontrol loaded it's content (Loaded event fired but Refreshed event not)
     c) Press Back button to return to app
     d) Here the crash comes with strange response

I've opened a topic on microsoft advertisement community and in two weeks i've found 7 people who had the same issue but didn't make the post.

Some days ago i've recieved an answer which was really helpful:
To avoid such a problem you have to Load AdControl on Page.OnNavigatedTo and UnLoad it on Page.OnNavigatingFrom

So the member of developers team said that it will take some time for microsoft to remove this error but for now some developers will have to use "Special knowledge" of microsfot adcontrol behaviour.

However we will still continue to use adcontrol in our apps, hopefully with no more crash reports.

Windows Phone Application Development: Communities

As was told in previous post. We will now speak about appliction developers communities where you can find "get started" information or get to know about windows phone features and issues.

All documentation for windows phone is availiable on msdn which also provide some basic project and code samples for windows phone and step-by-step instructions for configuring some controls (such as bing maps) and publishing your application in marketplace.

You have already heard about AppHub community

which is official microsoft community containing a lot of information about windows phone developent. It has training courses on developing applications and games.

Another big developers community with a nice series of blogs and articles is WindowsPhoneGeek. It consists of developers news post and tricks which are certainly really helpful.

A lot of developers run their own blogs in which they post about their own expirience of working with windows phone. Some kind of posts are made like huge reports. For example 31 days of windows phone 7
Of course there are others and so you can google a particular problem occured in your development to fast find some others expirience with the same issuses.

Also You can always ask questions on well-known programmers resources such as xda-developers or stackoverflow.

In our next post we will speak about control toolkits and other libraries for windows phone

Windows Phone Application Developement: How to Start?

In Our previous posts we were talking about windows phone mobile operating system and applications which are availiable in marketlace.

To start developing the application for windows phone you certainly have to do some stuff.

First of all you have to install Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 with service pack 1 which is included in official download or could be downloaded for free. If you already have VS you should check for installed service pack 1 cause without it you won't be able to succed on the next step.

The next step is in downloading and installing the latest Microsoft Windows Phone Developers Tools
After installing them you could start creating your Windows Phone Projects in VS2010. These developers tools include: Microsoft Expression Blend - a program for designers. Xna Game Studio for developing games, Windows Phone Emulater to run and test your programs on PC.

From this point you can start creating your projects. For simple starting you should visit Microsoft developers Community called AppHub. You can setup an account on AppHub. If you are a student with verified DreanSpark you can easily access AppHub and get a free account. Furthermore you can download all needed for windows phone developement products for free. Otherwise you will have to pay 100$ u.s. for a one year account with the limit number of free apps could be published.

So you can miss the previous step but certainly you should nor miss the AppHub because it certainly contains all stuff that you need to get started. In Education catalog you can see page with app development with basics of creating windows phone apps. Also you can survey for game development and library documentation. AppHub also have forums and communities there you can ask every question you want too.

In our further post we will discuss the list of resources which can be usefull for windows phone deveopers. We will talk about control toolkits, libraries and so on.

Windows Phone Applications

In our previous post we mentioned that windows phone provides access to matketplace the place where users can buy apps or download music.

Before start talking about developmet let's talk about currently existing apps.

The statistics says that where are about 34000 applications in windows phone marketplace and microsoft officialy says that 90% of IPhone and Android most popular apps are availiavle in the market.




As it was mentioned  before. Where are 61 categories of applications but the biggest categories are:
Games (16%) Books&Reference (15%) Tools&Productivity (13%) and Entertaiment (12%)




Current sharing buy language leader is English. It has 75%  But european markets also shows a huge growth. However several countries markets are really empty cause windows phones sellings were started there only with mango update at 27th September 2011




The Top of marketplace mainly consists from games includins such hits as Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and Gravity Guy.

But there also exist a plenty set of really usefull applications: such as GMaps which became a real alternative to standart windows phone bing maps. Also Pictures Lab and SuperMusic should be mentioned.

Windows phone matket was faster growing than IPhone and Android markets for last year and for developers that means: it's time to make an application for windows phone! In next posts we will talk about how to start developing your own applications.