Codelog

DoUNo / Tips 'n' Tricks / UI / Windows Phone — Comments Off
08
Jan 12

DoUNo: ApplicationBar in WindowsPhone is not bindable

ApplicationBar is not a FrameworkElment and is not bindable. Which implies that if you are so much used to MVVM and wants to bind things to ApplicationBar, its not easy; you need to create your own ApplicationBar.

This sounds pretty lame and I really don’t know why Microsoft is not interested in creating an ApplicationBar that is bindable.

DoUNo / Tips 'n' Tricks / Windows Phone / Windows Phone — Comments Off
29
Dec 11

DoUNo: You can tombstone an app using Windows Phone Emulator

Property page of a WP project

You cannot predict when an app would be tombstoned in Windows Phone. But still you can simulate it by enabling a settings in the Property page of the Windows Phone project.

Browse to the Property page of the Windows Phone project.
Select the Debug tab.
Select the Tombstone upon deactivation while debugging.
Build and Run the project.
After the app launches, click on the Windows key to deactivate the app, there by tombstoning it.

General Programming / Windows Phone — Comments Off
29
Dec 11

Life cycle model of Windows Phone apps and Tombstoning

Life cycle of program instances differ greatly between desktop and mobile and Windows Phone is no exclusion.Its essential to understand the application life cycle model before writing apps. Of course there are quite a few article explaining this but none pointing out the difference between SDK7.0 and SDK7.1. This article, briefly lets you understand the different states and the life cycle model changes between SDK7.0 and SDK7.1.

States

In Windows Phone (WP), every app goes thru’ three different states after its instantiated. Continue reading →

General Programming / Windows Phone — Comments Off
29
Dec 11

Starting off with Windows Phone 7 Programming

Windows Phone 7 - Wikipedia

As I had mentioned earlier that I am planning to start off with Windows 8 programming, I also thought it would be logical to start off with Windows Phone 7 programming. I know, Windows Phone 7 has got nothing to do with Windows 8 programming, except for the UI and thats the reason. User Experience is really important, especially for handheld devices.

Here are a few things you need before you kick start with Windows Phone 7 programming.

.NET and Visual Studio – you ought to be familiar with .net and Visual Studio.
WPF (xaml to be precise) – at least the fundamentals. The book that I have linked underneath lets you learn the basics but still I suggest a book that talks just about xaml (?!?).
**Silverlight – not necessarily; ifyou know WPF, well, thats enough.
Visual Studio 2010 with SP1 and Windows Phone 7.1 SDK.
Book or some kind of tutorial – obviously we start off with a book. Programming Windows Phone 7 by Charles Petzold is what I am currently learning.
Windows Phone – even though you get an emulator with Visual Studio Windows Phone 7 SDK, the emulator is every simple and you might not find it useful if you are planing to write complex applications involving multi touch gestures, notifications, etc.

I just started off with Windows Phone 7 programming last week and is really cool. I am finding it very simple as I have been working on .NET, C# and WPF for quite some time now. If you are new to WPF, I suggest you learn it and get acclimatized to the XAML fundamentals and syntax before you start off with WP7 programming. I will also try and write about things which I find notifiable, out here.

So long, lets write some Windows Phone apps

General Programming / windows 8 — Comments Off
18
Dec 11

Windows 8 – Build

Windows 8

Windows 8. I tried out the OS last month; pretty neat. So now, I am planning to start off with the app development.

This is where I am gonna start from. Hoping to write more soon.

C# — Comments Off
22
Jul 11

Test post

This is a test post from office writer!!!

General Programming / iOS / Tips 'n' Tricks — 2 comments
08
Jan 11

From .net to iOS

Its been a week since I started off with application development using iOS. So far the experiences has been awesome. So if you want to write programs for iPhone/iPod/iPad, all you gotta do is,

Get a Mac. You cannot develop apps from your pc. I tried using virtual machine, but it is NOT POSSIBLE AT ALL. Forget about your pc. Go get your mac !!
Once you have your mac, navigate to http://developer.apple.com. You have so many resources out there which should get you on board immediately

Tips for beginners,

Development Center – is really neat and way ahead than MSDN
Programming Paradigm – is MVC and should be familiar if you were programming for quite a while
IDE – XCode and InterfaceBuilder are the IDEs with which you write programs for iOS. Thou’ they are not as good as Visual Studio, they are pretty good for beginners
Programming Language – ObjectiveC – so far is the biggest challenge for me. If you are new to this, you will find it to be really weird
Unmanaged Code – if you are a .net programmer with no experience writing C/C++ programs, you should be extra careful in here
Tutorials and Samples – development center has got everything for you. Do not worry about this

Overall, the experience is good and exciting so far.

Control Template / Controls / UI / WPF / xaml — Comments Off
27
Nov 10

Difference between UserControl and CustomControl in wpf

Ever wondered the difference between UserControl and CustomControl.

UserControl is a composite control. We use UserControl when you want to group similar controls and reuse them across multiple windows/pages. UserControl is not considered as a single control by the logical tree. i.e., if the UserControl contains three buttons and a list box and when this UserControl is used in window, the logical tree of the window can identify each of there controls (buttons and list box).

CustomControl is a single control with a control template located in the “Themes->Generic.xaml” file. When CustomControls are used in a window/page, the logical tree cannot identify its internals. For example, if you want to use snip control (a control that has up and down buttons to scroll values in a textbox), then create a custom control that inherit from Control class and give it a theme (default ControlTenplate).

Okay, now when to use what ??

If you are writing a CustomControl, its template can always be overridden. Which means, if you want to ship a control as a library and if you want it to be customizable by others, then go for CustomControl. Otherwise, its simple, go ahead and use a UserControl

Hope you got the difference now.

C# / Editors / General Programming / Open Source / Tools / WPF / xaml — Comments Off
27
Nov 10

Visual Studio Equivalent

For those who wish to write c# code and cannot afford to buy Visual Studio, you have “Sharp Develop“, a open source comparable to Visual Studio.

One more happy news, they even have a WPF designer is a quite awesome. Give it a try

Control Template / Controls / DoUNo / Tips 'n' Tricks / UI / WPF / xaml — Comments Off
20
Jul 10

DoUNo: Whadds up with the Background property of a control

This is weird !! Try to customize the control template of a button,

Place a grid as the base panel (don’t add any Background property to it)
Add an ellipse and a content presenter to this
Add a Click event handler to the button
Run it and try to click on the white space, the event will not be raised !!!

Go back to the template,

Add a Background property to the grid and set the value to Blue (can be any color other than transparent)
Run it and try to click on the Blue color, the event will be raised !!!

Go back to the template,

Set the value of the Background Property to Transparent
Run it and try to click on the white space, the event will still be raised !!! (WHY ?!?)

Looks weird to me thou’

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