Playing sounds in a Universal Windows MVVM app 10 July 2014 Diederik-Krols Universal Windows Apps This article describes how to play foreground and background sounds in a XAML-based Universal Windows app. I know that this sounds easy (pun intended). But I will do this while sticking to the MVVM pattern, which makes it a bit more challenging. I’m not targeting a specific framework here. The descr... [More]
Universal App with Lex.DB 26 June 2014 Diederik-Krols Universal Windows Apps, Windows Phone, WinRT This article shows how to create a Universal Windows App that stores its local data in Lex.DB. This is a lightweight, developer-friendly in-process database engine, completely written in C#. For an introduction to building Store Apps on top of Lex.DB, please check this article of mine. For a more ad... [More]
A Marching Ants Animation for Universal Windows Apps 17 June 2014 Diederik-Krols Universal Windows Apps, Windows Phone, WinRT In a lot of apps we need to draw lines on some kind of map to display a route. If you want such line to also indicate the driving direction and speed, then you could apply the Marching Ants Effect, where you represent the route as a dotted or dashed line and let the dashes walk slowly sideways and u... [More]
A Show-All-Or-Nothing Behavior for Windows Universal Apps 10 June 2014 Diederik-Krols Universal Windows Apps Universal apps need to have a responsive UI that adapts to hugely differing form factors. This article describes how to build a Border control that hides its content when it’s too large to be fully displayed on the screen. It is implemented as a behavior, since –unlike in WPF- all native WinRT and W... [More]
Tracking with Tiles and Toasts 14 May 2014 Diederik-Krols WinRT This article shows a way to implement multiple alarm clock functionality in a Windows (Store or Enterprise) MVVM XAML App. We’ll use locally scheduled Toast and Tile Notifications to track the progress of a workflow - like a workout scheme or a cooking recipe. The workflow can be started, paused, re... [More]
Building Enterprise Side-loaded apps with OWIN 29 April 2014 Diederik-Krols Enterprise Windows Apps This article shows how a side-loaded line-of-business Windows app can communicate through HTTP with a locally installed desktop component (a .NET class library) by making use of the Open Web Interface for .NET. Apps that are loaded from the Store can still not leave the sandbox and can only connect ... [More]
Building Enterprise apps using Brokered Windows Runtime Components 25 April 2014 Diederik-Krols Enterprise Windows Apps This article shows step by step how to connect a side-loaded modern app to a legacy component via the “Brokered Windows Runtime Components for Side-Loaded applications” feature. This feature comes with Windows 8.1 Update and allows Modern apps to break outside the AppContainer and connect to desktop... [More]
A Radial Gauge for Universal Windows Apps 14 April 2014 Diederik-Krols Universal Windows Apps This article presents a modern radial gauge Custom Control, hosted in a Portable Class Library for Universal Windows apps. Visual Studio Update 2 comes with the concept of Universal Apps that can run on Windows PC’s, tablets, phones and the XBox. For an introduction to this new breed of apps, check ... [More]
Using OneDrive files in Windows Platform Apps – Part Deux 09 April 2014 Diederik-Krols WinRT This article presents a handful of building blocks for some more advanced OneDrive use cases in Windows 8 apps, like: transparently switching between a local folder and a OneDrive working folder, synchronizing a local folder with a OneDrive folder, sharing a OneDrive folder across devices, shari... [More]
Using OneDrive files from a Windows 8 Store app 26 March 2014 Diederik-Krols WinRT This article explains how to let a Windows Store app manage a list of files in a working folder on the user’s OneDrive, without continuously opening file pickers. Some apps need to store more personal user data than the roaming folder can handle. A folder on the user’s OneDrive is a nice place to st... [More]