Windows Phone 8 SDK new features for developers

archiecoder Windows Phone 8

I dug in the Windows Phone 8 object browser and I found some interesting classes:

Microsoft.Phone.Controls.WebBrowserExtensions

In WP7, there is only the GetCookies method.
In WP8, there are the new ClearCookiesAsync and ClearInternetCacheAsync methods.

Windows.Phone.Networking.NetworkOperators.SmsInterceptor

There is a event called SmsReceived which could be really interesting to use. However, there is a little note saying: “This API is not intended to be used directly from your code”.

Windows.UI.Input.EdgeGesture, Windows.Devices.Input.MouseCapabilities and Windows.Devices.Input.KeyboardCapabilities

They all seem interesting, but I was not able to instantiate them. I get this exception: Requested Windows Runtime type ‘Windows.Devices.Input.MouseCapabilities’ is not registered.

Windows.ApplicationModel.Store

This namespace contains a lot of cool classes:

• LicenseInformation (ExpirationDate, IsActive, IsTrial, ProductLicences).
• ListingInformation (AgeRating, CurrentMarket, Description, FormattedPrice, Name, ProductListings)
• ProductLicense (ExpirationDate, IsActive, IsConsumable, ProductId)
• ProductListing (Description, FormattedPrice, ImageUri, Keywords, Name, ProductId, ProductType, Tag)
• CurrentApp (GetAppReceiptAsync, LoadListingInformationAsync, LoadListingInformationByKeywordsAsync, RequestProductPurchageAsync)

I hope these classes will be available to use in applications. They could be useful in making marketplace apps!

Windows.System.Launcher

The Launcher class has LaunchFileAsync and LaunchUriAsync. The summary of LaunchUriAsync is: Starts the default app associated with the specified file or protocol.

I tried it with the protocol mailto:email@company.com and it launched the mail application! It will be cool if applications can register file type. Please note that I did not see a way to do that.

There are a lot more, but because I’m not sure if they will be available in the release version, it will better to wait for the final bits of the SDK.

Windows Phone 8 Battery API

archiecoder Windows Phone 8

The Battery API makes a nice addition to the WP8 SDK.

I can see in the near future that some applications will display the battery metrics on a Live Tile or in the application that hides the System Tray.

The Battery API is pretty easy to use:
1- Get the Battery instance with Battery.GetDefault().
2- Bind to the event RemainingChargePercentChanged.

The battery properties are:
– RemainingChargePercent: gets a value that indicates the percentage of the charge remaining on the phone’s battery.
– RemainingDischargeTime: gets a value that estimates how much time is left until the phone’s battery is fully discharged. 

With the following code:

using Windows.Phone.Devices.Power;

namespace BatteryApp
{
    public partial class MainPage
    {
        private readonly Battery _battery;

        public MainPage()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            _battery = Battery.GetDefault();

            _battery.RemainingChargePercentChanged += OnRemainingChargePercentChanged;

            UpdateUI();
        }

        private void OnRemainingChargePercentChanged(object sender, object e)
        {
            UpdateUI();
        }

        private void UpdateUI()
        {
            textBlockRemainingCharge.Text = string.Format("{0} %", _battery.RemainingChargePercent);
            textBlockDischargeTime.Text = string.Format("{0} minutes", _battery.RemainingDischargeTime.TotalMinutes);
        }
    }
}

You get:

Please note that when running this on the emulator, it will show 100% and an infinite discharge time. The above values are fake.

Get ready to code!

Windows Phone 8 upcoming Live Tile feature

archiecoder Windows Phone 8

With all the buzz this week about the Windows Phone 8 SDK leak, I couldn’t resist installing it.

The title of the SDK is Windows Phone 8 Developer Preview. There are so many cool new features that initially, I didn’t know where to start. I decided to start with one of the new features of the live tiles, since this is the Windows Phone’s biggest strength.

I don’t know the exact feature name, but it’s about cycling images in a live tile. Here is a little video that will help to describe the feature.

Have you spotted the difference between the Windows Phone 7 badge count and the new OS? It is now in a square instead of a circle!

What I love about Microsoft is that they make it easy for developers to use their APIs.

Follow these two steps to accomplish what you see in the video:
1- Add up to 9 images to the project and set the Build Action to Content. The images need to be local only.
2- Append the following code

ShellTile appTile = ShellTile.ActiveTiles.First();

if (appTile != null)
{
    Uri uri1 = new Uri("/Assets/UltimatePokerManager.png", UriKind.Relative);
    Uri uri2 = new Uri("/Assets/YourShape.png", UriKind.Relative);

    CycleTileData cycleTileData = new CycleTileData
                                        {
                                            Count = 3, 
                                            CycleImages = new[] {uri1, uri2}
                                        };

    appTile.Update(cycleTileData);
}

The UtimatePokerManger.png and YourShape.png have the size 173×173. When you watched the video, the images were expanded.

Please note that the SDK is in preview and there is no guarantee that the APIs will be the same in the released version, but I bet this feature will stay as it is.

This was my first Windows Phone 8 blog post and is surely not the last!