Month: October 2013

Creating a “Card Flip” Effect with Blend – Boredom Challenge Day 27

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In one of my previous blog posts I’ve talked about how we can make simple animations in Blend and shown how we can move stuff around in our interface. However, our animations would need to be a lot better than moving several elements around or spinning them in order to be visually appealing.

And one of the most widely used effects is, of course, flipping something onscreen like a card. This effect not only looks good, but also can be used as a nice transition animation between several elements in your page. And it is really easy to implement by using Blend. Here are the videos of the example app we will make (source code is at the bottom of the page :)):

My computer is a bit old, so it caused some stuttering when saving the videos. The animations are quite smooth in the app. 🙂

So, if this has grabbed your attention, read on and we will create the example app shown in the videos above.

➤ Bonus points for shouting “I activate my trap card!”

Infinite Scrolling in Windows Store Apps Using ISupportIncrementalLoading – Boredom Challenge Day 26

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In my previous blog post we’ve seen how we can implement pagination in Windows Store Apps by using a FlipView, but that is actually kind of against the design principles of WinRT and that solution may not be always desirable for you. So you may want a GridView or ListView that incrementally loads their items as the user progresses through it, just like your main page in Facebook where you infinitely get the past items as your scroll lower and lower.

For example, my blog incrementally loads 7 posts as you scroll through. If you scroll quickly, you'll see the loading icon in the lower left and then the previous 7 blog posts will appear.

For example, my blog incrementally loads 7 posts as you scroll through. If you scroll quickly, you’ll see the loading icon in the lower left and then the previous 7 blog posts will appear.

Ok then, we want this feature in our Windows Store Apps. One direct approach would be using an ObservableCollection, then constantly checking the how much the GridView is scrolled, and if it is scrolled enough, loading the new items by adding them to the ObservableCollection. However, although that makes sense, trying to implement it manually is not really a good idea, especially when we have an interface made just for this purpose: ISupportIncrementalLoading (lol it’s like saying “I support incremental loading.”… Ok, that was lame).

Anyway, in this article, we’ll create an example app to see how we can use ISupportIncrementalLoading interface to load items incrementally so our user can scroll infinitely.

➤ I’m gonna say it… TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!

Implementing Pagination in Windows Store Apps Using FlipView – Boredom Challenge Day 25

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If you have a large amount of items in a list, it is quite common to divide them into smaller sized lists (pages) in order to display them effectively. This is called pagination, and it is done for several (obvious) reasons: You won’t have to get all of the items at the same time (which may cause quite a performance hit while fetching and displaying the data) and the user won’t have to rummage through thousands of items to find the one s/he wants.

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In Windows Store Apps, we wouldn’t normally need to implement such a feature due to the design principles (GridView, combined with SemanticZoom can work wonders in this case, check this article if you want to know more). However, this only eliminates the user’s side of the problem: You would still need to get all the items from your database at the same time. And although you can implement infinite scrolling with GridView (more items are incrementally loaded as user scrolls), you may not want the user to scroll at all and wish to display a set number of items where the user can navigate to the next set or the previous set (just like pagination explained above).

So, we want to be able to get a smaller number of items, load them only when the user wishes to view them, and let the user “flip” them like a turning a page. Seems like a job for.. FlipView! Yes, we can use a FlipView control to provide this functionality, by using a custom UserControl in its ItemTemplate and jumping through a few hoops.

A screenshot from the example app we'll make.

A screenshot from the example app we’ll make.

In this article, we’ll create an app that will use a FlipView for pagination. We’ll create it in such a way that in the beginning, we would only need to tell the FlipView how many pages we will have, and then load the items within the UserControl in FlipView’s ItemTemplate when a specific page is selected. Therefore, we will get the items user will view only when they will be used.

➤ Our items will be in a Grid, within a GridView, within a UserControl, within a FlipView… I really wanted to go deeper

Reorderable and Draggable Items in GridView and ListView – Boredom Challenge Day 24

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A cool feature of the GridView and ListView controls is that by setting a few properties, we can allow the user to reorder the items on the GridView by dragging them around, or let the user drag an item from the GridView and drop it on other controls to perform an action. For example, we could let our user rearrange the items in their to-do list, or maybe create a kid’s game where they drag and drop items on correct colors.

An example reorderable to-do list.

An example to-do list while reordering items.

The controls that support reordering and dragging out of the box also come with their own animations, so we when we select an item in a GridView and drag it around, other items will move out of the way, and if we drag the item away, other items will go back to their original positions, which look quite nice and require no effort whatsoever from us.

The animation in GridView while dragging an item.

The animation in GridView while dragging an item.

In this article, we’ll see how we can add this functionality by creating a matching game, where the purpose will be to match the item with its picture.

➤ With a little effort, I bet we could make some nice puzzle games with this

Less Used Properties in WinRT – Boredom Challenge Day 23

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In my previous article, I’ve talked about some XAML controls which I never needed to use or learn what they are for. In this article, I’ll continue this concept and write about the Properties in WinRT (or .NET, in general) that I didn’t need to use, not even once in years, and how they work.

A glance of our Properties panel.

A glance of our Properties panel.

1) UIElement.AllowDrop Property

As the name suggests, this property allows our UIElement to be a target of a drag and drop operation. However, this property only defines that it can be a drop target, so we’d need to implement this dragging feature ourselves. (If you would like to learn how we can do this, take a look at this article.)

2) UIElement.CacheMode Property

The definition of CacheMode property says that CacheMode value indicates if rendered content should be cached as a composite bitmap when possible. The practical meaning of this is that, if we set a cache mode, the rendering operations from RenderTransform and Opacity properties will be executed on the GPU.

Apparently, this is an advanced feature for complex UIs to gain performance.

➤ Read on to see the full list of less used properties

Less Used XAML Controls in WinRT and What They Do – Boredom Challenge Day 22

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I’ve developed apps for desktop (using WPF and Silverlight), Windows Phone and WinRT for about 3 years now, and one thing that I’ve noticed is that there are some XAML controls which I never needed to use and have no idea what they are for. So, today I’ve decided to search around and play with those controls to find out what their purposes are. 🙂

A glance of our Toolbox.

A glance of our Toolbox.

In this article, we’ll look around the Toolbox for controls in WinRT that are not so commonly used and see what they are used for and how they work.

Note: I’m writing this article from my point of view (says Captain Obvious). I mean, some of them may not be “less used” for you; I may not just needed to use them so far.

1) Pointer

You see that at the top of each and every tab in Toolbox, there is an item called Pointer. However, if you try to drag and drop it to the Designer it won’t work, and you can’t just add a Pointer control to the xaml code like <Pointer/>. Well, this is because Pointer isn’t a control. 🙂

Pointer is used in the following scenario: Assume you’re going to add a control to your app, like a Button. You select the Button in the Toolbox, and instead of dragging it to the designer, you wish to click on a location on the designer to add the button there. However, halfway through, you change your mind and wish to select something else on the designer, but you can’t click anywhere or you would add a Button. So, you go to the Toolbox and select Pointer instead, and return to the designer and select whatever you wish.

This is what Pointer is for: It allows you to clear your current Toolbox selection. 🙂

➤ Read on to see the full list of less used controls

Tip: “Path” Control in XAML – Boredom Challenge Day 21

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The default controls in Visual Studio for WPF, Windows Phone and WinRT contain a XAML control called Path, which allows us to display simple shapes and drawings in our apps. The advantage of using it comes from the fact that it uses vectoral graphics, which provides us flexibility in several situations, the most prominent of which is, of course, resizing.

What it does is mix parts of different shapes together via a special markup syntax.

What it does is mixing parts of different shapes together via a special markup syntax.

For example, the above Skype logo is a Path object, which looks like the following in our XAML code:

        <Path Stretch="Uniform" UseLayoutRounding="False" Fill="White" Height="50" HorizontalAlignment="Left" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="145,100,0,0" Data="F1 M 15.364,15.168C 14.9453,15.7707 14.3307,16.2427 13.5267,16.5813C 12.7213,16.9186 11.7707,17.088 10.6693,17.088C 9.35334,17.088 8.26267,16.86 7.4,16.3933C 6.79067,16.06 6.29467,15.612 5.91334,15.0546C 5.52801,14.4973 5.33601,13.9507 5.33601,13.4173C 5.33601,13.1027 5.45467,12.8306 5.68934,12.6066C 5.92533,12.3826 6.228,12.2693 6.58801,12.2693C 6.88267,12.2693 7.13334,12.36 7.33734,12.5333C 7.54134,12.708 7.71334,12.964 7.85334,13.3C 8.02001,13.688 8.20267,14.0133 8.39468,14.276C 8.58801,14.5293 8.86001,14.744 9.21201,14.9133C 9.55868,15.0813 10.02,15.164 10.5973,15.164C 11.388,15.164 12.028,14.9933 12.5173,14.656C 13.008,14.316 13.244,13.9013 13.244,13.4C 13.244,13.0014 13.116,12.684 12.856,12.436C 12.5933,12.1867 12.2533,11.996 11.8307,11.8627C 11.4067,11.728 10.8373,11.5853 10.124,11.436C 9.16801,11.2267 8.36667,10.9827 7.71734,10.704C 7.06667,10.4226 6.55067,10.04 6.16801,9.55463C 5.78268,9.06666 5.592,8.45866 5.592,7.74C 5.592,7.05335 5.79333,6.43732 6.2,5.904C 6.604,5.36933 7.18668,4.95866 7.952,4.672C 8.71334,4.38667 9.60934,4.24403 10.6333,4.24403C 11.4533,4.24403 12.164,4.33866 12.764,4.52799C 13.364,4.72001 13.8613,4.97065 14.2627,5.284C 14.6587,5.60001 14.9493,5.92933 15.1373,6.27869C 15.3227,6.628 15.4133,6.97065 15.4133,7.30134C 15.4133,7.61066 15.2933,7.89066 15.06,8.13734C 14.828,8.38264 14.528,8.508 14.1787,8.508C 13.864,8.508 13.6187,8.43464 13.4453,8.27998C 13.2787,8.13334 13.104,7.896 12.916,7.56666C 12.676,7.10401 12.3907,6.74799 12.0573,6.49198C 11.7307,6.24 11.1947,6.10932 10.452,6.11066C 9.76267,6.11066 9.21201,6.25065 8.79467,6.52665C 8.37467,6.80668 8.17467,7.13065 8.17467,7.51066C 8.17467,7.75065 8.24401,7.95069 8.38267,8.12397C 8.52001,8.29731 8.71734,8.44666 8.96667,8.57331C 9.21734,8.70267 9.47334,8.80399 9.728,8.87333C 9.98934,8.94666 10.4173,9.05335 11.0147,9.19465C 11.7653,9.35465 12.4453,9.53602 13.0573,9.73331C 13.6667,9.92933 14.1867,10.1693 14.616,10.4533C 15.0493,10.736 15.388,11.096 15.6293,11.5333C 15.872,11.9706 15.9947,12.5027 15.9947,13.1307C 15.9947,13.8867 15.7827,14.5667 15.364,15.168 Z M 20.4413,12.2106C 20.52,11.708 20.5613,11.1933 20.5613,10.6667C 20.5613,5.19999 16.132,0.769325 10.664,0.769325C 10.14,0.769325 9.624,0.812019 9.11868,0.890663C 8.20801,0.326668 7.13201,7.62939e-006 5.97867,7.62939e-006C 2.676,7.62939e-006 0,2.67731 0,5.98133C 0,7.13468 0.32534,8.20936 0.890678,9.12269C 0.810669,9.628 0.768005,10.14 0.768005,10.6667C 0.768005,16.1333 5.2,20.564 10.664,20.564C 11.1893,20.564 11.7053,20.524 12.2107,20.444C 13.1213,21.0067 14.1973,21.3333 15.3507,21.3333C 18.656,21.3333 21.3333,18.656 21.3333,15.3533C 21.3333,14.2 21.004,13.1253 20.4413,12.2106 Z "/>

The extremely long string value in the Data property of the Path object is how our shape is defined; meaning, it is the mathematical calculation. We can find many icons and symbols for Path control on the internet (I usually use http://www.thexamlproject.com, which contains hundreds of them). However, if you are interested in how you can create them yourself, Blend can import Adobe Illustrator files, so could draw them in Adobe Illustrator and import them to your project via Blend. And if you wonder how the syntax works, this article might be a good place to start.

Now, you might be saying “Why bother with this when I can just use images?”. Well, there are a few specific situations where using a Path has advantages.

➤ Read on to see when we should use a Path instead of an Image

Tip: Using Code Snippets in Visual Studio – Boredom Challenge Day 20

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Code Snippets feature of Visual Studio allows us to save pieces of code in snippet files, and then easily put them to our projects with the press of a few shortcut keys. This is useful if there is a specific code that you have to use again and again in different projects (for example, the code that handles Facebook login), so instead of writing it each and everytime (or opening another project and then pasting from there) we can just use the code snippet. This is also useful if you are giving presentations about a technical topic since you can prepare the code you’ll use beforehand and don’t bother to write them from scratch during the presentation.

If you have Visual Studio open now, try it yourself: Press Ctrl+K, X; then select a snippet and press enter. The related code will be automatically added to that line.

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Under “Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Code Snippets” folder, you’ll see that there are folders for different programming languages, each with a My Code Snippets subfolder where you can put your custom code snippets. If you also wish, you can go to Tools -> Code Snippet Manager in Visual Studio and add other code snippet folders.

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➤ Read on if you wish to learn how we can make our own code snippets

Making Simple Windows Store Games in XAML – Boredom Challenge Day 19

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If you wish to develop games for Windows 8, you’ll need to learn how to use Direct3D, HTML5 or a game engine that supports Windows 8 (like Unity or Construct2). Since XNA is not supported in Windows Store apps (and also since Microsoft has announced XNA will be discontinued), if you were using only XNA (like me) and you didn’t have enough time to learn the technologies I’ve listed, you may end up wondering how to create a game without you requiring to learn something entirely new.

If that is the case, you’ve found your easy solution. As long as the game is simple (don’t expect to put a physics engine or 3d models in there), we can use XAML’s features (like animations) and add the game logic to the codebehind files for a simple game.

Don't expect something like Angry Birds, but I bet we could make a side-scrolling platformer.

It may not be something like Angry Birds, but I bet we could make something enjoyable.

In this article, we’ll make an example game called… Catch the Cage!, starring Nicolas Cage. 😛 It will be a classic game where you tap the ball on the screen to keep it from falling out of the screen. Here’s a screenshot to whet your appetite. 🙂

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➤ After this masterpiece, you won’t even bother to look at Angry Birds

Using Microsoft Advertising SDK in Windows Store Apps – Boredom Challenge Day 18

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The main reason for developing software is, of course, earning money. 🙂 For desktop applications, the most common way of monetization is directly purchasing a license – the user pays a specific sum and gets to use the software. In the case of mobile development however, apps need to be very addictive or very useful, and overall need a lot of effort put into them to be successfully sold directly for a price. Another aspect of mobile apps is that paying for applications is usually a new (and alien) concept for many mobile users, and you can guess that they don’t like it much (I’ve seen many cases where a user gives bad ratings to a quite good game priced at a few dollars, just because it wasn’t free).

Click the image and view it in full size. You'll see that nearly all of the top "paid" apps are games, and they require a lot of effort to develop.

Click the image and view it in full size. You’ll see that “paid” apps require a lot of work to be successful (most of them are games, too).

This situation has resulted in alternative monetization techniques for mobile apps. One of them was adding trial versions which gave the users a taste of the app, and told them to buy it if they liked it. Another was to make the app free but to add in-app purchases such as removing limits or adding new items, characters or levels. And the final one was to put ads to gain revenue, either by making the app free and using ads as the main funding source, or making two versions of the app (a free version with (usually annoying) ads and a paid version without them).

In this article, we’ll see how we can go with using ads, and we’ll create an example Windows Store app that uses them. For this purpose, we have Microsoft Advertising SDK (for Windows Phone and Windows 8), that makes it very easy for us to include ads in our apps (with nice features such as using location to show more relevant ads). Now, I haven’t seen anyone who likes ads, but they are actually quite effective if used correctly, especially if your app has a high usage value (that is, if users would not just open your app once and don’t touch it ever again). This way, you can actually have a slow and steady income.

➤ This article has been sponsored by Nescafe and Visual Studio (no, not really)