IsTabStop Changes ListView ‘s Focusable Behaviour in Windows Store Apps

The Issue Using the Factory Commander, I noticed some strange behavior. I opened a folder with more items than can be displayed on the screen on the left side. Then I scrolled to the last item of the list and switched to the right list. There, I moved up or …

VisualTreeHelper Extensions for Windows Store Apps

Preface The VisualTreeHelper “provides utility methods that can be used to traverse object relationships (along child-object or parent-object axes) in the visual tree of your app.” In this post I will show two extensions to VisualTreeHelper. Since you cannot create an instance of VisualTreeHelper, these are not extension methods from …

BusyIndicator for Windows Store Apps in C# / XAML

Preface The BusyIndicator for Windows Store apps is a variation of the Busy-Indicating Dialog for Windows Store apps. The motivation for creating such a control is almost the same. No such a control is available. And I want to make sure the user cannot start a new task while a …

Busy-Indicating Dialog for Windows Store Apps in C# / XAML

Preface Some of you might know the BusyIndicator from the WPF Toolkit or from Silverlight. I was using this control in Silverlight to disable user interaction while the application was performing some long running operations. This makes it really easy to make sure the user will not start a new …

Simple and Generic ICommand Implementation for Usage in XAML

Preface The Commanding Overview says “Commanding is an input mechanism in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which provides input handling at a more semantic level than device input. Examples of commands are the Copy, Cut, and Paste operations found on many applications.” Well, one should extent the definition and mention Windows …

Using Windows Store App Resource Libraries in C# / XAML

Introduction Given there is a Windows Store app. Some of the resources that this app needs are part of a library. This library contains a XAML file (ApplicationStyles.xaml) for application specific styles and the StandardStyles.xaml that is generated when a new Windows Store App (XAML) project is created. ApplicationStyles.xaml uses …

Change Color of ToggleSwitch

Given you implement an app using the dark theme. This app contains some configuration values, which can be changed using a settings flyout. According to the design guidelines, the background of the settings flyout should be white. Unfortunately, the default color theme for all controls is dark. So they are …

MDI / Multiple Tabs Flat Navigation App Bar in Windows Store Apps

Summary The Windows 8 User Experience Guidelines mentions two different navigation designs: the hierarchical and the flat system. As said in the guidelines, most Windows Store apps use the hierarchical system. But I needed a flat navigation. And in addition, I needed a way to implement a Multiple Document Interface …

Microsoft Advertising Services AdControl Error Handling in XAML/C#

Preface The Do’s + Don’ts of the Advertising SDK say “DO plan for times when no ads are available.” The links of that item leads to the ErrorCode enumeration and a rudimentarily error handling sample, writing text to debug output. In this post, I will show an error handling where …

Implement Settings Popup Pages for Windows Store Apps

Preface No, this is not the first sample to be found in the internet on this topic. Anyway, I decided to add another one because the two I was looking at (see links below) gave good ideas, but did not satisfied me at all. Changes to App.xaml.cs To begin, new …