Windows Store App Development: C# and XAML

624 Pages·2013·36.04 MB·English

by  Pete Brown

C# and XAML
Pete Brown
M A N N I N G
Windows Store App Development
ii
Windows Store App
Development
C# AND XAML
PETE BROWN
MANNING
SHELTER ISLAND
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ISBN: 9781617290947
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 – MAL – 18 17 16 15 14 13
brief contents
1 ■ Hello, Modern Windows 1
2 ■ The Modern UI 19
3 ■ The Windows Runtime and .NET 35
4 ■ XAML 51
5 ■ Layout 69
6 ■ Panels 86
7 ■ Brushes, graphics, styles, and resources 112
8 ■ Displaying beautiful text 141
9 ■ Controls, binding, and MVVM 170
10 ■ View controls, Semantic Zoom, and navigation 211
11 ■ The app bar 241
12 ■ The splash screen, app tile, and notifications 265
13 ■ View states 300
14 ■ Contracts: playing nicely with others 319
15 ■ Working with files 342
16 ■ Asynchronous everywhere 369
17 ■ Networking with SOAP and RESTful services 388
v
vi BRIEF CONTENTS
18 ■ A chat app using sockets 423
19 ■ A little UI work: user controls and Blend 465
20 ■ Networking player location 482
21 ■ Keyboards, mice, touch, accelerometers, and
gamepads 500
22 ■ App settings and suspend/resume 537
23 ■ Deploying and selling your app 559
contents
preface xvii
acknowledgments xx
about this book xxii
about the author xxviii
about the cover illustration xxix
1 Hello, Modern Windows 1
1.1 Setting up the development environment 3
1.2 Configuring the project 3
The device pane 5 ■ Template solution items 7
1.3 Create the first Hello World UI 8
1.4 Integrating with Twitter 9
The Tweet class 10 ■ Updated UI 10 ■ Code-behind 11
1.5 Testing on different devices and resolutions 13
Debugging on the Simulator 13 ■ Debugging on a remote
device 14
1.6 Summary 18
2 The Modern UI 19
2.1 Design inspiration 20
Direct influences 21 ■ Finding your way 22
vii
viii CONTENTS
2.2 Governing principles 23
2.3 Typography 25
2.4 The importance of the layout grid 27
2.5 Design for touch but not only for touch 28
2.6 Modern apps on Windows 8 28
Consumer and enterprise apps 29 ■ Key Windows 8 UI
elements and states 31
2.7 Device considerations 33
Desktop or laptop 33 ■ Tablet and smaller devices 33
Hybrid devices 34
2.8 Summary 34
3 The Windows Runtime and .NET 35
3.1 Windows Store app system architecture 36
The sandbox 38 ■ Deployment and the Windows Store 39
The driver model 40
3.2 COM + .NET metadata = WinRT 41
COM: back to the future 42 ■ Metadata 44
Projections 46
3.3 Client technologies and languages 47
3.4 A brief tour of WinRT and .NET 4.5 48
3.5 Summary 50
4 XAML 51
4.1 Elements and namespaces 52
Objects as elements 52 ■ Namespaces 54
4.2 Properties 56
Property syntax 56 ■ Dependency properties 58
Attached properties 61 ■ Property paths 62
4.3 Object trees and namescope 62
Object trees 63 ■ Namescope 66
4.4 Summary 68
5 Layout 69
5.1 Multipass layout—measuring and arranging 70
The measure pass 71 ■ The arrange pass 71
The LayoutInformation class 73
CONTENTS ix
5.2 UIElement layout properties 74
Width and Height, plus ActualWidth and ActualHeight 75
Horizontal and vertical alignment 77 ■ Padding 78
Margins 79
5.3 Layout rounding 80
5.4 Performance considerations 82
Keeping the tree shallow 82 ■ Caching 83
Virtualization 83 ■ Sizing and positioning 84
5.5 Summary 84
6 Panels 86
6.1 Canvas 87
Positioning in X,Y space 88 ■ Controlling the Z position using
ZIndex 89 ■ Sizing child elements 91
6.2 StackPanel and VirtualizingStackPanel 91
Setting the orientation 92 ■ Sizing children 93
Virtualizing for performance 93
6.3 Grid 94
Defining rows and columns 95 ■ Adding and positioning
elements in rows and columns 97 ■ Using alignment and
margins for sizing and positioning 99
6.4 Creating a custom panel 102
Project setup 102 ■ The OrbitPanel class 103 ■ Orbits
dependency property 103 ■ Orbit attached property 105
Custom layout 107
6.5 Summary 111
7 Brushes, graphics, styles, and resources 112
7.1 Brushes 113
Solid-color brushes 113 ■ Gradient brushes 116
Image brushes 118
7.2 Resources 120
Local and page resources 121 ■ Application resources 123
Resource dictionaries 123
7.3 Styles 127
Explicit or keyed styles 127 ■ Style inheritance 128
Implicit styles 130