WinRT License API, Silverlight 8.1 apps and sideload detection #wpdev

Since early 2011, I have been using the method described here.
Recently I have been upgrading all my apps to target Windows Phone 8.1 API. Most of previous API is still accessible in WP 8.1 SL8.1 apps. However a great deal more is available under WinRT API.

With my Alarm Clock app, I have started using WinRT API to pin and update Tiles. I have used WinRT API for background tasks as I can run them more frequently and I can detect Timezone change. I have added IAP to the app.
The app however is available in 2 flavours Free (with ads and restrictions) and Paid. So far I have only been updating the paid app. Of course I use sideload detection for Paid app however while considering update of Free version, I decided to use CurrenApp to execute License check and potentially offer to convert Free users in-place as opposed to getting them to buy another app!!

In good old SL API, I would have used

var license = new Microsoft.Phone.Marketplace.LicenseInformation();
IsTrial = license.IsTrial();

With WinRT that becomes

IsTrial = CurrentApp.LicenseInformation.IsTrial;

While developing and deploying if you observe the behaviour, the IsTrial never returns false. You cannot test Trial scenario without explicit pre-processor directives!
Of course CurrentAppSimulator is only available for WinRT app and not SL8.1 apps. The same behaviour would be exposed by the sideloaded apps. Not downloaded from store equates to full version. Like in good old days, WMAppPRHeader.xml is still attached after certification. So lets modify the code

try
{
   XDocument doc = XDocument.Load("WMAppPRHeader.xml");
 
   IsTrial = CurrentApp.LicenseInformation.IsTrial;
}
catch
{
   IsTrial = true;
}

You treat all apps without WMAppPRHeader.xml as trial. Job done!
Note that IAP are not affected. If you had TestIAP, it is not active by default.

CurrentApp.LicenseInformation.ProductLicenses["TestIAP"].IsActive;

Happy coding!

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App tile transparency for WP8.1 apps #wpdev

One of my popular lines is “Don’t throw shit around.. what goes around comes around!” and rightly so. A few weeks back I was making fun of @dvlup for blogging about how to create transparent tiles for the WP apps 🙂

I know the irony isn’t lost on me. The idea is with WP8 apps, you create tile images which are transparent png with white bits.. if you had a star or a clock that would be white, the rest would be transparent and you used this. This would make your app’s tile transparent and if you had a fancy background, you would see through the tile.

Fast forward today, I was testing WP8.1 update to my alarm clock app. What does it do ? well shows you tile update every minute with a nicely rendered tile. and yes I made the tile transparent. But the tile comes up as grey.. WTH

alarmclock1

so I start looking around and I remember that Windows 8 app manifest had a background color, Open the Package.appmanifest and I find this

<m3:VisualElements
    DisplayName="AlarmClock"
    Square150x150Logo="Assets\SquareTile150x150.png"
    Square44x44Logo="Assets\Logo.png"
    Description="AlarmClock"
    ForegroundText="light"
    BackgroundColor="#464646">

hmmm no alpha value to make it transparent. So I tried to set BackgroundColor to Transparent.. nope.. transparent ? Bingo!!

<m3:VisualElements
    DisplayName="AlarmClock"
    Square150x150Logo="Assets\SquareTile150x150.png"
    Square44x44Logo="Assets\Logo.png"
    Description="AlarmClock"
    ForegroundText="light"
    BackgroundColor="transparent">

alarmclock2
Now if you used transparent png for tiles, your WP 8.1 app’s tiles are transparent.

Image scaling related crashes on 1080p devices #wpdev

Back in March one of the 1Shot camera app users emailed me stating that the app crashes when using he uses digital zoom on Lumia 1520. I couldn’t reproduce the issue on my 1020. I then borrowed a friend’s 1520 and hmm sure I could reproduce it but I couldn’t catch the exception.

So we left it at that.. fast forward on Friday I get a mail back from chap in question and he states that he’s running latest greatest version of preview and the freaky crash is still happening. Luckily I have the 1520 at my desk and decided to put it to good use over the weekend.

So I put VS configuration in Debug mode and I set VS to catch all thrown exceptions. Run app and swipe left right and top bottom and every so often the app crashes.. no exception being caught.. the app just disappears and we are back to home screen. The only clue was the output of debug mode.. The program ‘[4880] AgHost.exe’ has exited with code -1073741819 (0xc0000005) ‘Access violation’.

The sad reality, the debug output is littered with messages starting ‘AgHost.exe’ (CoreCLR: Silverlight AppDomain): A quick check on the net showed that AgHost.exe is used to manage access through identity verification.. great. The error code wasn’t particularly useful either.

In this particular case, the error only occurred when zooming in. My implementation of digital zoom was scaling the preview image for the live view. The only action associated with crash was zooming in and out. As it happens, I detect manipulation delta and compute scale..

private void LivePreviewTapTarget_ManipulationDelta(object sender, System.Windows.Input.ManipulationDeltaEventArgs e)
{
    if (!this.viewModel.CaptureInitiated && AppSettings.InternalAppSettings.DragZoom)
    {
        SetDragToScale(e.CumulativeManipulation.Translation);
        e.Handled = true;
    }
}

void SetDragToScale(System.Windows.Point pScale)
{
    double x = Math.Abs(pScale.X);
    double y = Math.Abs(pScale.Y);

    double manipulation = x > y ? pScale.X : pScale.Y;

    bool zoomOut = manipulation >= 0 ? false : true;

    double scale = (this.viewModel.HasHighResolutionCamera ? 0.01 : 0.005) * Math.Sqrt(Math.Pow(x, 2) + Math.Pow(y, 2));

    if (zoomOut)
        this.viewModel.ViewScale = initialScale + scale;
    else
        this.viewModel.ViewScale = initialScale - scale;

    System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("zoomout {0}, scale {1}", zoomOut, scale);
}

My initial thought was that it being a newer SoC, the Xaml Renderer was somehow being proactive somewhere and getting itself in a mess.

Test 1: show less frames and show larger jumps so there is less rendering. For High Res camera I used constant of 0.01.. increase it to 0.05.

The resultant build crashed very very fast. hardly took a swipe or two to head back to home screen.

So I wanted to try the reverse but by laptop decided to shutdown and I was too knackered to continue yesterday.
Earlier today I had a chat with Bill Reiss.. he mentioned that he had some problems with 1520 too and that it had something to do with how large the image becomes on 1080p screen.

So I decided to continue where I left yesterday but with a reduction only for 1080p devices.
Test 2: reduce the multiplication constant to 0.0015 if a 1080p device is detected.
Result: Significant reduction in crashes.. I can still get it to crash but not that often. Here is the changed version

int DeviceScaleFactor = -1;
private void GetScaleFactor()
{
    object physicalScreenResolutionObject;

    if (DeviceExtendedProperties.TryGetValue("PhysicalScreenResolution", out physicalScreenResolutionObject))
    {
        var physicalScreenResolution = (Size)physicalScreenResolutionObject;

        DeviceScaleFactor = (int)(physicalScreenResolution.Width / 4.8);
    }
    else
    {
        DeviceScaleFactor = Application.Current.Host.Content.ScaleFactor;
    }
}

void SetDragToScale(System.Windows.Point pScale)
{
    double x = Math.Abs(pScale.X);
    double y = Math.Abs(pScale.Y);

    double manipulation = x > y ? pScale.X : pScale.Y;

    bool zoomOut = manipulation >= 0 ? false : true;

    if (this.DeviceScaleFactor == -1)
    {
        this.GetScaleFactor();
    }

    double scale = (this.viewModel.HasHighResolutionCamera ? 0.01 : 0.005) * Math.Sqrt(Math.Pow(x, 2) + Math.Pow(y, 2));

    if (DeviceScaleFactor == 225)
    {
        scale = 0.0015 * Math.Sqrt(Math.Pow(x, 2) + Math.Pow(y, 2));
    }

    if (zoomOut)
        this.viewModel.ViewScale = initialScale + scale;
    else
        this.viewModel.ViewScale = initialScale - scale;

    System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("zoomout {0}, scale {1}", zoomOut, scale);
}

if the Device scale factor is 225, its a 1080p device and one should exercise caution.

Cineworld – Transparent tiles and Uri Schema

Traditionally Windows Phone allowed Tile images to be transparent or otherwise. With advent of Windows Phone 8.1 and start screen background, devs are pretty hyped up about using transparent images.

For once I myself received a request for cineworld app. so the cycle tile is been done away with (if you have it pinned, cycle tile will continue to update as was before.. ) if you repin you get flip tile with primary background transparent.

I was also asked for Uri Schema for cineworld app. I have added 3.

cineworld:film?1234

cineworld:cinema?22

cineworld:search?xmen days of

the film uri schema takes EDI value.

Photo / Camera API – 1 #wpdev

My memory of Windows Phone NoDo API set is pretty bleak. I distinctly remember presence of CameraCaptureTask and PhotoChooserTask. I think I used PhotoChooserTask with my first app Scribble. So what’s this post about ? well Photo / Camera options available on Windows Phone 8.

Since I started with the two tasks, they still exist in Windows Phone 8.

CameraCaptureTask: this fires the stock camera app – ability to navigate to camera roll and use other lens is blocked but otherwise it is the stock windows phone app. Tap to focus / capture or use dedicated shutter button. On capture you are presented with a preview and you have the option to accept or retake the capture.

wp_ss_20140130_0005 wp_ss_20140130_0006 wp_ss_20140130_0007

PhotoChooserTask: this is a different beast. This opens photos hub and presents user with list of albums allowing user to select a photo. The Task has a parameter that toggles visibility of camera icon – ability to not just select a picture but also initiate CameraCaptureTask from within.

While both of these are very basic, let me point out that Instagram BETA still uses a layout very similar to Photochooser task and obviously uses Camera Capture Task.

Its very likely that Instagram could get away with murder. Most of us – 3rd party developers however do not have such luxury. We would be termed as lazy if not worse. And you might not want the stock camera UI. So what can you do ? I am still in old API mode so let me mention an API that was part of Mango – I don’t know if NoDo had it or not – I only used it after Mango public release in my Cool Camera app.

PhotoCamera Class: this class provides raw access to camera and exposes a few options like resolution, flash and focus. Apps render live view by means of using a video brush whose source is set to an instance of photo camera class. How to create a base camera app for Windows Phone provides a great sample to kick start camera app development using this class

PhotoCamera

For a camera app, call CaptureImage. Others might not need a full blown capture – something like QR scanning app would just use focus and can do with GetPreviewBufferArgb32.

Whilst this is a good start, the API is not extensive enough for anything beyond basic. In the next post, I will discuss PhotoCaptureDevice class. This class though simple, exposes enough API to create a full blown camera app allowing you to control every single aspect of camera. If you hardware supports it, you should be able to utilise it

LongListSelector and scroll to top #wpdev

I pulled out my Marauder’s Map, tapped my wand and said “I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”. Bang Visual Studio opens up and I am back to playing with Cineworld app. I know a few users hate my ever so frequent updates but I use the app and I need change 🙂

so I recently got to putting a DatePicker and LongListSelector for being able to “Show by date” film listings. It all worked – well mostly worked until I realised that LongListSelector was scrolled all the way to the bottom. I wonder why..

Of course there is no SelectedIndex I could magically set so did a quick search on the net.. StackOverflow usually has all the answers to “the life, the universe and everything else” but it didn’t really have one for this question.

There was a note saying use UpdateLayout and then ScrollTo and setting it to ItemSource’s first child did the trick for WP8 but not for WP7.

var dataLetter = cd.GetGroupForDate(userSelection); // get the grouped list of films

FilmsForSelectedDate.Clear(); // clear the bound observable collection

foreach (var entry in dataLetter)
    FilmsForSelectedDate.Add(entry);

lstShowByDate.UpdateLayout(); // call updatelayout

if (FilmsForSelectedDate.Count != 0)
    lstShowByDate.ScrollTo(FilmsForSelectedDate[0]); // set scroll to first group in the list

The problem I realised was that the first group in the LLS had zero items i.e. it was not being shown. This affected WP7 toolkit LongListSelector but not the native WP8 LongListSelector

var dataLetter = cd.GetGroupForDate(userSelection);

FilmsForSelectedDate.Clear();

foreach (var entry in dataLetter)
    FilmsForSelectedDate.Add(entry);

lstShowByDate.UpdateLayout();

if (FilmsForSelectedDate.Count != 0)
    lstShowByDate.ScrollTo(FilmsForSelectedDate.First(g => g.HasItems));

So the solution as shown above is, find the group that has items and set scroll to that element.

Mischief managed!