WP7 Launchers and Choosers - A WP7Dev should know

Windows Phone 7 launchers and choosers enable users to perform common tasks in WP7 device by providing a consistent user experience throughout the Windows Phone application development platform. I already covered many of the Launchers and Choosers in my blog. On popular demand, I am sharing them in this single page post. I hope, this will be helpful for you to get started with the Windows Phone 7 launchers and choosers very quickly.

Let’s start discussing about launchers and choosers followed by links to all the launchers and choosers.

Launchers for Windows Phone 7

Launchers API launches a built-in application through which the user completes a task. Once the application opens up in the screen, the user can complete or cancel the task and return back to the parent application. The parent application reactivates and continues with it’s stuffs. Launchers never return any data to the calling application.

In general here are the few steps to use a launcher:

1. Create instance of the launcher task
2. Set required properties to the instance of the class
3. Call the Show() method to launch the launcher application

Here is a collection of articles which describes Launchers for Windows Phone 7:

• How can you Add Network Connection Settings Page in your WP7 Application?
• How to Send Email in WP7 using the EmailComposeTask?
• How to Launch the WP7 Marketplace Hub using the MarketplaceHubTask?
• How to Launch the WP7 Application Details Page using the MarketplaceDetailTask?
• How to search in the WP7 Marketplace using the MarketplaceSearchTask?
• How to Call a Number in WP7 using the PhoneCallTask?
• How to Share Status from WP7 using the ShareStatusTask?
• How to Share Links from WP7 to Social Networking Sites using the ShareLinkTask?
• How to Compose SMS in WP7 using the SmsComposeTask?

Choosers for Windows Phone 7

Chooser API launches a built-in application through which the user completes a task. Once the application opens up in the screen, the user can complete or cancel the task and return back to the parent application. The parent application reactivates and fetches all supplied data from the chooser screen. Choosers return data to the calling application.

In general here are the few steps to use a chooser:

1. Create instance of the chooser task
2. Set required properties to the instance of the class
3. Register the completed event of the chooser
4. Call the Show() method to launch the chooser application
5. Implement the completed event handler to capture all the data returned from the Chooser application

Here is a collection of articles which describes Choosers for Windows Phone 7:

• How to Retrieve Email Address in WP7 using the EmailAddressChooserTask?
• How to Retrieve Phone Number from Contacts in WP7 using the PhoneNumberChooserTask?
• How to Save Email Address in WP7 using the SaveEmailAddressTask?
• How to Save Phone Number in WP7 using the SavePhoneNumberTask?
• How to Save Ringtones in WP7 using the SaveRingtoneTask?

End Note

I hope that this post was helpful for you to learn launchers and choosers of Windows Phone 7 from a single page. Stay tuned for more articles on Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 in my blog.

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