If you are a WPDev, you might want to integrate the Text-To-Speech engine of WP8.x SDK in your application/game. Though it is not a new feature, but the API has been changed in Windows Phone 8.1 SDK which you might want to know before integrating.
In this blog post, I am going to share the API changes in Windows Phone 8.1 and do the comparison with WP8.0 APIs. Continue reading to know more about this.
Few days ago, I shared a blog post “How to unlock AT&T Lumia device without inserting SIM?” that talks about a way to unlock your Lumia handset of AT&T models without inserting SIM card. The steps are easy but a little bit tricky while pressing the star (*) button.
Today in this post, I am going to share you another simple, effective way to unlock the device without inserting any SIM cards into it.
If you have already started working on Windows Phone 8.1 app/game, you might have observed that, unlike to the older versions of Windows Phone, every XAML page starts with a Page tag instead of PhoneApplicationPage and thus, you are not able to show/hide the StatusBar control in that page.
So, what’s needs to be done in order to show or hide the Status Bar of Windows Phone 8.1 based on the requirement of your app? In this small post, we will discuss about it.
Sometime for some security reason, developer might want to restrict his/her Windows Phone application to be deployed in SD cards. There might be different reasons too. So, how can you prevent your user to deploy the app in the SD card of their device?
Let’s discuss the No-Code way to prevent this deployment. Remember that, it is only applicable for Windows Phone 8.0 or higher apps.
This blog post is more of a bookmark for me. Also, this will help you to unlock your AT&T Lumia devices without inserting SIM. I am not sure about other AT&T handsets, but it works on Lumia devices smoothly without any issues.
It’s not as easy to get a micro SIM or a mini SIM in all over the world and thus unlocking a device is quite difficult. This small post will help you to unlock the device in case you don’t have the SIM.
For last couple of days, only one event was trending over the Microsoft developer community and that was global //Publish/Satellite event happening all over the world on the same day May 16th – May 17th, 2014. Like other cities in India, we also had the opportunity to organize this event in Kolkata.
Great community, great devs and great apps. Let’s have a small recap of the entire Kolkata event for those who missed to join us.
Almost everyone uses 3rd party controls to reduce the burden building them from scratch and when it is Telerik control libraries, it’s pretty awesome! Telerik announces an offer to help the Microsoft developer community to use their product for Free.
It’s a very limited time offer. So, don’t be fool. Claim your free license of Windows Phone, Windows Store control libraries and save some money to use in other good things.
Microsoft released Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RTM, which will now allow you to develop applications for Windows Phone 8.1 and Universal Windows platforms. Using Universal Windows Apps templates, you will be able to build apps that targets both the platform from a single solution.
In this blog post, I am going to share you the links to download Visual Studio 2013 Update 2. This includes both the web installer and the offline/standalone installer (ISO image).
After the last post on “What’s new in Windows Phone 8.1 - First look to Start Screen, Theme”, I wanted to share another new feature that’s coming as part of Windows Phone 8.1 within few days. If you are a developer, you might have already experiences the new phone OS.
Okay, let’s come to the point. This time I will be talking about Internet Explorer In-Private browsing, part of IE11 in Windows Phone, which will help you to securely browse internet.
Microsoft released .NET Framework version 4.5.2 as redistributable package. It is a compatible, in-place update for Microsoft .NET Framework 4, .NET Framework 4.5 and .NET Framework 4.5.1. This version of the .NET Framework runs side-by-side with the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and earlier versions.
Want to download Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2? Here you can find both the web installer and offline installer of it and here sloty you can play without installation.
Windows Phone 8.1 is already there for developers and developers already started building and/or upgrading their apps to support the new changes in Windows Phone 8.1. The RC version of Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 is already there with WP8.1 SDK preloaded.
In this post, we are going to discuss the enhanced TextBox control which came with additional features like place holder text, header content etc.
Microsoft already released Windows Phone 8.1 as part of Developer Preview programme, that means, developers having Windows Phone store account and/or App Studio account can try this before it comes out for general public to experience.
Windows Phone 8.1 has some cool new and enhanced features set and among them Start Screen and Themes are there. In this post, we are going to discuss on this today.
Today, 2nd April 2014, during the //BUILD conference Microsoft officially showcased the new features set which are coming as part of Windows Phone 8.1. Also during the event, they showcased the features and improvements coming as part of Windows 8.1 Update 1.
In this blog post, I am just noting down those exciting new features coming in Windows Phone 8.1. Just go thru them and let me know which one will be the exciting one for you.
It happens sometime that a specific theme like Light or Dark looks good in some application. In such case, you have to specify all the colours manually to background foreground etc. This is very hectic job. Is there any easy way doing this?
Yes, we have. Jeff Wilcox simplified this process by releasing a ThemeManager library (open source) for you which you can use in your app and force a specific theme for your Windows Phone application.
While working with some folder specific operations and console window, I learnt a new thing (I would rather say it as trick) today i.e. how to open console window in that specific folder path without using any special tricks in Windows Registry or typing the full path in console.
Today in this blog post, I am going to share the same trick with you. In case you find it useful, drop a line below.
When working a lot on Windows Phone Emulator, it is sometime easy to use the computer keyboard to perform some specific tasks instead of tapping onscreen display on the Emulator. Sometime, it is also require to know the keys when you don’t have the hardware buttons in emulator.
Here I am sharing all the keyboard shortcuts which the Windows Phone Emulator supports. I am sure, this will be handy to have while developing apps.
As a WPDev, you might want to provide your users an option to change the Lock Screen of their Windows Phone 8 device. It can be from a locally stored images within the app XAP, a RSS feed, Camera Roll and/or periodically from a push notification.
In this blog post, we will learn how to integrate the functionality in your app to simply load and set the lock screen background from a set of images available within the app xap.
Style inheritance in XAML? Sounds funny? No. If we have inheritance in classes, CSS styles; then why not in XAML styles? There are many such occasions when we need to copy the same style in multiple templates/styles of a control.
In this post, we will learn how to use a single piece of style and use it in other place to inherit the common styling. If you are using XAMLs excessively, this might be a very good topic for you.
Have you ever lost in your way while coding in multiple files inside Visual Studio and want to recover some piece of code that you changed but not yet pushed to your TFS code repository? Have you ever wonder if there was a mechanism by which you can actually track the changes in your code file?
Then here is the solution for you. There is a nice VSIX extension named “Auto History” that could help you in this case. Let’s discuss more about this.
If you are a Windows Phone app developer and building a Camera application, you might want to know whether the user pressed the shutter key half or full. In general pressing the shutter key half sets the focus to an object and pressing it completely captures the view.
In this short blog post, we will learn how to subscribe for the shutter key press events and identify whether the user pressed it half or full.
You might have already known that, the UK firm named BSkyB raised a complaint against Microsoft infringing the name of their online cloud storage service “SkyDrive” and then a settlement was made providing Microsoft a time to change the brand of their service.
Today, General Manager of Microsoft consumer apps & services Ryan Gavin announced that, they are soon going to rename their popular cloud storage service “SkyDrive” to “OneDrive”.
If you are a WPDev and building Windows Phone app and/or game that uses primary or secondary (front facing camera), you might need to check whether the device supports either or both of them. Windows Phone SDK provides APIs to check for supported camera type.
In this blog post, we will discuss about this API and learn how to know whether the phone supports either or both of those camera types.
Microsoft released the RTM version of Visual Studio 2013 in October 2013 and after that, this is the first release of an update for it named “Visual Studio 2013 Update 1”. This version includes a set of fixes for the issues and improvements requested by the users.
Here I am sharing the download links for you to download and install the update before it pops up in the Visual Studio update notification area.
How many of you want to check the available free space in your Windows Phone device? It is very simple to get the details from the settings page. But think about a case where you want to check the free space from your app and want to chose some logic to notify the user.
In this small but useful post, we will discuss about the API and will share a small piece of code, which will allow you to know the available free space in user’s phone device.
Another good news for the Nokia Lumia (Windows Phone 8) users. From today, Nokia started rolling out Lumia Black update to it’s entire set of Windows Phone 8 devices, a big update after Amber. This update consists of new features and apps for you.
You will get this update notification within a few days, based on your residing country, carrier and device. To know more about this update, continue reading.
Good news to all Windows Phone 8 users. Greg Sullivan, the director of Windows Phone public relation, confirmed in an interview that all Windows Phone 8 users can upgrade their device OS to Windows Phone 8.1 (which is most likely going to release this spring, as per different source).
It’s not yet confirmed what are the new things coming with WP8.1, but surely there will be something new for the consumers.
Windows Phone by default provides the inbuilt mechanism to support Clipboard Copy, Paste functionalities and shows the proper icon in any TextBox control. But in some case, you may need to handle the copy experience explicitly.
This small post will discuss about the API and the code that you can use in your Windows Phone application. Continue reading.
Sometime we need to provide an encryption mechanism to protect user data in phone and/or sharing the data over internet to a database. Data security should be always maintain by a developer to protect the content of the application that the user enters.
If you are building an app and looking for some way to implement the mechanism, here is a wrapper class for you to do encryption and decryption of a string literal easily.
Microsoft released a new set of Windows Phone 8 emulators for the Windows Phone developers to support development environments for both WP8 Update 2 and Update 3 release. If you are targeting your apps for a large screen display, must try out them in the new emulator before submitting for certification.
Let’s discuss little on the new set of emulators in this post. You will also find the appropriate links towards the Microsoft Download Centre to install them in your development environment.
New Year is the time to remember all the memories we share, all the fun things we did, all the secrets we poured out for but never regret the follies of the past as we reminisce about the year gone by. Now that time came to celebrate with all of you.
Wish you and your family a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2014. May God make you more knowledgeable in the coming year and give you more prosperity than ever.
If you are working on Silverlight and/or WPF project and using Telerik RadControls library, you might be aware of RadDiagram and RadDiagramToolbox. When you add gallery items in RadDiagramToolbox, by default it comes in three columns.
In some business scenario, you might want to increase or decrease the no. of columns in the RadDiagramToolbox. This small blog post will help you in this.
It’s a Christmas time. Santa could be near your house to knock your door. If you are a Windows Phone user, you will get an additional 20 GB free SkyDrive storage to use in 2014. Microsoft is floating a Redemption Code over email to claim your extra space.
Check your emails to see whether you received it. Don’t worry if you didn’t receive it yet, you will surely get it soon if you are a Windows Phone user.
Today in this blog post we will discuss about Compass APIs available in Windows Phone SDK. After reading this post, you will be able to use your Windows Phone’s device sensors and build some apps and/or games for your targeted users.
Before using the compass in your game, make sure to check whether the device supports it or not. The SDK provides APIs to check that too. Let’s start discussing about it.
If you are part of DVLUP program of Nokia, you might have noticed that, all Windows Phone 8 challenges have the same requirement “Employ Fast App Switching”. This is more likely same as “Fast App Resume”. So, what is this and how can you configure your app to support fast app resume?
In this small post for WPDev, we will discuss a bit about it and the simple process to configure your WP8 apps and/or games to process “Fast App Resume”.
If you are building Location Aware app for Windows Phone 8, you might want to check whether the Location Service is enabled/disabled in the system and based on that, you can take appropriate steps asking user to enable that.
If you are one of such developer, this small but handy blog post will help you to figure out the status of the Location Service. Continue reading to know further about it.
Windows Phone 8 GDR 3 is already there for the developers to try out the new features that are coming in this update 3. Among them, one is orientation lock. If you already installed WP8 GDR3, you might have already seen the Rotation Settings page.
If you are a WPDev, you might want to add an option in your app to launch this settings page. In this post, we are going to discuss how to do this programmatically.
You might have used maps in your Windows Phone applications to help the user navigate from one place to another place. Windows Phone 8 supports downloading of maps for a specific place and/or country. If you want your user to easily navigate to download maps page, this post will help you.
Windows Phone 8 SDK exposes MapDownloaderTask, which will help you for this easy navigation. Continue reading for more information on this.
After the release of Visual Studio 2012 Update 3 (RTM) in 26th June, Microsoft released the 4th Update to the web today, the 13th November 2013. Within this timeframe, they also released couple of intermediate release of the Update 4 for beta testing and bug fixes.
This includes the latest cumulative series of feature additions and bug fixes. If you are waiting for the final release of Update 4, it’s the time to update your IDE with latest set of features & fixes.
XAML Spy is the visual runtime inspector for Silverlight, WPF, Windows Phone and Windows 8 Store applications which provides direct access to UI visual tree, runtime UI modifications to check/set different properties temporarily, monitor events, extract package contents and much more.
With the release of XAML Spy version 2, the company introduced a light weight Free version for the XAML designers/developers to play with their XAML files. Read more to grab your copy.
Windows Phone 8 Update 3 (aka. GDR 3) preview already released for developers to build and test their applications and games. There are few features in this release that you might want to add in your app. For this, you need to check whether the device already has GDR3 installed.
In this small post, we are going to discuss how you can check whether the Updated 3 (GDR 3) has already been installed in the user’s device.
Programming is an art to implement the ideas into software which end user uses to accomplish their job easily. Writing articles for the programmers needs patience and skills to help the other clarify their doubts. There are lots of blogs and sites which already helps programmers day-by-day.
It’s about an year ago a team of passionate programmers took an initiative to compile a newspaper named “The Programmers” with valuable articles. If you are a developer, don’t forget to grab the copy.
While working on an application last weekend, I was in need to pass an object as query string parameter to the other page of my Windows Phone application. NavigationService does not allow you to pass any complex object.
Then I found a cool idea by which you will be able to send the whole object to the other page. In this blog post, I am going to share you the trick.
If you are a Silverlight application developer and using Telerik RadDiagram control, you might have seen that you can zoom and pan the diagram control and move it to any boundary. In some scenarios, we need to restrict it to a positive quadrant.
In such case, based on your business logic, you have to restrict the diagram to some quadrant value. In this small post, we will learn how to set it’s viewport to a specific bounds.
Ambiguity is the ability to express more than one interpretation in normal way. This can happen in any manner; in our code too. If you are working on WCF RIA Services in Silverlight, you might encounter this issue too with class references.
Today in this blog post, I will share you a small trick by which you will be able to fix this error in your Silverlight project. Continue reading to further discussion.
Microsoft released Windows 8.1 RTM and Windows RT 8.1 RTM on 17th October for general public to update their Windows 8 system. Many people already updated their Surface RT devices but as an exception, few people reported on Twitter and Forums that they are not able to update their RT devices.
If you are unable to update your Surface RT or unable to find the update in Windows Store, you are one of them who are victim of a small issue reported by Microsoft.
Here comes an opportunity for Windows Phone Developers to try out the GDR3 update before it reaches to the actual consumers. If you are a WPDev, you can now download Update 3 in your unlocked WP8 device and test your applications against it.
Windows Phone 8 GDR3 comes with a plenty of features and enhancements including bigger screen resolutions, screen rotations and more. Read to get the GDR3 bits in your device.
So Microsoft finally came up with an official list of new features in Windows Phone 8 General Distribution Release, named as GDR3. Also, they are now opening a “Developer Preview Program” for the WPDev’s to test their apps against the new OS build before it comes to consumer.
In this post, I am going to share you the set of features that you are going to see in the next update of your Windows Phone 8 device.
Here comes my another application for Windows Phone users, named “Place Explorer”. The app is currently available in Windows Phone Store for free. Using this app, you will be able to find out the favourite places around the city near your current location for food, drinks, shopping, accommodations etc.
Find out more details about the app and a downloadable link to install in your Nokia Lumia series of Windows Phone 8 devices.
Last month as part of the 5th anniversary celebration of my blog (www.kunal-chowdhury.com), we organized a big contest where we had lots of licenses and subscriptions valued $50,000 above to give away. Thanks to all the Sponsors who came up to celebrate with us.
Now the time came to announce the winners of the contest. Are you excited to know who are the winners? You might be one of them too. Let’s check out the list.
As a WPDev, you already know about the NavigationService class that we use regularly to navigate from one page to another. But what if you want to navigate to a web URL? If you use the same class for web navigation, you will face a ArgumentException unhandled in your App class.
If you are one of the victim and came to this page by searching online for the solution, this post will help you today to resolve the exception in your code.
Do you want to add a functionality in your Windows Phone device which can actually listen to users voice or commands? Do you want the app to record the speech or convert the speech into a text string which you can save as a document?
Okay, this blog post will cover that topic for you today. Here we will discuss how to use the API to enable the speech recognition in your WP device.
October 1st 2010, the day when I first received a mail from the Microsoft mentioning as one of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) awardees of the quarter as a Silverlight contributor. I was holding that title on Silverlight platform for last 3 consecutive years.
Like last three years, this time also I have been awarded for this prestigious title but… I am no longer a Silverlight MVP now. Microsoft awarded me as “Client Development MVP” this time.