Category Archives: Mini-Tutorial

Building A Windows Phone App From Scratch

Windows Phone Tutorial In this and the next few blog posts, we will build an application from scratch; covering all the details along the way.  The application we’re going to build is a simple four function calculator. We’ll build it … Continue reading

Posted in Essentials, Mango, Mini-Tutorial, Patterns & Skills, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 8 Comments

Dependency Properties

Windows Phone Tutorial Dependency properties are like the sewers, electric wires and pipes running under the streets of a big city. You can ignore them, you can even be oblivious to their existence, but they make all the magic happen … Continue reading

Posted in Data, Essentials, Languages, Mini-Tutorial, Patterns & Skills, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 9 Comments

Bing Maps Task

You’ve seen in previous Windows Phone Mini-tutorials that all tasks have the same basic structure: Instantiate the task Add any specifying data Show the task The Bing Maps Task is no different. In fact, it is so simple to use … Continue reading

Posted in Essentials, Mango, Mini-Tutorial, Patterns & Skills, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 4 Comments

Location Services–Using the Emulator

Windows Phone Tutorial Getting your device’s location takes remarkably little code.  The new emulator that comes with Mango makes it possible to test location services without adding a GPS to your desktop computer and putting it in your car, thus … Continue reading

Posted in Data, Essentials, Mini-Tutorial, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 1 Comment

Page State–Step by Step

Windows Phone Tutorial The Windows Phone life cycle is not terribly complicated, but it can be the source of some   confusion, and managing the life-cycle can be intimidating to new Windows Phone programmers.  This posting will review the basic … Continue reading

Posted in Essentials, Mango, Mini-Tutorial, Patterns & Skills, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 6 Comments

Windows Phone Fast Application Switching–Don’t Panic!

Windows Phone Tutorial With Mango, the Windows Phone application life cycle changes, and that is a good thing, because the change allows for Fast Application Switching (FAS).  With FAS, the user can start a new application and then return to … Continue reading

Posted in Essentials, Mango, Mini-Tutorial, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 2 Comments

Windows Phone Toolkit–Date and Time Pickers

A Windows Phone From Scratch Mini-Tutorial You have seen the Date and Time pickers in the built-in applications and you can add them to your own applications with shockingly little work.   To start, follow the directions from yesterday’s posting on … Continue reading

Posted in Data, Essentials, Mango, Mini-Tutorial, Patterns & Skills, Toolkit, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 1 Comment

Windows Phone Toolkit AutoCompleteBox

A Windows Phone From Scratch Mini-Tutorial The Windows Phone Toolkit offers a number of useful controls that you can use right out of the box.  This is the first in a sub-series of mini-tutorials on the Windows Phone Toolkit. From … Continue reading

Posted in Essentials, Mango, Mini-Tutorial, Toolkit, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 1 Comment

LINQ Pad vs. Visual Studio for Learning LINQ

A LINQ Tutorial As noted in numerous other postings, I’m convinced that LINQ is an essential aspect of serious Windows Phone (or virtually any .NET) programming.  One of the great tools to come along for learning and working with LINQ … Continue reading

Posted in Data, Linq, Mini-Tutorial, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 19 Comments

Windows Phone Fundamentals–3 Ways To Handle Events

Windows Phone From Scratch One potential area of confusion for programmers new to Silverlight and Windows Phone is that there are (at least) three distinct ways to handle events.  Name the event handler in the Xaml Name the event handler … Continue reading

Posted in Essentials, Languages, Mini-Tutorial, Patterns & Skills, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 9 Comments

Removing the BackStack Entry in Windows Phone

A reader correctly complained about my posting on Sending Messages Between Pages that the “dialog” box I had created was in the BackStack.  If you were to go through the dialog and then later hit the hardware back-key you would … Continue reading

Posted in Essentials, Mango, Mini-Tutorial, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 3 Comments

Windows Phone–Sending Messages Between Pages

Windows Phone Tutorials Last week I began work on prototyping a new application as part of the Full Stack series.   In this application I would like to open a dialog box, retrieve some information from the user, and return … Continue reading

Posted in Essentials, Mango, Mini-Tutorial, Patterns & Skills, WindowsPhone | Tagged | 6 Comments