Gary Pretty's Blog » Windows Phone 7

Telerik RadControls for Windows Phone 7 Giveaway!

Gary Pretty — Thu, 05 May 2011 12:28:24 +0000

Update: Entry for this contest has now closed and the winner will be announced here shortly!

Recently I have been using the fantastic RadControls for Windows Phone 7 by Telerik in my work on Windows Phone 7 applications. The toolkit has been built from the ground up to provide controls and capabilities that are not currently available as part of the OOTB Windows Phone tookit.

There are some great components to this collection, including the RadDataBoundListBox which according to Telerik is “ the fastest version of the standard ListBox component”, which is a massive help when considering performance within your applications. Having seen this control in action, I can honestlty say that it lives up to Telerik’s claims. Other components include an Animation Framework, WrapPanel, DockPanel, Gauges and several other implementations of the ListBox. For more information about the controls visit the Telerk RadControls for Windows Phone 7 page.

This really is a great product and now you have a chance to win a copy for yourself . To enter just do the following (a quick thank you here to Michael Crump for starting his competitions as this prompted me to do this contest! Check out his blog if you haven’t already…it’s great!);

~~Follow me on Twitter @garypretty and follow Telerik @RadControls~~
~~Leave a comment on this post using a valid email address (these details will not be passed on to anybody!!).~~
~~Tweet the following “I entered to win a copy of the awesome @Telerik Windows Phone 7 @RadControls from @garypretty. Enter yourself here http://bit.ly/mAtgzF #WP7″~~

This contest is now over. Lookout for another one soon!

That’s it! Pretty simple really and for those 3 simple steps you could win something great!

This will run for two weeks and the winner will be drawn on the 19th May 2011 and then announced on here shortly afterwards. Good luck!

Technorati Tags: givewaway, telerik, Windows Phone 7, WP7

Using the RADJumpList from Telerik for Windows Phone 7

Gary Pretty — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:29:11 +0000

A while back I downloaded the preview of the RadControls for Windows Phone from Telerik, a new set of controls built from the ground up to make the lives of developers creating apps for the platform easier. The list of controls that are included in the impressive pack include a Data Bound List Box, Date and Time Pickers, an Animation Framework and a Transition Control and this last week saw another beta release of the kit introducing more control goodness including the new Gauge control.

I will be writing another post summarising the whole kit soon, but for now I just wanted to quickly introduce you to the RADJumpList control which I have had the pleasure of using as part of an app I am working on at the moment.

The RADJumpList is essentially a list box control that allows grouping of its items in a snap and then allows the user to jump between groups easily. A good example of a situation where you might do this is for a phone book / contact list where the items are group by the first letter in the contacts name, and this sort of functionality can be seen in the Windows Phone 7 OS as part of the in built contacts list. However, grouping is not all that this control can do, as it also comes with built in support for sorting, filtering and great performance for the scrolling and display of the list right off the bat.

The thing I like about this control is the fact that all of the above features are optional and can be used on their own or in conjunction with each other to get the experience that you want. As an example, you may want to simply have a list box that sorts its items for you and all you need to do to achieve this is to create a Sort Descriptor as seen in the code below;

GenericSortDescriptorstring> sortByField =

    new GenericSortDescriptorstring>(item => item.itemField);

radJumpList.SortDescriptors.Add(sortByField);

Grouping and Filtering with the control is done in a similar fashion using Grouping and Filtering Descriptors.

With regards to the look and feel of the control, it is of course totally customisable using templates in the same way as you would with an ordinary list box using an ItemTemplate for your list items and then editing other templates to control the display of components such as the Group Picker and the Group Headers.

If the RADJumpList sounds like something you could use or would find useful then I would strongly recommend you download the tools from the Telerik web site and check out the fantastic demo project included which features a full application for Windows Phone featuring all of the controls including the Jump List. Keep an eye on on my blog in the coming days and weeks for more info about the Telerik Windows Phone tools (and for anybody who is interested in Sharepoint as well I will be looking at Telerik’s latest offering for Sharepoint 2010).

Technorati Tags: telerik, Windows Phone 7, WP7

Christmas Presents App for Windows Phone 7

Gary Pretty — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 22:30:18 +0000

I have been incredibly busy the last few months and some of the things I have been working on are applications for Windows Phone 7.

Today saw the publication of the first of my applications to the Windows Phone 7 marketplace, Christmas Presents.

Christmas Presents is a simple but effective application that will allow you to manage all of your Christmas shopping, ensuring that you stay on top of which presents you need to buy, who they are for and how much you are spending.

Currently features include

- A summary including the overall budget, remaining spend and a countdown to Christmas.
- Individual budgets for each person.
- Mark presents as purchsed and then wrapped.
- Shopping list displaying all presents that haven’t been purchased yet.
- Currency automatically matches your phone settings.

If you have the Zune client installed you can see the Christmas Presents app page here.

Below are some screenshots of the application. Please comments and let me know that you think and what features you would like to see included in future versions.

Summary Screen

People List

Person Details

Shopping List

Again, please comment and let me know what you think and what features you would like to see in future versions.

Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 Link Post

Gary Pretty — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:35:21 +0000

With the recent announcements regarding Silverlight 4 and Windows Phone 7 Development, I thought I would share a few links to some sites I have found useful, both recently and in the past when starting to work with Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 dev using Silverlight.

Windows Phone 7 Dev

WP7 Panorama App �
http://blogs.claritycon.com/blogs/design/archive/2010/03/30/building-the-elusive-windows-phone-panorama-control.aspx

Twitter App Receiving Push Notifications on WP7 �
http://skeevs.com/blog/?p=35

Push Notifications Types and a Tutorial �
http://blogs.claritycon.com/blogs/design/archive/2010/03/30/building-the-elusive-windows-phone-panorama-control.aspx

Building a Flickr App�
http://skeevs.com/blog/?p=4&cpage=1#comment-16

Bing Location Programming on WP7 �
http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/03/writing-a-bing-maps-location-aware-application-for-windows-phone-7-series/

Windows Phone 7 Icon Pack �
http://www.sevenforums.com/news/74137-windows-phone-7-series-icon-pack.html

General Silverlight

Silverlight 4 – A guide to the new features �
http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2009/11/18/whats-new-in-silverlight-4-complete-guide-new-features.aspx

Getting Started with Silverlight and Blend �
http://refcardz.dzone.com/refcardz/getting-started-silverlight?oid=hom20371

Silverlight UI Controls�
http://www.silverlight.net/learn/tutorials/controls-cs

Silverlight Data Binding �
http://www.silverlight.net/learn/tutorials/databinding-cs/