We Keep Coding

iOS phone link opening message app instead of calling the number

I want a phone number from a TextView to call the phone number when clicked:
The issue I am facing is that when clicking the link, the message app is opening instead. I tried the following code in iOS 12 and it worked as expected, but when I try on iOS 13 and 14, the message app opens instead of making a call using the "phone dialer app".
Tentative 1:
textView.Editable = false;
textView.DataDetectorTypes = UIDataDetectorType.PhoneNumber;
Tentative 2:
var phoneNumberLink = new Dictionary<string, string>(){ { "(855) 757-7328","tel:8557577328" } }
textView.Editable = false;
textView.SetAttributedTextForLinks("Please call us at (855) 757-7328", phoneNumberLink);

Actually, telpromt://0123456789 also did not work. I had to intercept the interaction with URL, the recommended ShouldInteractWithUrl did not work (ShouldInteractWithUrl was not triggered or called), so I had to use AllowUrlInteraction instead. The code looked something like this:
var description = new KiteEmbeddedLinkTextView()
{
Editable = false,
DataDetectorTypes = UIDataDetectorType.PhoneNumber,
Text = message.MessageText
};
description.AllowUrlInteraction += AllowUrlInteraction;
private bool AllowUrlInteraction(UITextView textView, NSUrl url, NSRange characterRange, UITextItemInteraction interaction)
{
UIApplication.SharedApplication.OpenUrl(url);
return false;
}
For some reason none of the previous options worked for me, besides this one.
See:
https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/60345/uitextview-and-clickable-phonenumbers
How to intercept click on link in UITextView?

As mentioned https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/33798/open-phone-dialer-from-app
The correct way to open the dialer is
telprompt://0123456789
Make sure that there are no spaces.

How to point to the correct Store in Outlook automation by C#?

I have a lot of VBA automation that interlinks an Outlook and Word solution; it is fine, but time is inexorable... so, I'm start to decorating and extending that old solution, wraping it with C#/VS2017.
Through a conventional Winform I can choose my patients, and from this action I do a lot of actions, including open the correct Outlook contact; that's the problem, because I can't get the correct Store; the patients.pst, depending on the machine, may be the 1st, 2nd, 3rd...
In VBA I do this:
WhichStoreNameToPointAt="patients"
Set myNamespace = myolApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
For i = 1 To myNamespace.Stores.Count Step 1
If myNamespace.Stores.item(i).DisplayName = WhichStoreNameToPointAt Then
intOutlookItemStore = i
End if
End If
Set myFolderPatients = myNamespace.Stores.item(intOutlookItemStore).GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)
And it always functions like a charm.
In C# I tried a lot of variations, and could not point to the correct store:
public void OpenPatientContact(string patientName)
{
Outlook.Store whichStore = null;
Outlook.NameSpace nameSpace = OlkApp.Session;
int i = 1;
foreach (Outlook.Folder folder in nameSpace.Folders)
{
bool p = false;
if (whichStoreNameToPointAt == folder.Name)
{
p = true;
whichStore = folder.Store;
//Correct Store selected; I can tell because of this watch:
//whichStore.displayname == whichStoreNameToPointAt
}
i++;
if (p)
break;
}
var contactItemsOlk = whichStore.Session.GetDefaultFolder
(Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderContacts).Items;
// The problem is below; always the first Store
Outlook.ContactItem contact = (Outlook.ContactItem)contactItemsOlk
.Find(string.Format("[FullName]='{0}'", patientName)); //[1];
if (contact != null)
{
contact.Display(true);
}
else
{
MessageBox.Show("The contact information was not found.");
}
}
Unfortunately, it keeps pointing ever to the same first Store, the one that has no patients...
If I change the Store order I can get past this and test other stuff, but of course it is not the right way.
Any other heads/eyes to see the light?
TIA

While seated writing the question, looking at a yellow rubber duck - and a lot of other stuff that belongs to my 1 yo daughter ;), I realized that whichStore.Session.GetDefaultFolder is a little strange in this context. I only changed this
var contactItemsOlk = whichStore.Session.GetDefaultFolder
(Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderContacts).Items;
To that:
var contactItemsOlk = whichStore.GetDefaultFolder
(Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderContacts).Items;
Voilá! Magic happens with C# too!
Session returns the default NameSpace object for the current session.
PS: yellow rubber duck; guys of The Pragmatic Programmer really knows some secrets and tricks ;)
Thanks Thomas and Hunt!

Application settings Windows phone 8

I'm developing for WP8 and I need to store custom app settings. I found func 'ApplicationData' but it's not supported in WP8. Can you help me? I want to store permanent variables provided by user. For example:
Country = UA
News = 1
etc.

You can use Isolated Storage or ApplicationData.LocalSettings like this :
var localSettings = Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.LocalSettings;
// Create a simple setting
localSettings.Values["exampleSetting"] = "Hello Windows";
// Read data from a simple setting
Object value = localSettings.Values["exampleSetting"];
if (value == null)
{
// No data
}
else
{
// Access data in value
}
// Delete a simple setting
localSettings.Values.Remove("exampleSetting");
Check this Link and also this Link

Disable Symbol scanner 'beep' on successful scan?

I'm working with a motorolla MC55 which scans and beeps on a successful scan, I need to disable that feature so that it doesn't play any sounds at all on a scan.
Any ideas how I can accomplish this?

Scan the following barcodes to enable/disable the beep.

Try this:
Symbol.Barcode.Reader reader = new Symbol.Barcode.Reader();
// Other initialization
reader.Parameters.Feedback.Success.BeepTime = 0;

You may want to just adjust the level of the sound:
Symbol.Audio.Device MyDevice = (Symbol.Audio.Device)Symbol.StandardForms.SelectDevice.Select(
Symbol.Audio.Controller.Title,
Symbol.Audio.Device.AvailableDevices);
Symbol.Audio.StandardAudio MyAudioDevice = new Symbol.Audio.StandardAudio(MyDevice);
// set the volume of the audio from the settings file.
MyAudioDevice.BeeperVolume = NewLevel;
// set the audio device to nothing
MyAudioDevice.Dispose();
MyAudioDevice = null;
MyDevice = null;

Taking input from a joystick with C# .NET

I searched around on Google for this, but the only things I came up with were outdated and did not work.
Does anyone have any information on how to get joystick data using C# .NET?

Since this was the top hit I got on google while researching joystick / gamepad input in C#, I thought I should post a response for others to see.
The easiest way I found was to use SharpDX and DirectInput. You can install it via NuGet (SharpDX.DirectInput)
After that, it's simply a matter of calling a few methods:
Sample code from SharpDX
static void Main()
{
// Initialize DirectInput
var directInput = new DirectInput();
// Find a Joystick Guid
var joystickGuid = Guid.Empty;
foreach (var deviceInstance in directInput.GetDevices(DeviceType.Gamepad,
DeviceEnumerationFlags.AllDevices))
joystickGuid = deviceInstance.InstanceGuid;
// If Gamepad not found, look for a Joystick
if (joystickGuid == Guid.Empty)
foreach (var deviceInstance in directInput.GetDevices(DeviceType.Joystick,
DeviceEnumerationFlags.AllDevices))
joystickGuid = deviceInstance.InstanceGuid;
// If Joystick not found, throws an error
if (joystickGuid == Guid.Empty)
{
Console.WriteLine("No joystick/Gamepad found.");
Console.ReadKey();
Environment.Exit(1);
}
// Instantiate the joystick
var joystick = new Joystick(directInput, joystickGuid);
Console.WriteLine("Found Joystick/Gamepad with GUID: {0}", joystickGuid);
// Query all suported ForceFeedback effects
var allEffects = joystick.GetEffects();
foreach (var effectInfo in allEffects)
Console.WriteLine("Effect available {0}", effectInfo.Name);
// Set BufferSize in order to use buffered data.
joystick.Properties.BufferSize = 128;
// Acquire the joystick
joystick.Acquire();
// Poll events from joystick
while (true)
{
joystick.Poll();
var datas = joystick.GetBufferedData();
foreach (var state in datas)
Console.WriteLine(state);
}
}
I hope this helps.
I even got this to work with a DualShock3 and the MotioninJoy drivers.

One: use SlimDX.
Two: it looks something like this (where GamepadDevice is my own wrapper, and the code is slimmed down to just the relevant parts).
Find the joystick / pad GUIDs:
public virtual IList<GamepadDevice> Available()
{
IList<GamepadDevice> result = new List<GamepadDevice>();
DirectInput dinput = new DirectInput();
foreach (DeviceInstance di in dinput.GetDevices(DeviceClass.GameController, DeviceEnumerationFlags.AttachedOnly))
{
GamepadDevice dev = new GamepadDevice();
dev.Guid = di.InstanceGuid;
dev.Name = di.InstanceName;
result.Add(dev);
}
return result;
}
Once the user has selected from the list, acquire the gamepad:
private void acquire(System.Windows.Forms.Form parent)
{
DirectInput dinput = new DirectInput();
pad = new Joystick(dinput, this.Device.Guid);
foreach (DeviceObjectInstance doi in pad.GetObjects(ObjectDeviceType.Axis))
{
pad.GetObjectPropertiesById((int)doi.ObjectType).SetRange(-5000, 5000);
}
pad.Properties.AxisMode = DeviceAxisMode.Absolute;
pad.SetCooperativeLevel(parent, (CooperativeLevel.Nonexclusive | CooperativeLevel.Background));
pad.Acquire();
}
Polling the pad looks like this:
JoystickState state = new JoystickState();
if (pad.Poll().IsFailure)
{
result.Disconnect = true;
return result;
}
if (pad.GetCurrentState(ref state).IsFailure)
{
result.Disconnect = true;
return result;
}
result.X = state.X / 5000.0f;
result.Y = state.Y / 5000.0f;
int ispressed = 0;
bool[] buttons = state.GetButtons();

The bad news is that Microsoft seems to stop supporting their NET libraries for DirectX and focus on XNA instead. I don't work in GameDev so I don't need to use XNA but you may try it if you developing computer games. The good news is that there are other approaches. One is SlimDX the new framework to help you to wok with DirectX from C#. The other way is to directly add references of "Microsoft.DirectX.dll" and "Microsoft.DirectX.DirectInput.dll" to your project. you can find them "..\Windows\Microsoft.NET\DirectX for Managed Code\". if you you are going to use last approach here is a link to codeproject where you can read how to work with a joystick.
EDIT:
If your application is based on NET version newer then 2.0 the application may hang on. To fix this problem change config file and add this:
<startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true">

Google led me here and while not a requirement of this question, OpenTK is a good option for Windows and Linux (under mono) support.
From the OpenTK docs, this code works on Raspberry Pi + Raspbian + Mono 3.12.0:
for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++)
{
var state = Joystick.GetState(i);
if (state.IsConnected)
{
float x = state.GetAxis(JoystickAxis.Axis0);
float y = state.GetAxis(JoystickAxis.Axis1);
// Print the current state of the joystick
Console.WriteLine(state);
}
}

This question is old, but it seems to be active even to this day, so I'm posting anyway.
If you need to get input from XInput only, take a look at XInputium. This is a .NET library that is specialized in XInput controllers. It is pretty straightforward, and has many code samples you can look at.