How to periodically update live tile locally on Windows 10 - c#

I didn't find a suitable documentation from Microsoft to update periodically a tile from the application and not a server. The documentation said that you can update an application tile periodically, but you need to give a URI as the first parameter.
I want to display on the tile information about some items in the application, like the Photos application (but I think Microsoft uses a server for that).
Did someone come with a solution for that?
Thanks.

Related

How to get location of multiple devices?

I am making an app that shows certain content to various devices. Basically I have the web app where I set what content to be shown and I used Xamarin to set a mirror of my content to all the devices I have.
Thing is, these devices will be given to drivers, and I need to see the location of those drivers. Is there a way for me to get the location of those devices from the web app? Not from the xamarin apps on the devices, the web app...
The basic architecture would have three components:
A central database to store location data.
In the Xamarin app, you will need to collect the location data and upload it to your database via a web service. Here is a Xamarin demo for location tracking.
Your web app will call a second web service on a schedule (every ten seconds, or whatever seems appropriate) to retrieve the location data for all drivers and plot it on whatever map you're using.
Unfortunately, there are many more details to unpack than can be contained in this answer. Firstly, a lot will depend on your technology choices for the central database and the web app.
You will also need to think about a few things regarding the tracking in your app. For example, battery impact of continuous tracking will be important. Also, you don't want to (or shouldn't) track your drivers at all times, but only when they are working. And so on.
I hope this can get you started.

Windows 8 live tile from NET 4.5 app

I have create a Windows Store app which successfully updates its tile (live tile). The thing I hate about this now is that it seems there is no way for me to install this app anywhere except either through Windows Store or using another developer account (see this).
Since I am looking to support only desktop PC with this, can I work with live tiles from a generic NET 4.5 application?
Or to put it differently, is there a way to use / control live tiles from apps other than Windows Store apps?
This is still all too new to me... Finding answers on the web and SO revealed nothing.
Live Tiles are part of the Metro Framework, completely seperated from .NET. Your application is sandboxed when you develop for the Windows Store framework. no one can access your application and you can't access anyone else's application. The only way to update the live tile would be for the application to update it's own live tile. It would be a huge security flaw to allow anyone to update any tile.
If you do NOT intend to ever submit your app to the Windows Store for distribution - you can look at this thread, which talks about methods used to communicate between desktop apps and windows store apps.

How to keep you Windows Phone 7.5 application on top

we are creating a windows Phone 7.5 application, this application is developed for specific purpose for company field employes, phones will contain the data sim. No communication allowed like making a phone call, sending sms or chekcing and repling email etc. This application will receive the Push Notifications from our application in the head office.
Is there any way that we can keep this application always on top, regardless what button is pressed by the user we want this application to always stay on top so what ever the notification it receive it will always disply it to the user for futher action.
Thanks
This requirement is not really feasible for a couple of reasons. First, what you are describing actually breaks most of the concepts that a certified app is required to follow. A subset of certification details can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh184840(v=vs.92).aspx
Secondly, even if you planned to override the back button (possible) there really is no way to override the Windows, search or camera button at the OS level.
Best of luck!
Short answer: you can't. Application switching is part of the OS, and you don't have control over it.
Best workaround is to pin the app to start and allow it to do background processing with updates to the live tile.
If it's an absolute requirement, you'll have to jailbreak the phone and install your own OS on it.

How are live tiles made in Windows 8?

I've searched the samples, the developer site, the getting started and the enhancing bla bla bla pages.
Even using some search queries on Google, I can't seem any information on live tiles in Windows 8.
How do I create a live tile in Windows 8? What languages can be used for that? C#? XAML?
Finally figured it out, these live tiles are using tile notifications as noted by others.
Here is the minimal code necessary for updating an existing default tile with a template:
You have to load in a template and adjust it, or produce your own XML code. See the tile schema...
var tileXml = Notifications.TileUpdateManager.getTemplateContent(template);
You need to create a notification, which apparently is an update to a tile.
var notification = new Notifications.TileNotification(tileXml);
You need to create an updater, which will provide you with methods to notify through your tile.
var upd = Notifications.TileUpdateManager.createTileUpdaterForApplication();
If you have all this, you can send an update to the client.
upd.update(notification);
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br211386
You can use either C# or VB + XAML or HTML/JS or C++.
That was the big announcement at the BUILD conference and the whole point of WinRT (God I hope they actually are serious about pushing WinRT for more than a year).
Otherwise it would be back to the Silverlight/.Net uprising that we saw after the first preview. . .
edit
You'll first need to learn the terminology of the MetroUI. You can also find more info under Windows Phone 7.
The Live Tiles can send tile notifications. That's how the socialite tile does the facebook feed. The OS will cycle through tile notifications that you've declared. This is all in the basic Tile sample and the advanced Tile sample.
Here is a link to all the samples from the BUILD event.
Start here for a step by step walkthrough of the platform. I would start there if the reference documentation is confusing.
The documents for notifications have been updated since the Consumer Preview release - a good starting point is the 'choosing a notification delivery method' document.
It has all of the relevant pointers to push, polling, scheduled and local notifications.
The available Metro documentation is here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/
It's pretty patchy at the moment but there are samples, such as:
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/Advanced-Tiles-Sample-1995ac42
Not all the samples are available in multiple languages, and that tile example is JS only, but based on what I've read elsewhere, it seems everything can be done with .NET languages, native (C++) or JS using the same APIs.
App tiles and badges sample is what you are looking for.
NotificationExtension library (part of MSDN sample in toast notification, application tile notification ) is very easy to use.
For tile/toast notification updates following approaches can be used
Directly from the application
From the background tasks
From the WNS (push notification service)
Thorough samples are available in msdn code samples

Windows Phone 7 Live Tile Push Notifcations?

I'm not grasping the idea behind Windows Phone 7 live tile push notifications.
How do you have 2 projects (one in Visual Studio - C#, the other in Visual Studio - Web Developer) and they work together?
I am trying to create an application that stays active even when the user puts it in deactive state as it needs to stay constantly connected to there e-mail account.
how would I put all of this push notification code into one project? Or do I not need to?
Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks.
Edit:
What I wish to do after diving a little further into this is locally push notifications to the tiles, I don't need to go to a server, when the application updates itsself I want to be able to push a notification to the live tile if they got a new e-mail.
Is there anyway I can do this?
In Mango, you can change Live Tile information using the ShellTile class:
ShellTile tile = ShellTile.ActiveTiles.FirstOrDefault();
// The first tile is the application tile.
// I'm not sure if it will be there if you application is not pinned
if (tile != null)
{
tile.Update(new StandardShellTileData
{
Title = "New Tile Title!",
Count = 50
});
}
Oddly, it doesn't appear that you can access the current shell tile properties (at least not from what I can see).
MSDN has a full list of StandardShellTileData properties that can be set.
Take a look at the link, it's from Mix and shows exactly how to use the new Live Tile API in Mango.
What you want to do, updating the tile locally is not possible in the current OS but will be possible in Mango.
Live Tile Mix 11 Demo
Having two projects in the same solution is an issue for how you manage your project.
For Windows Phone 7 push live tiles, it's not required, as the push notification comes from Microsoft's Push Notification Service. So your web project should make a request to MSFT Push Service, which will in turn push the livetile to your phone.
Your app should just register for a Tile Notification Channel.
This should be changing for Mango, however.

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