I have now made two Windows Phone 8 applications based on the MonoGame template. My problem is that whenever I install either one of them then the other one is replaced. I do not understand this because they have different names and I have change both their GUIDs multiple times. What could possibly be causing this?
Haven't used MonoGame - maybe there is something in their system that causes problems. However, in normal conditions, Windows Phone apps do not replace other apps unless they have the same app ID (aka the GUID that you're talking about). You can have apps with the same name but different GUIDs, and both will live fine by each other.
Can you show what GUID you're replacing? Are you changing the manifest? Are the apps a part of the same solution?
Related
I am new to visual studios Windows development and I have made an application for a Windows tablet on 8.1. I want to copy the app then change some of the colors on the application and then make it a separate app from its copy. The problem is because the only difference in the applications is some code for the color, if one of the applications is already uploaded to my tablet, when I side load the other it just replaces the previous application. So what would I need to change in my one of my applications so my tablet would recognize them as two different apps.
Each app must have a unique Identity set in the the App's manifest. See Interface and other info about deploying Apps on MSDN.
Is there a way for my application to auto-start after some time instead of a notification? Or am I constrained to just notifications?
The difference between Android and Windows Phone (you mentioned Android in your comment) is that Android allows you to do pretty much everything while Windows Phone is a very restricted system. So, unfortunately, the answer is no. (There are ways to launch your app from other places than the app's tile, though. See the end of the answer)
Why am I saying unfortunately? Of course, Windows Phone is a nice and seek operating system that runs wonderful even on low-spec devices like the Lumia 520. But that doesn't mean developers shouldn't get the freedom to interact with the Operating System and do innovative tasks.
But there are reasons Microsoft chose not to allow Autostart (or at least, restrict the area an app can access, not the autostart in particular):
it may irritate customers. Even if you show a message box, many customers just dismiss it without reading it and they wouldn't understand why an app would appear without their interaction
each feature would make the operating system slower and bigger. I don't want to say that an autostart makes the phone unusable, but here's a question: Do you need to run a registry cleaner on you PC from time to time? Yes, you do need to do so You even need to reinstall a PC form time to time. You don't need to do that on a Windows Phone. It just works and will always work (OK, that's maybe a bit too optimistic, but you get it...)
I also don't think an autostart is particularly useful on a mobile. Because each app runs full screen, the system would boot up to your app instead of to the start screen. I don't think the user will always want your app (most of the time, he'll want to look at his start screen or launch another app), so it would just be annoying. On a PC, you can use the auto start for small programs that should run in the background (for example, I've got a progamm that provides Git with my SSH keys that automatically starts up each time).
But as I mentioned above, there are other ways to launch your app. Using url schemes can be surprisingly powerful as you can put a button on a web page that will directly launch your app. Other apps will also be able to launch your app. But as it is not directly what you wanted to know, I won't explain it in detail and instead provide you wiht a gread link to msdn: Auto-launching apps using file and URI associations for Windows Phone 8
For such features you should look into: Windows Embedded 8.1 Handheld instead of the consumer version Windows Phone 8.1.
We have existing Windows Store application which is developed using C# and XAML. We want to port the same to Windows 8 Mobile application. Is there any Guidelines available for this ?
Well at first I would start figuring out the differences
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj681690%28v=vs.105%29.aspx
http://blog.markedup.com/2013/07/winrt-windows-phone-8-code-sharing-pitfalls/
When I ported two of my (smaller) apps, I put as much in a PCL (portable class library) as I could. All the stuff that remained in the project itself needed to be rewritten. If you have well-maintainable code, there should be only UI (what you have to adapt anyway) and very few platform specific code (like accessing filesystem, camera or whatever) left. This is the part you must redevelop.
Dnt know how you have made these applications well If you have followed MVVM pattern then it is very easy to port windows and windows phone apps from one to other. You just need to take care of new XAML UIs every thing except some platform specific liberalizes will work. While making any of windows store and windows phone application you should use the liberaries that both platforms can consume. For example you can use LEX.db for the database.
here are very good explanations for it.
sharing code between windows phone and windows 8 app -1
sharing code between windows phone and windows 8 app -2
hope this will help
The answers given so far are quite good. One thing to note is that Windows Phone 8.1 is about to be released, which will share many of the WinRT libraries. This will mean that in a few months (as early as May), the shared libraries between the two platforms will greatly increase. You can download the leaked SDK to see what some of the changes will be.
Not that you should wait until then, and creating a PCL is definitely going to help you (especially if you want to later move to iOS, Android as well). It's just something to keep in mind.
Ok, I have a question to which, despite my best efforts, I have not been able to solve. I searched the internet, and this is one of those that is particularly difficult to search for, but it seems that no user of Windows 8.1 nor any developers developing for Windows 8.1 has posted to any website asking how to do this (I could be wrong, of course).
What I am trying to do is make a Windows Store app targeting Windows 8.1, that takes advantage of multiple Windows. To see what I mean, open up metro ie, right click on a tab, and click "open in new window." This is also in the mail app, where you can open a single message in another window, which behaves like a separate app, and can be snapped like so. It's a new feature of the Windows 8.1 OS.
But I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it in C# and XAML. Does anyone know how? Thanks.
Alex
There are new APIs in Windows.UI.ViewManagement, namely the ApplicationViewSwitcher and ProjectionManager classes. The former is for working with multiple independent views that the user can arrange side by side on whatever monitors they have, which is what IE and Mail use; the latter is for working with multiple monitors.
See the Application Views sample along with the Projection sample for working both scenarios in code.
Might be bit late with my answer, nevertheless I had your similar apprehensions about the "Dismal Support Refs" for this subject, when I first began searching the topic. However I have been able to overcome this and use the feature in my apps. There are some good refs available; The Windows Dev Centre has a Quickstart ie "Quiskstart Creating Multiple Windows", a Good guide is the "MultipleViews" Sample, With the following providing additional support.
1) "Be two places at once using multiple windows" at
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/01/09/be-two-places-at-once-using-multiple-windows/#pBHiQtDSPFrCA7Gv.97
2) "MultipleViews for Windows 8.1 apps" (parts 1-3)
http://www.kraigbrockschmidt.com/2013/11/21/multiple-views-creating-view/
BQ at WATERVIEW
Is it possible to run at the same time a couple Windows Store Applications?
I have written a chat application (in C#), and want to test it on one PC, but I can't make it work.
Is there any option to do this? Or any ideas how to get around it?
No, Windows Store apps are strictly single instanced, see this post:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsdeveloperpreviewgeneral/thread/daf6f12f-b54d-4550-a70d-d92e6e06bfdc
Howerer there might be a solution, if you are owner of that app and you have access to source code and project, just build and deploy the app, change the app Name and ID in manifest file and deploy it again - it should be then shown as another app in Start screen. Note I have not tested this, but it worked fine for Windows Phone apps, so I guess it should work on Windows 8 as well?