Tag: Windows Phone

Screenshots in Windows Phone 8

As a person who's used Windows Phone since the very first version I know that one of the missing features was the ability to take screen shots! This was infuriating for developers who wanted a screen shot of their app working to place in the app store (then called marketplace). What made it even worse though was the simulator also lacked the button! Thankfully an update to the simulator fixed this, but the phone was still lacking.

Until..... I don't know when, but the other day I accidentally did it and now know that screenshots are taken by holding power and pressing the windows key before the slide to power off box appears.

I've also hear in WP8.1 this will be replaced with power button and volume down as the requirement for physical back, windows and search buttons is to be removed.

RestSharp with Async Await

RestSharp is an excellent open source project to use in a Windows Phone app if you want make http calls to a json api. However it doesn't have any inbuilt support for the async await syntax. Thankfully with C#'s extensions methods we can add this support in our app.

1namespace RestSharpEx
2{
3    public static class RestClientExtensions
4    {
5      public static Task<IRestResponse> ExecuteTaskAsync(this RestClient @this, RestRequest request)
6      {
7        if (@this == null)
8            throw new NullReferenceException();
9 
10        var tcs = new TaskCompletionSource<IRestResponse>();
11 
12        @this.ExecuteAsync(request, (response) =>
13        {
14            if (response.ErrorException != null)
15                tcs.TrySetException(response.ErrorException);
16            else
17                tcs.TrySetResult(response);
18        });
19 
20        return tcs.Task;
21      }
22    }
23}

This will add a new function to the RestSharp client type called ExecutreTaskAsync. Inside the method it will call the ExecuteAsync function as you normally would, but has also implemented returning a Task and setting it's results when its complete.

To use the function would be as follows

1var client = new RestClient("http://www.YOUR SITE.com/api/");
2var request = new RestRequest("Products", Method.GET);
3var response = await client.ExecuteTaskAsync(request);

Using Microsoft pubCenter with AdDuplex

Not everyone realises but when you put an ad control such as Microsofts pubCenter control in your app, it doesn't mean that every single user will see an ad every single time. Microsoft and any other ad provided has a limited number of ad's to show based on the number they've sold. So sometimes there just isn't an ad to show. This is referred to as fill rate, usually expresses as a percentage this tells you what percentage of requests to show an ad actually resulted in an ad being shown.

Not having 100% fill rates causes 2 issues. Firstly your not maximising your revenue as people are using your app but not seeing an ad. Secondly, unless you've designed for it, there's potentially an odd looking blank space in your app where an ad is meant to go.

There is a solution though, when an ad isn't received by the ad control it does at least fire an event to inform you that this has happened. You can either then do something to update your UI or show something else in its place like another ad control.

The second ad control I am using is AdDuplex. Unlike a traditional ad, this isn't going to pay me out any money. Instead its specifically for Windows Phone developers to promote there apps and works on a basis that if you show an ad, your ad will get shown on another app. For every 10 ads your app shows, 8 of yours will be shown on other apps. The remaining 2 ad spaces are used by AdDuplex to make there money. The benefit of this system is there is a 100% fill rate, so your ad space is used to its full potential.

Enough talk, show me the code

In the xaml mark-up I have a MS pubCenter ad control and an AdDuplex control along with the properties set to make them fit the layout of my page. Nothing special over what you would normally do here, other than the fact there's 2 controls on top of each other and the AdDuplex one is collapsed.

1<UI:AdControl Name="MSAdControl" ApplicationId="YOUR APP ID"
2   AdUnitId="YOUR AD UNIT ID" HorizontalAlignment="Left"
3   Height="80" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="480" BorderThickness="0" Grid.Row="0" />
4<adduplex:AdControl x:Name="AdDuplexAdControl"
5   AppId="YOUR APP ID" Visibility="Collapsed" />

In the code behind I'm setting up 2 event handlers on the MS pubCenter control for error occurred and ad refreshed.

The error occurred even will get fired when an Ad isn't loaded. In that instance I need to show the AdDuplex control. Having an event on the ad refreshed control also ensures that if an ad ever does manage to display the control will be shown again.

1public MainPage()
2: base()
3{
4InitializeComponent();
5MSAdControl.ErrorOccurred += MSAdControl_ErrorOccurred;
6MSAdControl.AdRefreshed += new EventHandler(MSAdControl_NewAd);
7}
8 
9void MSAdControl_ErrorOccurred(object sender, Microsoft.Advertising.AdErrorEventArgs e)
10{
11System.Windows.Deployment.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =&gt;
12{
13MSAdControl.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
14AdDuplexAdControl.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
15});
16}
17 
18void MSAdControl_NewAd(object sender, EventArgs e)
19{
20System.Windows.Deployment.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =&gt;
21{
22AdDuplexAdControl.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
23MSAdControl.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
24});
25}