Windows 8 style tile menu

Responsive (to window resizing) design with animation on the tiles.

Online demo:  http://stevenhollidge.com/blog-source-code/win8menu/index.html

Thanks to:

http://mrbool.com/creating-a-metro-style-menu-in-html-and-css/26266

https://github.com/tholman/tileJs

Windows Store App Example: Itinerary Hunter

Source: https://github.com/stevenh77/ItineraryHunter-Win8

Using KONA as a framework, you can think of KONA as the Windows 8 equivalent of PRISM, I have created a Windows Store App for Itinerary Hunter.

The solution features distinct projects for UI views, UI logic (view models, converters, etc), services and tests.  Interfaces are used throughout to enable mocking for unit tests.

Here’s some screenshots of the app.

Splash screen

Main screen (itineraries grouped by travel categories)

Semantic Zoom (grouped by travel categories)

Beach

Beach category selected, now the sub categories are available

Tour du Mont Blanc itinerary selected

ApplicationData.Current.TemporaryFolder for Windows Store App

Where is it?  It’s here:

C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Packages\{package-guid}\TempState

Hope this helps someone out!

How to change Splash Screen colour Windows Store App

It’s hidden in the Package.appxmanifest file, scroll down and select Splash Screen (on the left hand side).

Building Win8Mail app

win8mail from Steven Hollidge on Vimeo.

How to switch to Light theme for Windows8 apps

<Application x:Class="win8mail.App"
             xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
             xmlns:local="using:win8mail"
             xmlns:localData="using:win8mail.Data"
             RequestedTheme="Light">

    <Application.Resources>
        <ResourceDictionary>
            <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>

                <!-- 
                    Styles that define common aspects of the platform look and feel
                    Required by Visual Studio project and item templates
                 -->
                <ResourceDictionary Source="Common/StandardStyles.xaml"/>
            </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>

            <!-- Application-specific resources -->

            <x:String x:Key="AppName">win8mail</x:String>
        </ResourceDictionary>
    </Application.Resources>
</Application>

Xaml in Windows 8

Some interesting developments in the investigations of the Windows 8 Milestone 3 build.

It would appear Jupiter, the next gen WPF/SL xaml language will sit on top of DirectUI, which will render your output (windows, borders, labels, graphics etc) to the screen.

I’m sure they’ll be plenty of rumours and leaks leading up to Build in September but for now it looks like a message of long live Xaml!

Windows 8… it’s coming!