Following my review of the LG E900 handset we have the opportunity for one lucky winner to get a Windows Phone 7 of their own. All you need is a little creativity and this handset could be on its way to you!
Good luck!
Blog
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Localised Resources for Silverlight Toolkit Nov 2010
Due to the absence of a built-in DatePicker control many are using the Silverlight Toolkit which has a Silverlight implementation to match the control used in the native applications. One limitation in the current release is that the UI is only available in English. The day/month names are retrieved based on the device locale but the page header and text labels for buttons are always in English. I had a look at the code to implement a fix, interestingly I found that the strings were already stored in resource files, it’s just that there were no resources for other languages. I’ve submitted a set of .resx files to cover all the currently supported Windows Phone 7 languages so hopefully my patch will be integrated in a future release. I’ve also discovered that by creating my own localised resource dlls from the latest source I can use them against the current release binary. We are sharing these files for other developers who use these controls and write multi-language software for Windows Phone. To use these simply copy the contents of the ZIP file into the install folder for the November 2010 toolkit on your machine which will be somewhere similar to “C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft SDKsWindows Phonev7.0ToolkitNov10Bin”. As a bonus these resources also localise the On/Off text on the ToggleButton control.
If you’ve not attempted building a localised application before have a look at this article on MSDN – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff637520(v=VS.92).aspx. Mostly this involves standard RESX editing but for Windows Phone you have to make a minor edit to your project file with a text editor, hopefully this can be fixed in a Visual Studio Patch/Service Pack.
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LG E900 Review
I have had a fair bit experience with the test devices which were available prior to the release of Windows Phone 7 but this is my first experience with a commercial device. Therefore it seems inappropriate for me to try and compare this device with other hardware or even to look at the WP7 OS itself as I’m sure you are already familiar with the standard features. Instead I’ve looked at the hardware under real day-to-day usage and had a look at features which LG has added to the phone.
Hardware
The device measures 12.5cm tall by 6cm wide and is about 12mm thick. The hardware buttons and arrangement are pretty standard. The row of buttons below the screen for Back, Start and Search are very tactile and give good feedback in use rather than some devices where buttons are built into the glass of the screen. The Start button specifically is a raised Windows logo which makes it very easy to navigate by touch if for example you are worried about walking into a fountain while using it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg11glsBW4Y&feature=player_embedded).
The back cover is dark lacquered metal and the sides are plastic and are easy to grip. Connectivity is provided via a micro-USB port on the right-hand side and there is a headphone socket on the top of the device and a wired headset is included.
Screen
The screen is 3.8 inches, very bright and clear indoors and quite usable outdoors too. I’ve recently tried the Kindle reader application on the device and found it quite comfortable for a few short reading sessions.
Camera
The camera is marked as 5.0 mega-pixels. For a phone the results were quite good but don’t be under the impression that this is comparable with a similarly spec’d digital camera. I’ve found myself more inclined to use the camera for quick shots now that WP7 has a shortcut to launch the camera from a locked state using the hardware button. The device has a small mirror on the back to help you take a self-portrait if you so wish and an LED flash which can be turned on or off or used automatically. LG have implemented custom settings in the form of “Photo Smart Settings” accessible from the Camera app which allows you to change between a number of 4:3 or 16:9 widescreen resolutions and adjust the brightness and white balance settings. There is also a link to Panorama Shot which is a cool utility to help you stitch up to 5 images together into a panorama. It gives you a live overlay on the screen to show you where to position the camera for the next shot. The results were quite impressive and because you have the finished panorama on the phone you can upload it to Facebook or SkyDrive or send in an email using the Pictures hub.
Battery Life
I’m not a heavy user or Wi-Fi or cellular data most of the time, as such I found I only had to charge the phone every other day. Turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth most of the time keeps battery usage to a minimum. Perhaps I’m unnaturally frugal based on my experiences with other phones so your experience may differ.
LG Applications
The device ships with some LG specific applications. Tiles are installed on the Start screen for three of these – ScanSearch, PlayTo and Panorama Shot.
The app I was particularly interested in trying was PlayTo which allows you to output to a DLNA compliant screen. We have a TV with DLNA support but have never really taken advantage of it. When you first run the app it will search for a compatible device. It soon found our TV and connection worked. The TV may have additional settings or a process to ask for permission when you connect a new device. We then have the option of playing Music, Pictures or Videos. I tested a few tracks of music from my device. I have a mixture of MP3 and WMA files and I found the TV refused to play the WMA files but worked okay with MP3. The track name and album art were also transferred which I wasn’t expected and it looked impressive, you can use the controls on the phone to skip tracks as well. Photos worked well with a couple of galleries including photos taken on the device. You can browse a carousel of images on the device and select them to be sent to the TV. Videos were not so successful. First I tried playing a video clip captured on the device and it would not play. I suspect this is because the TV doesn’t support the codec used but it is a shame. I would assume that being able to show videos you have captured would be the main use for this functionality. I guess this is a limitation with DLNA devices at the moment.
ScanSearch is an augmented-reality application which searches for a number of categories of places in the local area (restaurants, banks etc) and overlays them on screen over the live camera view based upon the compass in the device. Personally I’d prefer to see results on a map but having the map turn as you turn the device would be quite clever. This is obviously an OEM specific feature as regular developers have no access to the compass and can only read the Course from the GPS data which will only be accurate when you are moving.
Alongside the pre-installed applications there is a special area within the Marketplace for LG specific applications. There they make available a number of other apps for free (often for a limited period) from system utilities to a golf caddy.
Issues Encountered
The device shipped was customised for Vodafone Germany and so it had some features specific to that network. Also it showed a feature that OEMs are able to add an additional accent colour which in the case of Vodafone is their corporate red.
Because the device was built for the German market the initial boot occurs in German but it can be changed to any of the other currently supported languages – English (US or UK), French, Italian and Spanish. I found that when set to English a number of third-party applications which support multiple languages in the Tile and Application Name were showing a name in German. I don’t know if this is an issue with Vodafone Germany’s customisations or something in WP7 itself…
Wi-Fi has been somewhat unreliable for me. When it connects it’s great but after a while it will fail to reconnect and only restarting the wireless hub and the device can get it to reconnect. I have seen this with other devices so I suspect it is my wireless hub rather than the phone which is to blame.
Conclusion
This has been a great day-to-day device, it has a good sized screen and is slim. I found the battery lasted long enough for my usage. I like the fact that devices are standardising on the micro-USB port so I can carry a few different devices and one USB charger. I found the intermittent Wi-Fi issues annoying but I suspect my wireless hub is at fault so will investigate changing it. The LG specific features such as PlayTo and Panorama Shot are valuable additions to the OS and well integrated.
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APPA Mundi Tasks 1.0 – Frequently Asked Questions
We’ve received a lot of great feedback for the Tasks application so I thought it would be useful to provide some frequently asked questions (and answers) here:-
How secure are my credentials, do you send them to your own server?
Your credentials are only used to communicate with your Exchange Server directly using the Exchange ActiveSync protocol just like your Email and Calendar applications. We don’t use any proxy servers or other mechanisms.
How do I know exactly what settings to enter?
You can look at the settings associated with your Outlook email account and enter them as they are displayed there. See this previous post for details:-
https://inthehand.com/2010/12/12/appa-mundi-tasks-your-exchange-server/
I’ve entered my settings the same as for my Email client, I can sync email but Tasks will not sync.
This will happen if your server uses a version prior to Exchange 2007. We don’t support servers older than Exchange 2007 due to the way the protocol is licensed. In our forthcoming v1.1 update we have added a specific error message to make this clearer if an older version is detected.
I used the trial successfully and purchased the full version and it only shows the small number of tasks I had with the trial and says synchronisation complete if I try and sync
When you upgrade the app should force a refresh of the sync relationship which will bring back the entire collection from the server. If this doesn’t happen you can manually force a refresh by tapping the Reset button on the Settings page
I used the full version and synchronised successfully and exited the app, now it won’t load again
We’ve seen this happen in a few cases and have prepared a v1.1 update to resolve this which will be available shortly.
I use a Vodafone Germany LG Optimus device set to English, the app shows as “Aufgaben” in the programs list
This appears to be a quirk with the specific device. The application itself runs in the correct language but the application name will show in German. For other languages on the same device (French, Spanish and Italian) the application name will appear as expected.
Sometimes I make changes to Tasks (e.g. Completed) or changes occur on synchronisation but the Active and Completed lists don’t update
This is a known issue and is resolved in the v1.1 release which should be available in Marketplace shortly
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APPA Mundi Tasks–Your Exchange Server
Below are some hints for setting up the Tasks application to synchronise with your Exchange Server:-
Exchange Server Settings
We have no way to use your settings already entered when setting up your Exchange Email account so it is necessary to enter these again. In order to setup synchronisation you’ll need your Username, Password, Domain (optional) and Server name. You’ll also need to know whether your server synchs over HTTPS (usually it does). Because Exchange Email supports an auto discovery process you rarely have to enter these full settings when setting up your email. Because also there can be a redirection process the actual server name can differ from what you first enter based on your Outlook Web Access address. The easiest way to get direct to the required settings is to look at the settings for your Exchange email account once it has been fully setup on the phone.
1. From the Start screen tap the –> to go to the programs list
2. Select “Settings”
3. Select “email & accounts”
4. Select your Exchange account e.g. “Outlook”
5. Scroll down and take note of your settings
6. If your login uses a domain it will be of the form “domainusername”
7. Make a note of the Server value – this is the address to the ActiveSync server
8. Note the value of the “Server requires encrypted (SSL) connection” box
Exchange Server Version
It is possible to determine the version of the Exchange Server you synchronise with by logging into your Outlook Web Access site and going to the Options page. In the list of Options screens you’ll see a version number e.g. 8.3. 8 represents Exchange 2007 with the .3 indicating the Service Pack 3 release. Exchange 2010 is version 14. The app supports Exchange 2007 and later.
Gmail
Although Gmail can be used as an ActiveSync server and the web interface exposes a Tasks list this is not exposed through ActiveSync so if you try to use this account and synchronise you’ll receive an error that the mailbox contains no Tasks folder.
Hotmail Tasks
Hotmail Tasks are not supported.
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32feet.NET User Guide now live on CodePlex
Today has been spent catching up on my To-Do list, though it still doesn’t look that way! I have however been able to make some progress with 32feet.
Alongside the class library documentation for the project there is a User Guide which provides an overview of the functionality and some example code snippets. Alan McFarlane created the documentation and it is an excellent starting point and Alan has continued to keep it up to date throughout each version of the library (currently up to 3.0 Beta). Up until now this has been distributed as a Word document with the install package but I have for some time been trying to integrate it into the Help file for the library. The help file is created with Sandcastle Help File Builder which supports adding in static content, but you have to provide the pages in Microsoft’s proprietary MAML format and I was never able to get the layout and appearance to look right and manually copying and pasting bits of documents was tedious. As a compromise I instead investigated the Documentation support on CodePlex. Each project hub is a Wiki and the mark-up required makes it very simple to put together the right structure and hyperlink between topics. Because all of the content is now part of the project Wiki it is also searchable – Type “Broadcom” into the search box and you can get straight to the relevant topics.
You can browse the User Guide at (now at GitHub)
https://github.com/inthehand/32feet/wiki
I also recommend you follow Alan’s 32feet.NET blog where he has posted some of the excellent work he has been doing to add support for further Bluetooth stacks to the project.
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Navigation Stack on Windows Phone 7
While Windows Phone uses the same NavigationService and page-based model as “regular” Silverlight, one area the documentation doesn’t make clear is that although the APIs seem to support both Back and Forward navigation in reality there is no forward navigation on Windows Phone. This means when you navigate to a new page and then return Back to the previous page you can’t call NavigationService.GoForward() to return. CanGoForward will always return False. In the documentation for System.Windows.Controls.Frame (the base class of PhoneApplicationFrame) GoForward is described as:-
“Navigates to the most recent entry in the forward navigation history, or throws an exception if no entry exists in forward navigation. For Windows Phone this method will always throw an exception because there is no forward navigation stack.”
(my use of bold)
And yet in NavigationService:-
“Navigates to the most recent entry in the forward navigation history, or throws an exception if no entry exists in forward navigation.”
It makes perfect sense because there is no mechanism to browse forward on the phone unless you add buttons/menus onto your pages manually of course, but the documentation doesn’t spell out this difference from “regular” Silverlight very clearly.
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Marketplace for Emulator
The Windows Phone 7 Emulator takes a fairly bare-bones approach having only Internet Explorer available by default. Because it’s easier when presenting to use the Emulator than to try and capture a device screen with a camera it would be nice to show off features of the platform as part of your demonstration – not just your own apps. We put together a simple XAP package to install a Marketplace client onto the emulator, this allows you to demonstrate the Marketplace experience (with live data) and even show your clients how their apps appear within Marketplace. You cannot download apps to the emulator as it will not allow you to sign in with a Live ID – this is provided purely for demonstration purposes.
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Windows Phone Tools Update
Microsoft have released an October update for the Windows Phone Development Tools. This release fixes gesture behaviour in the map control and adds two developer utilities – one to analyse your application to detect which capabilities it requires, the other to allow you to connect using your desktop without Zune running allowing you to use media features on the phone while debugging.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=49b9d0c5-6597-4313-912a-f0cca9c7d277
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Disable StoneStreet One Bluetooth Stack on Motorola Devices
Christian Helle has posted a registry setting on his blog which can be used to toggle the StoneStreet One Bluetooth stack off on Motorola (nee Symbol) rugged handheld devices. Their newer devices (ES400 and MC65) use the Microsoft stack by default.
http://christian-helle.blogspot.com/2010/10/motorola-dual-bluetooth-stack-support.html
Once you’ve made this change and soft-reset the device you can use the 32feet.NET library to work with Bluetooth from your .NET Compact Framework applications on these devices.
In The Hand Ltd 