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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

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.

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.

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

In the previous Beta release you had to compare the RGB values of the background brush to determine if the theme was Light (White background) or Dark (Black background). Now there is an additional resource you can query:-

Visibility v = (Visibility)Resources["PhoneLightThemeVisibility"];

if (v == System.Windows.Visibility.Visible)

{

    ImageBrush ib = new ImageBrush();

    Uri u = new Uri("PanoramaBack2.png", UriKind.Relative);

    ib.ImageSource = new System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapImage(u);

    PanoramaControl.Background = ib;

}

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Any time you use a background image you can check the PhoneLightThemeVisibility resource and switch between different versions of the image to provide the best experience with either Black or White text.

Microsoft are running a series of development workshops across New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, Christchurch and Hamilton) over September and October. Full details are on Nigel’s blog along with sign-up links. Places are limited so register today!

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nigel/archive/2010/09/09/windows-phone-7-introductory-development-workshop.aspx

More proof (if really needed) that Microsoft is abandoning English and making up its own language:-

"We have noted your concern and we have given your feedback to our upstream."

From Microsoft Subscriptions Support (TechNet/MSDN)

The latest CTP release of Windows Phone 7 introduces a new managed library which exposes events you can monitor to catch changes in state in your application. The assembly is Microsoft.Phone.Execution.dll. This contains a WindowsPhoneEvents class which exposes two static methods – Pause and Resume. You can handle these events to detect when your application is dismissed and reactivated. This allows you to stop unnecessary processing and be a good citizen. I put together a simple example which shows how to pause a background thread based on these events and you can see the results by running it on the Emulator and switching to the home screen (Windows button) and returning to your application (Back button).

The sample uses a ManualResetEvent to block the background thread to avoid it consuming processor cycles while the app is paused.

Also in this assembly is the StreamPersister class. Unfortunately there is no documentation for this at the moment but an instance is passed in the Pause and Resume eventargs which will presumably allow you to safely persist state data which you can then load when your app is resumed. Hopefully there will be some official documentation on this to complete the picture.

Jamie Rodriguez has a post on the new capabilities security model in Windows Phone 7 which is introduced in the latest CTP release:-

http://blogs.msdn.com/jaimer/archive/2010/04/30/windows-phone-capabilities-security-model.aspx

It is interesting to read how this will be handled at runtime, here are the key facts:-

• If you try to use a feature and you didn’t specify the capability you’ll get an UnauthorizedAccessException when you first call that feature
• There is no API to check if you have been granted a specific capability
• The disclosure to the user will vary depending on the capability and marketplace – Either listed on the Marketplace page, a user prompt at purchase or a user prompt when the capability is about to be accessed.
• A new project created in the latest CTP will request all of the currently documented capabilities (you can remove those you don’t need later)
• There are other capabilities specific to OEMs and operators which are not documented
• The table of example features lists a few items yet to be shipped in the developer tools giving an interesting insight into what is still to come – Microsoft.Devices.Radio and Microsoft.Devices.MediaHistory