Advanced MessageBox for Windows Phone

Comments

R2d2rigo - Wiki competition template

You marked this article as an internal wiki competition, but not the other you published. Please correct the wrong one.

r2d2rigo 03:06, 4 December 2012 (EET)

Chintandave er - Thanks and Sub-edited!

Hi, Thanks for this article.

I have sub-edited this article. Also I changed the article title. Also I have corrected contest template as it was for internal employee and I think you are not employee of Nokia or MS. Still let me know if I am wrong.

Have some suggestions for you. Please follow this suggestions and correct those in your articles.

• Use Code template e.g. <code>your code</code>
• In article, if there is any class/function used, You should apply {{Icode|ClassOrFunction}} template to it.
• Give reference link to the API word if any.
• If there is any page name (e.g. mainpage.xaml) make it bold.
• If you have source code of demo app, you can upload it and link it here. For this article if you dont have then it OK.

You might want to check out wiki help articles Help:Formatting and Help:Wiki Article Review Checklist.

Regards

Chintan Dave

Chintandave er 07:21, 4 December 2012 (EET)

Yan -

You can access XNA framework in a WP8 project??

yan_ 14:22, 4 December 2012 (EET)

R2d2rigo - XNA in WP8

Yes you can, yan_, but only to some namespaces. You can't make full-XNA games for WP8.

r2d2rigo 12:23, 5 December 2012 (EET)

Yan -

Bur is it not deprecated to use XNA in a WP8 application?

yan_ 10:59, 6 December 2012 (EET)

R2d2rigo - You can only use some namespaces

Here is the list of allowed ones: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj207003(v=vs.105).aspx

r2d2rigo 16:10, 6 December 2012 (EET)

Yan -

thanks

yan_ 17:23, 6 December 2012 (EET)

Hamishwillee - Subedit/Review

Hi Rudy/All

I have given this a basic subedit for wiki style and added a "tip" with the above link on supported XNA namespaces.

Rudy, I like this article. It could be improved by providing references to the classes and guide on the standard message box, and by explaining what the standard box offers (buttons, text, icon) so it is clear what is the delta that your advanced approach offers. As it is now, you state that the new box is better but it isn't clear why. If it were me I'd have a "old" and "new" image next to each other.

It would also be excellent to have a downloadable app where we could try launching both the standard box and your one.

In terms of the competition, this looks like it isn't really a WP8 feature - correct? Which means that it isn't necessarily exactly what we wanted. It is however excellent material for the wiki (expecially with that example code)

Regards

Hamish

hamishwillee 06:41, 12 December 2012 (EET)

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This article shows how to create a customised messagebox: asynchronous, custom button, no beep, etc.

Article Metadata

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Tested with

SDK: 7.1, 8.0

Devices(s): Nokia Lumia 820,Nokia Lumia 920

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Compatibility

Platform(s): Windows Phone

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Article

Keywords: MessageBox

Created: rudyhuyn (03 Dec 2012)

Last edited: hamishwillee (10 Apr 2013)

Introduction

The standard phone message boxes is very easy to use, and is created with just a single line:

Message.Show("Hello!");

But these message boxes aren't easy to customize.

We will learn in this article how to :

• create an asynchronous native message box
• customize buttons
• remove beep

Accessing advanced features through XNA

There is a way to access advanced features of the native messageBox through one back door using XNA.

Tip: You can access XNA framework in a Windows Phone 8 project, but only for some namespaces (you can't make full-XNA games for Windows Phone 8). The list of allowed namespaces is in XNA Framework and Windows Phone 8 development.

If you look at the Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GameServices assembly, you will notice that the Guide object has the following methods :

BeginShowMessageBox() method displays a native and asynchronously messagebox with parameters:

• title: Title of the message box
• text: text to be displayed in the message box
• buttons: Legends associated with the buttons on the message box. The maximum number of buttons is two.
• focusButton: 0-based index that defines the button highlighted.
• icon: Type icon in the message box.
• callback: method to call when the asynchronous operation is complete.
• STATE: The unique user-created that identifies this request.

Title and text match mutually the Silverlight parameters caption and messageboxtext of Silverlight.

One difference here: the text can not exceed 256 characters, otherwise an exception is thrown.

Customize buttons

Buttons is here much more advanced than our Silverlight MessageBox, we can specify the button text, for example, we can modify the "ok" and "cancel" text like that :

 Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices.Guide.BeginShowMessageBox(
 "Quizz",
 "What is your favorite Windows Phone?",
 new string[] { "Nokia Lumia 820", "Nokia Lumia 920" },
 0,
 Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices.MessageBoxIcon.Alert,
 null,
 null);

This offers us a lot of new possibilities, but take care to localize your buttons.

How to make synchronous messagebox?

Be able to launch a asynchronous dialog is pretty cool, but in most cases, we expect it to be synchronous. In order to do this, simply retrieve the result of the asynchronous call and wait for its execution.

 IAsyncResult result = Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices.Guide.BeginShowMessageBox(
  "Quizz",
  "What is your favorite Windows Phone?",
  new string[] { "Nokia Lumia 820", "Nokia Lumia 920" },
  0,
  Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices.MessageBoxIcon.None,
  null,
  null);
 
result.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne();

We have now a native, synchronous and customizable message box !

Test result of the dialog

If you want to test the result of your dialog box to know which button has been clicked, simply call the method EndShowMessageBox:

 int? choice = Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices.Guide.EndShowMessageBox(result);
 if(choice.HasValue)
 {
   if(choice.Value==0)
   {
     //user clicks the first button
   }
 }

How to remove the messagebox sound?

To remove the beep or the vibration, just change the icon... It's not logical, but that's how it works.

XNA is a common platform between Windows, Xbox and Windows Phone. On windows, we are used to display icons like 'warning', 'alert', etc. on the left of the dialog box but this isn't ideal for mobile screen. The distinction between a normal dialog and a warning/alert dialog box is therefore the sound / vibration. To remove the sound, we just have to set the type to None.

 Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices.Guide.BeginShowMessageBox(
  "Quizz",
  "What is your favorite Windows Phone?",
  new string[] { "Nokia Lumia 820", "Nokia Lumia 920" },
  0,
  Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices.MessageBoxIcon.None,
  null,
  null);

No sound will be launch.

Conclusion

• Add reference Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GameServices (not necessary with Windows Phone 8 project)
• Write the following code:

   IAsyncResult result = Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices.Guide.BeginShowMessageBox(
    "Quizz",
    "What is your favorite Windows Phone?",
    new string[] { "Nokia Lumia 820", "Nokia Lumia 920" },
    0,
    Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices.MessageBoxIcon.None,
    null,
    null);
   
  result.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne();
   
  int? choice = Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices.Guide.EndShowMessageBox(result);
   if(choice.HasValue)
   {
   if(choice.Value==0)
   {
   //User clicks on the first button
   }
   }