Solving Circular Navigation in Silverlight for Window Phone

This article explains how to resolve circular navigation problem that may occurs in the navigation between pages in Silverlight for Windows Phone.

Article Metadata

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Tested with

Devices(s): Nokia Lumia 710

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Compatibility

Platform(s): Windows Phone 7.5

Dependencies: NonLinear Navigation Services

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Article

Keywords: Circular Navigation, Silverlight for Windows Phone, NonLinear Navigation Services

Translated:

From Mengatasi Circular Navigation pada Silverlight for Window Phone

By Jeffrey.Halimsetiawan

Last edited: Jeffrey.Halimsetiawan (28 Sep 2012)

Introduction

In the Silverlight for Windows Phone application model which is using several pages as its element, almost all applications consist of the various pages and the user has the right to navigate back. For each application, Windows Phone also keeps back-stack of pages which is a history of the pages that have been visited by the user. With such mechanism, developers are often faced with a situation where the application has a loop on page navigation.

Loop on the back-stack from the application navigation means there is duplication of the same page in the application back-stack. For example, the illustration can be seen in game Petualangan Aksara di Tanah Jawa below:

Another example, when you create registration wizard, it requires a lot of inputs so it consists of several pages. If we use NavigationServices.Navigate() method to return to the MainPage then we will return to the GamePage when we press the 'Back' button. In fact, the expected response is out of the application.

The solution to overcome this problem is to use a NonLinear Navigation Services library developed by Windows Phone Recipes.

Procedure

The steps which must be done are quite easy, as follow:

1. Download NonLinear Navigation Services
2. Add NonLinearNavigationServices project in the Solution which has been created.
3. Initialize the service at the end of class constructor whose class is the inheritance of Application class.

   NonLinearNavigationService.Instance.Initialize (RootFrame);

Summary

With NonLinear Navigation Services, developer will be easier to develop applications because they do not need to waste a lot of time thinking about the navigation management of the application.

Good luck!

Reference

Kiriaty, Yochay. 2010. Solving Circular Navigation in Windows Phone Silverlight Applications.