While the introduction of Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 has done a lot to clean up the look of apps, Windows Phone still allows you to give your phone a light theme which can make your app look weird. This requires you to do additional testing for your apps and optionally hard code colors for some elements on the screen.

In 2013, I described how to force a dark theme on Windows Phone silverlight apps, but things have changed when it comes to the newer universal apps.

The ApplicationBar has been replaced by the CommandBar, and is fortunately rather easy to theme in XAML. The following code will force your CommandBar into a dark theme.

<CommandBar Background="#1F1F1F" Foreground="White">
</CommandBar>

By default the Slider control that Microsoft provides for Windows Phone Silverlight applications is missing some key properties such as the IsSnapToTickEnabled property. However this can be recreated in code to give Windows Phone apps the same functionality.

First the XAML…

<Slider x:Name="slider" Width="450" ValueChanged="Slider_ValueChanged" Minimum="0" Maximum="10" SmallChange="1"/>

Then in C#…

public void Slider_ValueChanged(object sender, RoutedPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
        try
        {
            int newValue = (int)e.NewValue;
            slider.Value = newValue;

            //code goes here, using newValue
            //as the slider's value...
        }
        catch (Exception) { }
}

Unlike with most platforms, TextBox controls in Windows 8 metro apps default to a lowercase keyboard instead of assuming that the first word of a sentence should be capitalized. This can be frustrating for users of virtual keyboards who would rather use less keystrokes and let the OS take care of basic formatting. The fix for this is non-obvious, but fortunately quite simple. The solution consists of making sure that spell check is enabled for the TextBox.

This can be done either in XAML with

<TextBox IsSpellCheckEnabled="True" />

or in C# with

TextBox tb = new TextBox();
tb.IsSpellCheckEnabled = true;

With WindowsRT Microsoft has made a bit of an odd platform that only accepts apps from the Windows store and does not provide a simple way to install any custom built apps. The easiest way to sideload an app onto a WindowsRT tablet is to set it up as a developer test device. Unfortunately this does require you to be able to log-in to a Microsoft developer account. Not only is this account not free, but you will be required to reconfirm your credentials every three months. Still this is far easier then the other options to sideload onto WindowsRT.

Step one:

First you need to find the Windows PowerShell app open it using the “Run as administrator” option. Then confirm yes at the UAC prompt. Open the keyboard to type Show-WindowsDeveloperLicenseRegistration and hit enter. Then agree to the prompt, and then log-in to your developer account.

Step two:

In Visual Studio create a Windows Store app in the same manner you would as if you were planning on releasing the app to the store. However once the executable is generated in the AppPackages folder, instead of uploading the .appxupload file find the similarly named test folder and transfer this whole folder onto your WindowsRT device. For WindowsRT devices without support for USB drives this is a challenge all on its own, where the best solution may be to email yourself a .zip file.

Step three:

Now with the folder on your WindowsRT tablet find the Add-AppDevPackage.ps1 file, touch and hold to bring up the right-click menu and select “Run with PowerShell”. Confirm that you do in fact want to open the file, and then follow the multiple prompts within PowerShell. Eventually the app will load and you will be able to run the app as if you had installed it from the app store.