Important news from the Windows Phone Developer Blog today with the announcement of the release of the new open source Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit (August 2011) add-on.
In addition to UI control components like toggle switches and page transitions, it includes several new features such as HubTile, a tool which let's you "add beautiful, informative, animated tiles to your application".
You can download the update via CodePlex here, or from NuGet here.
The full list of features is as follows:
In addition to UI control components like toggle switches and page transitions, it includes several new features such as HubTile, a tool which let's you "add beautiful, informative, animated tiles to your application".
You can download the update via CodePlex here, or from NuGet here.
The full list of features is as follows:
- LongListSelector has been rebuilt and redesigned to take advantage of the new smooth scrolling and off-thread touch input support in ‘Mango’. This is a buttery-smooth control for showing lists, including grouping and jump list support.
- MultiselectList control enables multiple selection for easily working with lists of data, similar to the Mail app’s capability.
- LockablePivot adds a special mode to the Pivot control where only the current item is shown (often used with multiple selection).
- ExpanderView is a primitive items control that can be used for expanding and collapsing items (like the threaded views in the Mail app).
- HubTile lets you add beautiful, informative, animated tiles to your application, similar to the new People groups in ‘Mango’.
- ContextMenu control has been reworked: performance improvements and visual consistency fixes.
- ListPicker now supports multiple selection.
- RecurringDaysPicker lets your users select a day of the week.
- Date & Time Converters localized to 22 languages. The converters let developers easily display date and time in the user interface in one of the many styles found throughout the phone’s UI, from a short date like ‘7/19’ to relative times like ‘about a month ago’.
- Page Transitions have improved performance for a more responsive feel.
- PhoneTextBox is an early look at an enhanced text box with action icon support, watermarking, etc.
- All error messages and interface elements have been localized to all of the supported languages, making for a great experience for users around the world
Overall this is excellent news for the application developers community that provides ample time and opportunity to improve the already impressive and rapidly growing selection of apps for Windows Phone 7 before the the launch of the 'Mango' software update.
