Scaling Issue in Visual Studio - windows-phone-8

I freshly installed visual studio 2013 and started designing my app on XAML, but I am facing one problem.
Earlier when I used to design apps, I used to have a 480x800 area to work with but in this installation, I only have 400 x 640.
What I mean is that if
<Grid Height="800">
some code
</Grid>
Then it goes out of the screen but if I do like this
<Grid Height="640">
some code
</Grid>
Then it fits. How to change this?

You started creating a new Windows Phone 8.1 XAML based application & the scaling in the new 8.1 application is not same as that of in Windows Phone 8.0 Silverlight applications.
If you want to target Windows Phone 8 or 8.1 Silverlight application, that uses the same scaling principles of always having 480 width & 800 or 853 height then go to Visual Studio -> New Project -> Store Apps -> Windows Phone Apps -> Blank App (Windows Phone Silverlight).
Else if you want to target new Windows Phone 8.1 XAML based application then try referencing this tutorials Building Apps for Windows Phone 8.1.
Hope this helps.

Related

Deploying Windows Phone 8.1 app to Windows 10 Mobile

I've been developing a Windows Phone 8.1 app using C#/XAML. My configuration is up-to-date Windows 8.1 PC + Visual Studio 2013.
I can test my app on WP 8.1 emulator that comes with VS2013, and also no problem deploying it on physical Windows 8.1 device.
However the app also runs on Windows 10 Mobile because the platform currently allows it that way. Which is good except, my app doesn't work as intended since the device got Windows 10 Mobile Anniversary Update.
I don't know if the problem is in Windows or in my app but that's not important here.
I need to create a hotfix for the issue. And here comes the question. Is there a way to deploy WP 8.1 app to Windows 10 Mobile without submitting it to the store first, without upgrading to Windows 10, and preferably without upgrading to VS2015?
UPDATE The reason I want to deploy WP 8.1 app to Windows 10 Mobile is to test if my patch fixes the issue manifests with Windows 10 Mobile. At the moment I don't understand where is the problem and keep submitting the fix attempts to the store is not ideal.
Thanks.
Is there a way to deploy WP 8.1 app to Windows 10 Mobile without submitting it to the store first, without upgrading to Windows 10, and preferably without upgrading to VS2015?
Yes, it is possible to deploy WP8.1 app to the Windows 10 Mobile without submitting it to store and without upgrading to Windows 10 and without upgrading to VS2015. But you need to make sure you have the Windows 10 Mobile device for you to test.
If the Windows 10 Mobile device is in your side, you can unlock the Windows 10 Mobile device and deploy your app to the Windows 10 Mobile device by using the USB with the same method that you deploy it to the Windows Phone 8.1 Mobile device.
Or you can try to sideload your app on the Windows 10 Mobile device without submitting it to the store by using the Application Deployment tool. For more information, please try to refer to this article:How to deploy Windows Phone 8.1 apps with the Application Deployment tool.

Visual Studio support creation of Windows Phone 8.0

How do you make a Windows Phone 8.0 application with Visual Studio 2013?
Windows Phone 8.0 Project Template in VS2013.4
I've followed the above but when I hit next it automatically makes a 8.1 project. It prompted me once on if I wanted 8.0 or 8.1, but that prompt no longer appears.
EDIT: Creating a Blank App (Windows Phone) only creates an 8.1 app. Creating a Blank App (Windows Phone Silverlight) gives an option of 8.0 and 8.1.
What's going on?
I haven't tried this but I think you need to install the sdk for Windows 8 separately. You can side by side install multiple OS versions in your Visual Studio to have a look that how your app would respond in windows 8 environment.
You then also need the respective emulator image too.
After some googling i have found a link, I personally haven't tried this ever but I hope this would be useful.
Windows Phone SDK archives
This link contains the SDK for Windows 8 and 7.5 along with their respective emulator images.

Need to convert my Windows Phone 8.1 app code to Windows phone 8

I have developed an app for Windows Phone 8.1 but now I want the same app to developed in Windows phone 8.0. It is possible to do that? Is there any migration tool available or I need to develop from scratch.
No you can't downgrade any app after you've started developing. IF you wanted to develop a WP8 as you said have to start it from the scratch. But still you can upgrade a WP8 app to WP 8.1 (For Silverlight Apps). If it's normal WinRT app you can only develop targeting 8.1 only.
For more have a look here
Hope it helps!
You just compile the 8.0 release and upload the *:xap to the store without deleting your 8.1 *.appxupload.
Uppdate App >> Upload and describe your package(s) >> Add new
You might wanna consider making a phone 7 app for best coverage (7 will work for 8.0 users).

How can I port a Windows Phone 8 app to Windows Phone 8.1?

I've been working on a Windows Phone 8 app, which I now want to change to be Windows Phone 8.1. How can I do this?
Should I create a new Windows Phone 8.1 app and copy all my existing files into it? Or is there an automated way for me to upgrade the existing solution to 8.1?
There are two ways to do that:
like in comment - right click on oyour project and you should see Retarget to Windows Phone 8.1
or you can open Properties window of your project and the in dropdown box Target Windows Phone OS version you can choose Windows Phone 8.1
In every case the VS should ask if you are sure to do that - it's one-way operation, so it's worth to make a backup of your solution. As WP8.1 has backward compability, in most cases there shouldn't be any problems.
Some clarification for the followers:
As WP8.0 apps are Silverlight, after retargetting it will still be a Silverlight app but WP8.1 (some new features and enhancemens).
Thought, if you want to retarget to WP8.1 Runtime, it's a totally different thing - it's a different type of an app, different API and more. You will have to port it manually. Note that not all features from WP8.0 are yet available in WP8.1 Runtime - here is a good article about that.

Difference between Windows Phone project and Silverlight Windows Phone project in Visual Studio 2013

I recently updated my Visual Studio 2013 such now it allows to develop Windows Phone 8.1 applications.
But now, when I create a Windows Phone project, it is systematically for WP 8.1 and I can't change the target.
The only way I found in order to develop WP 8.0 apps it's to create Silverlight Windows Phone project.
Whence my question : What's the concrete difference between Windows Phone project and Silverlight Windows Phone projet in Visual Studio 2013 ?
Thanks for any answer
The Windows Phone project uses the Windows Runtime APIs. A lot of the Windows Runtime API introduced in Windows Phone 8 project is common to both Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8, making it easier to write once and share code between your apps on both platforms.
As expected the Windows Phone Silverlight project uses the Silverlight based APIs.