News · 11 Aug 2010 · MTW Editorial Team
If you are still waiting for the release of the official Windows Phone 7 Panorama and Pivot controls you can now check out Microsoft’s Jeff Wilcox preview of the what we can expect to see in the next SDK update (end of August).
Key Features:
Both of the controls are lightweight enough to have great performance, while visually engaging and responsive to touch. Some features:– Simple XAML and application programming interfaces
– Standard items controls that feels natural to developers, individual items are built from PanoramaItem and PivotItem content controls
– Complete data binding support, content template properties and item container styles
– Automatic support for light and dark phone themes
– Built-in touch navigation: flicks move quickly, while panning past a threshold and releasing the touch will snap to the next item
– Beautiful easing animations for sliding during navigation
– Extensibility offered through events, visual states, and the ability to re-template
– Great tooling comes standard, including app and page templates
So, do they actually differ from the non-official ones currently available? Well not very much but they are now super easy to use. It just 2 clicks you can now add a Panorama or Pivot page to your application in Visual Studio or Expression Blend.
The same applies when adding a PanoramItem: just right-click to add one:
The code behind the controls is fairly similar to what is available in Stephane Cozatier’s controls (on codeplex) and the APIs used are also nearly identical so you shouldn’t have much trouble migrating to the official ones once they are released. But you can expect a migration guide from Microsoft when they finally arrive according to Jeff.
Source: Jeff Wilcox
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