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PhoneKit Framework for Windows Phone 8 (Silverlight)

The PhoneKit Framework is a development acceleration library for Windows Phone 8 Silverlight based projects. It is a collection of helper classes to simplify the development of mobile apps.

Overview of all helper classes

The following list gives a short overview and a description about every included helper class, seperated by each module. The framework and all modules are separated in two project, namely PhoneKit.Framework.Core and PhoneKit.Framework. The reason for this is that a specific subset of classes cannot be used within a background task. For this reason, all backgrond task and shared projects only reference the Core project, while the app-project references both projects of the framework.

Advertising

• User controls to simplify the use of ad-constrols
• It offers implementations for Microsoft Advertising with AdDuplex fallback, Google DoubleClick, as well as offline advertisment using local or hosted images

Audo

• Helper class to play simple sound effects

Collections

• Classes that can be used to implement a grouped ListView
• List extions methods, e.g. to shuffle a list

Controls

• Reusable controls, such as for the about page, data backup using OneDrive, in-app store, etc.

Conversion

• Commonly used converter classes, that can be used in XAML
• Examples: BooleanToVisiblityConverter, BooleanNegationConverter, ToUpperCaseConverter, ...

Graphics

• Offers a robust picture implementation, which wraps the Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media.Picture implementation to ensure proper orientation on all devices
• Classes to render images from a given user control. This enables the ability to create an amazing Live Tile experience!

InAppPurchase

• Helper class to handle the IAPs, such as product activation, product listing, etc.

LockScreen

• Helper class to simplify lock screen functionality

MVVM

• Provides a base class for view models
• Offers a tiny delegate command implementation

Net

• Helper class to check the internet and WiFi availability
• Helper class to manage long running downloads

OS

• Offers OS and device and display information
• Classes that enable device capabilities, such as vibration or gestures

Storage

• Helper classes for state storage, that it only persistent during the lifetime of the app including tombstoning
• Helper class to use OneDrive
• Simplifies the read and write access to files
• Offers an easy to use persistent variable implementation for app settings

Support

• Fedback and error logging mechanisms
• Helper class that triggers action after a specified number of app launches

Tasks

• Helper functions to manage background tasks

Theming

• Offers helper classes to change the global app's theme color in code

Tile

• Helper classes to pin and update Live Tiles

Voice

• Helper class to use recognizer and synthesis functionality