Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Faster! - WriteableBitmapEx for Windows Phone 8 and WinRT Updated

The Windows Phone 8 SDK is now available and with that WriteableBitmapEx was updated too. The performance of the WinRT XAML version was also improved dramatically and an update is highly recommended.
WriteableBitmapEx is available for 4 platforms: Windows Phone 8 and 7, WPF, Silverlight and Windows Store WinRT .NET XAML.
You can download the binaries here or via the NuGet packageThe packages contain the WriteableBitmapEx binaries. As usual all samples and the source code can be found in the repository.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Know Your Users - Windows 8 Store App System Info

This is just a quick a post to provide a little class for Windows 8 Store app development. The SystemInformation class gathers some useful information about the current system and can dump those as a string. I usually have such a class for all the platforms I work on and it's very helpful for logging and error analysis, but it also serves as a list of all available system information which are scattered in different APIs. The info can also be used to dynamically adapt the app, etc.

Here's the code I have so far, you can also download the complete class here.

public static async Task Dump(bool shouldDumpCompleteDeviceInfos = false)
{
   var builder = new StringBuilder();
   var packageId = Windows.ApplicationModel.Package.Current.Id;
   var clientDeviceInformation = new EasClientDeviceInformation();
    
   // Get hardware Id
   var token = HardwareIdentification.GetPackageSpecificToken(null);
   var stream = token.Id.AsStream();
   string hardwareId;
   using (var reader = new BinaryReader(stream))
   {
      var bytes = reader.ReadBytes((int)stream.Length);
      hardwareId = BitConverter.ToString(bytes);
   }

   builder.AppendLine("***** System Infos *****");
   builder.AppendLine();
#if DEBUG
   builder.AppendLine("DEBUG");
   builder.AppendLine();
#endif
   builder.AppendFormat("Time: {0}", DateTime.Now.ToUniversalTime().ToString("r"));
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("App Name: {0}", packageId.Name);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("App Version: {0}.{1}.{2}.{3}", packageId.Version.Major, packageId.Version.Minor, packageId.Version.Build, packageId.Version.Revision);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("App Publisher: {0}", packageId.Publisher);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Supported Package Architecture: {0}", packageId.Architecture);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Installed Location: {0}", Windows.ApplicationModel.Package.Current.InstalledLocation.Path);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Store App Id: {0}", CurrentApp.AppId);
   builder.AppendLine();
   if (CurrentApp.LicenseInformation.IsActive)
   {
      var listingInformation = await CurrentApp.LoadListingInformationAsync();
      builder.AppendFormat("Store Current Market: {0}", listingInformation.CurrentMarket);
      builder.AppendLine();
   }
   builder.AppendFormat("Culture: {0}", CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("OS: {0}", clientDeviceInformation.OperatingSystem);
   builder.AppendLine(); 
   builder.AppendFormat("System Manufacturer: {0}", clientDeviceInformation.SystemManufacturer);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("System Product Name: {0}", clientDeviceInformation.SystemProductName);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("System Sku: {0}", clientDeviceInformation.SystemSku);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("System Name: {0}", clientDeviceInformation.FriendlyName);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("System ID: {0}", clientDeviceInformation.Id);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Hardware ID: {0}", hardwareId);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("User Display Name: {0}", await UserInformation.GetDisplayNameAsync());
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Window Bounds w x h: {0} x {1}", Window.Current.Bounds.Width, Window.Current.Bounds.Height);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Current Orientation: {0}", DisplayProperties.CurrentOrientation);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Native Orientation: {0}", DisplayProperties.NativeOrientation);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Logical DPI: {0}", DisplayProperties.LogicalDpi);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Resolution Scale: {0}", DisplayProperties.ResolutionScale);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Is Stereo Enabled: {0}", DisplayProperties.StereoEnabled);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Supports Keyboard: {0}", IsKeyboardPresent());
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Supports Mouse: {0}", IsMousePresent());
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Supports Touch (contacts): {0} ({1})", IsTouchPresent(), new TouchCapabilities().Contacts);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Is Network Available: {0}", NetworkInterface.GetIsNetworkAvailable());
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Is Internet Connection Available: {0}", NetworkInformation.GetInternetConnectionProfile() != null);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Network Host Names: ");
   foreach (var hostName in NetworkInformation.GetHostNames())
   {
      builder.AppendFormat("{0} ({1}), ", hostName.DisplayName, hostName.Type);
   }
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("Current Memory Usage: {0:f3} MB", GC.GetTotalMemory(false) / 1024f / 1024f);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("App Temp  Folder: {0}", ApplicationData.Current.TemporaryFolder.Path);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("App Local Folder: {0}", ApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder.Path);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendFormat("App Roam  Folder: {0}", ApplicationData.Current.RoamingFolder.Path);
   builder.AppendLine();
   builder.AppendLine();

   if (shouldDumpCompleteDeviceInfos)
   {
      var devInfos = await DeviceInformation.FindAllAsync();
      builder.AppendLine();
      builder.AppendLine("Complete Device Infos:");
      foreach (var devInfo in devInfos)
      {
         builder.AppendFormat("Name: {0} Id: {1} - Properties: ", devInfo.Name, devInfo.Id);
         foreach (var pair in devInfo.Properties)
         {
            builder.AppendFormat("{0} = {1}, ", pair.Key, pair.Value);
         }
         builder.AppendLine();
      }
   }

   return builder.ToString();
}

public static bool IsTouchPresent()
{
 return new TouchCapabilities().TouchPresent == 1;
}

public static bool IsMousePresent()
{
 return new MouseCapabilities().MousePresent == 1;
}

public static bool IsKeyboardPresent()
{
 return new KeyboardCapabilities().KeyboardPresent == 1;
}


On my system it provides the following info (anonymized):
***** System Infos *****

DEBUG

Time: Sun, 28 Oct 2012 07:51:11 GMT
App Name: MyApp
App Version: 1.0.0.5
App Publisher: CN=A8E2F0B1-4749-48AE-AE18-C7FFB5B30272
Supported Package Architecture: Neutral
Installed Location: D:\Development\MyApp\bin\Debug\AppX
Store App Id: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Culture: en-US
OS: WINDOWS
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Product Name: Precision M6600
System Sku: 
System Name: MYLAPTOP
System ID: 18a2e8c6-cc7d-8546-1e9e-56a12ffb32fd
Hardware ID: 03-00-D2-41-03-00-AA-72-08-00-EF-AD-05-AA-B6-4F-06-00-01-01-04-00-31-1B-04-00-0C-48-04-00-D2-55-04-00-D3-66-01-00-0E-D6-02-00-E4-7F-09-00-56-47
User Display Name: Rene Schulte
Window Bounds w x h: 1920 x 1080
Current Orientation: Landscape
Native Orientation: Landscape
Logical DPI: 96
Resolution Scale: Scale100Percent
Is Stereo Enabled: False
Supports Keyboard: True
Supports Mouse: True
Supports Touch (contacts): False (0)
Is Network Available: True
Is Internet Connection Available: True
Network Host Names: mylaptop (DomainName), mylaptop.local (DomainName), 169.254.85.85 (Ipv4), 192.168.2.148 (Ipv4), 
Current Memory Usage: 0.451 MB
App Temp  Folder: C:\Users\Rene\AppData\Local\Packages\MyApp\TempState
App Local Folder: C:\Users\Rene\AppData\Local\Packages\MyApp\LocalState
App Roam  Folder: C:\Users\Rene\AppData\Local\Packages\MyApp\RoamingState

If you know more system information Windows 8 APIs that listing is missing, please add a comment.