Customizing windowsphone 8 calender control c#

Introduction

Firstly i would like to say very thanks to http://wpcontrols.codeplex.com/, here we can get calender control for windows phone,which is can support both windowsphone 7.1 and windowsphone 8 OS.I was really impressed by this open source custom control and i would like to say very thanks to making source code available in codeplex.It will be more helpful for developers to customize calender as per their requirement .By the way i want to share a few things about "How to customize this windowsphone calender control"

Source File at :WindowsPhone 8 Calender Control

Building the Sample

We need to download source code of windowsphone calender control from http://wpcontrols.codeplex.com/.Here there is an option for  downloading source code which can support both windows phone 7.1 & windowsphone 8.

Description

However this article can explain the way of easily  customizing  the "WindowsPhone calender control" with our reuirements.Here iam going to explain about 

1)How to set background image to windowsphone calender

2)Customized Next and Previous month buttons for calender

3)webservice responce data binding to windowsphone calender

4)How to display events with specific date color

5)Screenshots
6)WindowsPhone calender gestures

So lets start start with simple steps to making our requiremnts

1)How to set background image to windowsphone calender

One  ineresting of windowsphone calender is default with transferent background color.And so it is helpful more for developers to change bg colot of calender by put into grid background like this way,

XAML

<Grid x:Name="ContentPanel"  Grid.Row="1" Margin="12,0,12,101"> 
            <Grid.Background> 
                <ImageBrush Stretch="Fill" ImageSource="/shade_white (2).png"/> 
            </Grid.Background> 
            <Grid.RowDefinitions> 
                <RowDefinition Height="*"/> 
                <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> 
            </Grid.RowDefinitions> 
            <!--ColorConverter="{StaticResource ColorConverter}"--> 
            <wpControls:Calendar Grid.Row="0" 
                x:Name="Cal"  
                ColorConverter="{StaticResource ColorConverter}" 
                MonthChanged="Cal_MonthChanged" 
                MonthChanging="Cal_MonthChanging" 
                SelectionChanged="Cal_SelectionChanged" 
                DateClicked="Cal_DateClicked" 
                EnableGestures="False" StartingDayOfWeek="Monday" Margin="0,0,0,109" 
                /> 
            <!--<wpControls:Calendar  
                x:Name="Cal"/>--> 
            
 </Grid>

2)Customized Next and Previous month buttons for calender

One of the most important thing point of windowsphone is "Generic.xaml" page ,it is main head of every custom control in windowsphone ,or if you want to know more about "Generic.xaml" you may visit my favorite website is http://www.geekchamp.com/articles/creating-a-wp7-custom-control-in-7-steps

we can found this file under "WpControls=>Thems=>Generic.xaml" 

So,open that page and you may observed in this there is two buttons next/prev as names are x:Name="PreviousMonthButton" and x:Name="NextMonthButton" 

XAML

<Style TargetType="local:Calendar"> 
<Button  
                           Height="80" 
                            Width="80"  
                            Grid.Column="1" 
                            BorderThickness="0" 
                            x:Name="PreviousMonthButton"  
                            HorizontalAlignment="Right"  
                            VerticalAlignment="Center"  
                            Visibility="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource TemplatedParent}, Path=ShowNavigationButtons, Converter={StaticResource BooleanToVisibilityConverter}}"> 
                            <Button.Background> 
                                <ImageBrush Stretch="Fill" ImageSource="/backwrd_1.PNG"/> 
                            </Button.Background> 
                        </Button> 
                        <Button  
                            Height="80" 
                            Width="80"  
                            Grid.Column="2"  
                            BorderThickness="0" 
                            x:Name="NextMonthButton"  
                            HorizontalAlignment="Right"  
                            VerticalAlignment="Center"  
                            Visibility="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource TemplatedParent}, Path=ShowNavigationButtons, Converter={StaticResource BooleanToVisibilityConverter}}"> 
                            <Button.Background> 
                                <ImageBrush Stretch="Fill" ImageSource="/frwd_1.PNG"/> 
                            </Button.Background> 
                        </Button> 
</Setter>

3)Binding WebService responce data to windowsphone calender

Now days in most of requiremnt want to this feature in their apps,and so as developer we need to get responce data from webservice and finnaly need to map the list of events from calander.And it is little bit difficult to synchrounise webservice data with our calender,off cource wp calender makes it is as very simple by introducing the bellow class .However this is explaned more cleraly in next important heading.

C#

public class ColorConverter : IDateToBrushConverter 
    { 
}

4)How to display events with specific date color

 In step the 3 i had explaned about "ColorConverter.cs" class.It is more helpful for displaying events date with specific color broush ,here i was displayed the events with "yellow" color

Here iam statically taken the events on today dates of 2,11,21,30,so i hope you will check like this with webservice repsonce list of events data

Note:I just want giving the idea about changing the bg color of particular event date.

C#

using System; 
using System.Net; 
using System.Windows; 
using System.Windows.Controls; 
using System.Windows.Documents; 
using System.Windows.Ink; 
using System.Windows.Input; 
using System.Windows.Media; 
using System.Windows.Media.Animation; 
using System.Windows.Shapes; 
using WPControls; 
 
namespace WpControlsExample 
{ 
    public class ColorConverter : IDateToBrushConverter 
    { 
 
        public Brush Convert(DateTime dateTime, bool isSelected, Brush defaultValue, BrushType brushType) 
        { 
            if (brushType == BrushType.Background) 
            { 
                if (dateTime == new DateTime(DateTime.Today.Year, DateTime.Today.Month, 2) || dateTime == new DateTime(DateTime.Today.Year, DateTime.Today.Month, 11) || dateTime == new DateTime(DateTime.Today.Year, DateTime.Today.Month, 21) || dateTime == new DateTime(DateTime.Today.Year, DateTime.Today.Month, 30)) 
                { 
                    return new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Yellow); 
                } 
                else 
                { 
                    return defaultValue; 
                } 
            } 
            else 
            { 
                if (dateTime == new DateTime(DateTime.Today.Year, DateTime.Today.Month, 6)) 
                { 
                    return new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Cyan); 
                } 
                else 
                { 
                    return defaultValue; 
                } 
            } 
 
        } 
    } 
} 

5)ScreenShots of customized windowsphone 8 calender

5.1)Customized next/prev buttons

5.2)Customized  background image

5.3)Displaying events with yellow color 

6) windowsphone 8 calender gestures

However windowsphone calender provide gestures functionality.it is more helpful for user can flick on calender dates

6.1)Disable gesture from windowsphone calender

XAML

<wpControls:Calendar Grid.Row="0" 
                x:Name="Cal"  
                ColorConverter="{StaticResource ColorConverter}" 
                MonthChanged="Cal_MonthChanged" 
                MonthChanging="Cal_MonthChanging" 
                SelectionChanged="Cal_SelectionChanged" 
                DateClicked="Cal_DateClicked" 
                EnableGestures="False" StartingDayOfWeek="Monday" Margin="0,0,0,109" 
                />

6.2)Enabling gesture from windowsphone calender

XAML

<wpControls:Calendar Grid.Row="0" 
                x:Name="Cal"  
                ColorConverter="{StaticResource ColorConverter}" 
                MonthChanged="Cal_MonthChanged" 
                MonthChanging="Cal_MonthChanging" 
                SelectionChanged="Cal_SelectionChanged" 
                DateClicked="Cal_DateClicked" 
                EnableGestures="True" StartingDayOfWeek="Monday" Margin="0,0,0,109" 
                />

Source Code Files

You may get total knowledge of source file hierachy after downloading the source file what i had provided in this article.

More Information

Note: Don't be miss use of this code for security of mine,and i really thanks again to codeplex.com by sergey

Windows Phone tutorials for beginners key points


This section is included for only windows phone beginners.However this article can covers following questions.Off course these key words are more helpful for getting more best results about this topic in search engines like google/bing/yahoo.. 




1. How to customize calender control in windows phone 8 c#



2.How to display events dates in windowsphone calender




3.How to set background image to windowsphone calender




4. Previous and NextButton in windows phone 8 c#




5.WindowsPhone calender gestures enable/disable

Have a nice day by Subramanyam Raju