Page Transitions

This is a quick note on getting page transitions to work. Animation is a subtle but key feature of Windows Phone apps and I wanted to experiment with the process. It turned out to be pretty simple…

The Windows Phone Toolkit on Codeplex (http://silverlight.codeplex.com/releases/view/75888) provides some really useful components, one of which is called Transitions.

The toolkit is easy to install and is referenced in pages by adding this to the header:

xmlns:toolkit="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit"

In order to use it this XAML is added to the start of each page (just before the page layout)…

    <toolkit:TransitionService.NavigationInTransition>
        <toolkit:NavigationInTransition>
            <toolkit:NavigationInTransition.Backward>
                <toolkit:TurnstileTransition Mode="BackwardIn"/>
            </toolkit:NavigationInTransition.Backward>
            <toolkit:NavigationInTransition.Forward>
                <toolkit:TurnstileTransition Mode="ForwardIn"/>
            </toolkit:NavigationInTransition.Forward>
        </toolkit:NavigationInTransition>
    </toolkit:TransitionService.NavigationInTransition>
    <toolkit:TransitionService.NavigationOutTransition>
        <toolkit:NavigationOutTransition>
            <toolkit:NavigationOutTransition.Backward>
                <toolkit:TurnstileTransition Mode="BackwardOut"/>
            </toolkit:NavigationOutTransition.Backward>
            <toolkit:NavigationOutTransition.Forward>
                <toolkit:TurnstileTransition Mode="ForwardOut"/>
            </toolkit:NavigationOutTransition.Forward>
        </toolkit:NavigationOutTransition>
    </toolkit:TransitionService.NavigationOutTransition>

The XAML manages the animation of the page as it is entered and exited. The Mode attribute controls the animation style – in this case its called ‘Turnstyle’.

In order to make the process work the RootFrame style has to be changed in App.xmal.cs:

        private void InitializePhoneApplication()
        {
            if (phoneApplicationInitialized)
                return;

            // Create the frame but don't set it as RootVisual yet; this allows the splash
            // screen to remain active until the application is ready to render.
            //RootFrame = new PhoneApplicationFrame();
            RootFrame = new TransitionFrame();
            RootFrame.Navigated += CompleteInitializePhoneApplication;

            // Handle navigation failures
            RootFrame.NavigationFailed += RootFrame_NavigationFailed;

            // Ensure we don't initialize again
            phoneApplicationInitialized = true;
        }

That’s it!

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