Arik Poznanski's Blog : CodePlex, Windows 7

Using Windows Phone As Windows 7 Accelerometer Sensor

arik — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:54:20 GMT

I just had a cool idea! (actually I had it like 6 month ago, but bear with me).

My idea involves mixing some of the features in Windows 7 with some of the features in Windows Phone 7, to create a glorious mix!

Windows 7

One of the new features in Windows 7 is the Sensor API which provides a standard interface for accessing sensors of various types, like accelerometer, etc..

I wrote in the past about how you can consume this API from a C# application using Windows API Code Pack.

Windows Phone 7

Windows Phone 7 comes with a few sensors out of the box, among them: accelerometer!

Idea

What if we use Windows Phone 7 accelerometer sensor as a standard device on Windows 7?

Roadmap

So how can we accomplish that? let's break the idea to steps:

Step 1: Create a software driver

I’ll start with creating a dummy software driver. This driver will implement what's necessary to be a standard Windows 7 Accelerometer sensor, but at this stage will simply return constant data.

In order to write a sensor driver for Windows 7 I’ll need to use User Mode Driver Framework (UMDF), a COM-like, C++ framework for writing user-mode drivers in Windows 7.

Step 2: Transfer Windows Phone 7 sensor data into the PC

The next step is to find a way to transfer the accelerometer data from a Windows Phone device into the PC. One possible way of doing this implementing a local WCF service on the desktop that the Phone will keep calling with accelerometer data. This will require an application to run on the phone to keep the data flowing.

Step 3: Consume the WCF service from the phone

Using the service from the previous step we can now consume it in a simple Windows Phone application that all it does is getting the accelerometer sensor data using the phone API and call the WCF service with the latest data.

Step 4: Make the software driver consume the Windows Phone 7 data

Now that I have a software driver that returns dummy accelerometer data and a way to get real accelerometer data from the Windows Phone, all I need to do is connecting the dots and make my accelerometer driver return the real data. To do this I'll need some kind of inter process communication to transfer the data from the WCF service to the driver.

Long Story Short…

I present to you the Windows Phone Accelerometer Driver for Windows 7!

The full source code for this project can be found on the CodePlex project site.

Some Implementation Details

The actual driver was fairly easy to implement since I used the CodeProject article "Writing a Sensor Driver for the Wiimote on Windows 7" by Rajasekharan Vengalil as a base for my Windows Phone 7 driver. You can find the driver source code in the project named WP7AccelerometerDriver.

As mentioned earlier I've implemented a simple local WCF service for transferring the accelerometer data from the phone to the driver. You can find the service source code in the project named WP7AccelerometerService. The service uses named pipes to communicate with the driver.

The phone application is a very simple one that consumes the WCF service and call it whenever a new accelerometer value is available. You can find its source code in the project named WP7AccelerometerClient.

Finally, if you want to check the functionality of the accelerometer driver you can use either the SensorDiagnostics project or the more fun PlaneDemo project, which I borrowed for Sergey Zwezdin blog.

How to Install?

1. Download and extract project binaries or source from the CodePlex project site.

2. Open CMD as administrator

3. Go to the folder \Driver\Install\

4. According to the bitness of your OS Run install_wp7_driver_32bit.bat or install_wp7_driver_64bit.bat to install the driver.

5. When the following notification appears, select "Install this driver software anyway":

This should take around 1-2 minutes to complete.

6. Enable installed Sensor in the Control Panel

7. Run the WCF service from as administrator. If you run it from Visual Studio, make sure you ran Visual Studio as administrator.

8. Run the Windows Phone client on a real device while connected to the PC and enter your PC (LAN) IP

9. That's it! you can now sit back and enjoy the ride using the PlaneDemo application or SensorDiagnostics, or any other software that uses the accelerometer sensor.

How to Uninstall?

If you want to uninstall the driver simply go to the Device Manager, select the "WP7 Accelerometer Sensor" device from the Sensors category, select uninstall from the context menu and make sure you mark the checkbox to delete the driver.

Final Note

I've seen the project works both on a real device and using the phone emulator, however it's not a one-click install. I expect users to have problems with the installation. If you encounter some problems, please post on the CodePlex project site forum page and I'll do my best to help.

Also, if you want to improve the source code (maybe adding GPS support?) or the installation procedure, I'll be happy to include your improvements and even include you as one of the project members on CodePlex.

This project was pure fun since it combines many useful technologies to create real value. Among the technologies you can find: C++, COM, UMDF, C#, WCF, WP7, etc..

That's it for now,
Arik Poznanski.

Windows Ribbon for WinForms: FAQ

arik — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 05:46:56 GMT

While working on the Windows Ribbon Framework I’ve came across many repeating questions from users. So I’ve decided to write a Frequently Asked Questions post regarding the Windows Ribbon Framework and its wrapper Windows Ribbon for WinForms.

The questions were collected from the Windows Ribbon Development forum, Windows Ribbon for WinForms Discussions and from comments posted on my blog.

What are the supported platforms for the Windows Ribbon Framework?

The Windows Ribbon Framework is only supported on:

Windows 7
Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Platform Update for Windows Vista
Windows Server 2008 R2
windows Server 2008 with SP2 and Platform Update for Windows Server 2008

Specifically, Windows XP is not supported.

What are the prerequisites for using the Windows Ribbon Framework or the Ribbon for WinForms project?

You need to work on a Windows 7 or Vista machine. And you need to install Windows 7 SDK.

Is the Windows Ribbon Framework free?

Yes, it’s free. It comes as part of the operating system (Vista and up).

What is the licensing of the Windows Ribbon Framework?
Is the license the same as other Windows controls or it is Office 2007?

Just like Windows common controls, there are no unusual licensing requirements involved when using the Windows Ribbon framework in your applications.

Is it possible to use the Windows Ribbon Framework in WinForms application?

Of course. Simply use the Windows Ribbon for WinForms library. The library includes numerous samples in C# and VB.NET.

How can I use the ribbon in a WPF application?

Well, you can’t. Not using the Windows Ribbon Framework. If you need a WPF ribbon check out Microsoft Ribbon for WPF.

How many ribbon controls are out there?

Lot’s. Windows Ribbon Framework, MFC version, WPF version, Office version, SharePoint version, and many more 3rd party ribbon controls.

The "Windows Ribbon Framework" is a ribbon control provided with Windows 7 (and Windows Vista via platform update), intended to be used by native C++ developers (WIN32). It is based on COM and has a .NET WinForms wrapper.
The syntax of the ribbon XML is NOT XAML, but similar. ("XAML-like").

There is another ribbon control for MFC developers provided with Visual Studio 2008 SP1. This ribbon follows the MFC guidelines.

There is a version of a WPF Ribbon control that is provided by Microsoft for WPF developers.

Does Windows Ribbon Framework Support MDI?

The Windows Ribbon Framework does not support MDI windows and so is the ribbon wrapper library.
A Ribbon framework application must implement a custom MDI mechanism to support MDI functionality.

Can I change the ribbon in runtime? (i.e. add elements, change tabs, etc.)

Yes, you can dynamically add items to a both command and item galleries.
For more information, see the Working with Galleries topic at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd742868(VS.85).aspx.

You can change the tabs by using Application Modes as described in the MSDN article at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd940486(VS.85).aspx.

My ribbon-enabled application crash when I close it. Any suggestions?

Yes, If you close the application by clicking a ribbon button, you are destroying the ribbon, while you use it. This cause the crash.

Either run the close method using a timer, or don’t close the application using a ribbon button.

If you are using C++ you can simply use PostMessage instead of SendMessage to post the quit message.

Check the following blog post for more details: Crash while closing application that uses Windows Ribbon Framework

What are the requirements for the ribbon images?

Ribbon images must be in 32bpp BMP file format. no PNG and no 24bpp BMP.
However they don't really have a resolution constraint, they have recommendations
but if you provide images of the wrong size the framework will just resize them to fit.
To convert your images to 32bpp BMP you can use the tool presented in How to convert an image to 32 bit BMP.
You can find more details on working with images in a ribbon application here.

Where can I find Windows 7 Ribbon XML schema file?

Checkout the UICC.xsd file in the folder: <<C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Bin>>

Where can I find more details on the Windows Ribbon for WinForms project?

A: In my blog. I’ve written dozens of blog posts describing the different aspects of the Windows Ribbon Framework and its wrapper library. Find them all here:

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/arik/archive/tags/Ribbon/default.aspx

That’s it for now,
Arik Poznanski.

Windows Ribbon for WinForms v2.6 Released

arik — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 07:53:20 GMT

The Windows Ribbon for WinForms is a ribbon control designed to be used with WinForms applications.

Yea, I know, WinForms is so last year, but it turns out people still use it and keep asking for features and bug fixes..

Anyway, it is a managed wrapper around Windows Ribbon Framework, provided by Microsoft in Windows 7 and Vista.
More details on this project can be found in the project site: windowsribbon.codeplex.com .

So, what’s new?

Simplified use for the Ribbon control.
Simply drag and drop the ribbon control into your form and you’re good to go.
no implementing IRibbonForm, no handling sizing, no calls to InitFramework and DestroyFramework.
Localization support added
Solution updated to .NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010
RibbonGenerator custom tool added
Added ability to specify keyboard shortcuts in XML format
and a few bugs where solved (specifically, the one with the galleries)

What About the Samples?

All of the 18 samples have been updated to use the new infrastructure.

Not only that, there is a new sample, “19-Localization”, that shows how to use the new localization support with the ribbon control.

You can find more details on the localization support and RibbonGenerator custom tool in this article on CodeProject.

Anything else you should know?

Just make sure you have compiled and installed RibbonGenerator. A setup project is part of the package. This is required for the generation of the ribbon DLLs.

Thanks

I would like to thank Bernhard Elbl for his great contribution to the project. Bernhard is now part of the project development team on codeplex.

That’s it for now,
Arik Poznanski.