Possible to set "Status bar" text?

Question

I've noticed that the mail applications (Outlook, Hotmail, etc) on the device will update the status bar area (top of the screen, where the time is, etc) with text that "drops in" such as "Syncing." and "Email is up-to-date". Is is possible to set this text from for my application? I know that I could create a TextBlock and tie a storyboard too it, however I'd like to free up that real estate and use the status bar instead.



Cheers
Phil

Answer 1

I am not sure what you mean because I don't have a WP7 device but are you maybe talking about PNS?

I found this article which has some example images: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2010/05/03/understanding-microsoft-push-notifications-for-windows-phones.aspx

Answer 2

I am not talking about push notifications;
Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoWsDyE9JMo, @0:44 there is "Email is up-to-date" on the "status bar" visible in the video.

Answer 3

According to the UI Design and Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7 document, "the status bar is system-reserved and cannot be modified."

Answer 4

That area is called the system tray. 3rd party applications only have the ability to show and hide the standard system tray, not use it to display text or other content. You can hide the system tray entirely and use the real estate however you wish. Look for a line at the top of a page's xaml that says shell:SystemTray.IsVisible="True" and change the value to False.

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Richard

Answer 5

That area is called the system tray. 3rd party applications only have the ability to show and hide the standard system tray, not use it to display text or other content. You can hide the system tray entirely and use the real estate however you wish. Look for a line at the top of a page's xaml that says shell:SystemTray.IsVisible="True" and change the value to False.

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Richard

Before you do that, please read the document I linked above. Users may not like you very much if you hide their status bar.

Answer 6

Thanks David.

I would like to see setting the text opened up, there are some lightweight things I do in my application (ergo, "syncing") that I think using this area for would be ideal; just as it used in the mail app.

Answer 7

Any option without setting the SystemTray.IsVisible to false? Google mail does it, so there should be some way of doing it? What do you guys think?

Answer 8

There are only 2 ways of getting text up there

hide the status bar
send a push notification

you mentioned that google mail does it. well google mail is just the normal mail client on the phone not a 3rd party app.