Differences in Windows Phone 8.1 feature behavior for Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 apps
[ This article is for Windows Phone 8 developers. If you’re developing for Windows 10, see the latest documentation. ]
For features that were introduced in Windows Phone 8.1 and are supported for both Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 and Windows Phone Store apps, you should use the Windows Phone 8.1 documentation to learn about using the feature in your app. Some features behave differently when used in a Silverlight 8.1 app. This topic describes the difference in behavior for these features.
When a Windows Phone 8.1 app uses file pickers to open or save a file, choose a folder, or call the web authentication broker, the app calls different methods than in a Windows Store app. Furthermore, when the call returns, a Silverlight 8.1 app handles the continuation differently than a Windows Store app. For more info, see the following topics.
Windows Phone 8.1 apps can use either the Windows Phone 8 managed BackgroundTransferService APIs or the Windows Runtime Windows.Networking.BackgroundTransfer APIs. We recommend that you use the Windows.Networking.BackgroundTransfer for your Silverlight 8.1 app because these APIs have improved capabilities and performance. For more information, see Transferring data in the background.
If your app registers as a Share target, the way you implement this in a Silverlight 8.1 app is different because Silverlight 8.1 uses the app life-cycle events from Windows Phone 8. For more information, see Implementing a Share target in a Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 app.
You can use the Windows Push Notification Service (WNS) to send push notifications to your Silverlight 8.1 app. If you select WNS for your push notification platform, you must also use the Windows Runtime notification APIs in your Silverlight 8.1 app. There are some differences you need to be aware of when using these in your app. For more information, see Choosing MPNS or WNS for a Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 app.
Windows Phone 8.1 apps can create and manage their own calendars that can be displayed in the built-in Calendar app and other apps on the device, if you allow it. This feature is mostly the same for Silverlight 8.1 apps and Windows Phone Store apps. For general information about adding a calendar to your app, see Quickstart: Managing app calendars.
One aspect of this feature is setting up your app to handle activation if the user taps an appointment owned by one of your calendars, so you can display appointment details to the user. This needs to be implemented differently in Silverlight 8.1 because the app lifetime events are different on this app model. For more info, see Implementing appointment provider activation in a Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 app.
Silverlight 8.1 apps can use the Windows.Media.Capture APIs to capture pictures and video from the device’s camera. Because Silverlight 8.1 apps have a different XAML implementation than Windows Phone Store apps, they will need to use the MediaCapturePreviewSink class to preview video. For more information, see Using MediaCapturePreviewSink to preview video in a Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 app.
Windows Phone 8.1 lets users opt to install apps on the optional SD card, or move apps that are already installed to the SD card. If you don't want your app installed on the removable SD card, you have to add the following entry manually under the Deployment element in the WMAppManifest.xml file.
<AppExtra xmlns="" AppPlatformVersion="8.0"> <Extra Name="SDOptOut" /> </AppExtra>