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IsolatedStorageFile Remove and Shared ShellContent

I have been working on a new feature of an application that is displaying some information on a custom Live tile. The source of the image used for the tile is stored in the Shared/ShellContent directory of the application's Isolated Storage. The application also has the ability to clear it's Isolated Storage for resetting purposes.

The issue then came about when the reset was performed this cleared the whole of the Isolated Storage including the Shared directory. The code I am using to then create the PNG in Isolated Storage failed with a "Operation not permitted on IsolatedStorageFileStream." exception.

The Shared directory seems to be created when the application is first deployed to the device so my Live tile was working fine until the reset was performed.

So if you are using a PNG from Isolated Storage for your Live tile, please make sure you don't remove the entire Isolated Storage for the application.

I used the Isolated Storage Explorer Tool to investigate this problem :-

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh286408(v=vs.92).aspx

Windows Phone Performance Analysis Tool : Part 4 of n

My next observation is using the PhotoChooserTask.

The associated graph is as follows :-

As you can see, we have Storyboard start when the button is tapped to launch the task.

We then have a period of inactivity before the Image is loaded.

The Image loads has a flag dictating the Image is loaded into the Image control.

If you have any experiences to share with using the Performance Analysis Tool, I would be very interested to hear them.

More to follow...

Windows Phone Performance Analysis Tool : Part 3 of n

My next observation is adding a PerformanceProgressBar, from the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit.

I added the PerformanceProgressBar and set IsIndeterminate to True, I then let the PerformanceProgressBar run for two cycles, the associated graph is as follows :-

As you can see, the Storyboard starts as soon as the application starts.

The CPU usage increases as the PerformanceProgressBar animates, it then reduces for around a second and then starts again.

You can also see the Frame rate increase when the PerformanceProgressBar is animating.

Could a performance issue be "masked" when using the PerformanceProgressBar? Or would we see a spike in the CPU usage?

If you have any experiences to share with using the Performance Analysis Tool, I would be very interested to hear them.

More to follow...

Windows Phone Performance Analysis Tool : Part 2 of n

My next observation is based on adding a button to the same solution as previously created, then implement a DispatcherTimer to increment a Count property, this Count property is data bound to the Content property of the Button control. Tapping the button starts the DispatcherTimer, the Dipatcher time then increments the Count property every 250ms, determining if the Count has reached 10, if it has then the DispatcherTimer.Stop method is called.

The associated graph is as follows :-

As you can see there is a regular frame rate increase as the Button Content is updated.

Also worth noting is the Start of a Storyboard which is inline with the tapping of the Button.

If you have any experiences to share with using the Performance Analysis Tool, I would be very interested to hear them.

More to follow...

Windows Phone Performance Analysis Tool : Part 1 of n

My second observation is related to the Keyboard appearing and disappearing. To the project I created in the previous post, I have added a TextBox control.

Here is the graph produced :-

As you can see the CPU usage relating to the startup and shutdown of the application still remains however now we have a section in the middle relating to the showing of the keyboard (applying focus to the textbox).

The showing of the keyboard has forced the Frame rate to shoot up, however this seems to be normal in the other applications I have tested.

If you have any experiences to share with using the Performance Analysis Tool, I would be very interested to hear them.

More to follow...

Windows Phone Performance Analysis Tool : Part 0 of n

I would like to share my experiences of using the Windows Phone Performance Analysis Tool. Details about the tool can be found here.

I am not investigating any particular performance issues with any applications however I think it would useful to note down what is "normal" when viewing the data associated with the Performance Analysis Tool.

As my understanding of the tool develops as will the usefulness of these blog posts.

Firstly, I have created a brand new project (File > New Project > Windows Phone Application) and then used the tool straightaway, without making any changes.

Here is the graph produced :-

As you can see there is an influx of CPU usage when the application is first run (between 0 and 1.4) and a slightly smaller influx (between 2.8 and 3.5) when the application closes.

Having run the Performance Analysis Tool on a couple of other applications, this seems to be normal and shouldn't be anything to worry about.

If you have any experiences to share with using the Performance Analysis Tool, I would be very interested to hear them.

More to follow...

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