How to set the Application Bar no to be displayed or to show another buttons in different pages in Windows Phone 7?

Question

Hi everyone! I was messing around with this windows phone 7 application bar when I noticed that even setting a different application bar in XAML wouldn't make it change through different application pages (which is quite annoying I have to say). My intention is to use this bar with some buttons that change according to the page being displayed, let's say, in the main menu, it won't show the main menu icon, but in another page it will. Can you guys provide me some help?

Page 1:

<phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>
        <shell:ApplicationBar IsVisible="True" IsMenuEnabled="True">
            <shell:ApplicationBar.Buttons>
                <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="Icons/mainmenu.png" Text="Main Menu"  />
                <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="Icons/list.png" Text="Comic List"  />
                <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="Icons/settings.png" Text="Settings"  IsEnabled="True" x:Name="ApplicationBarUploadIconButton" />
            </shell:ApplicationBar.Buttons>

        </shell:ApplicationBar>
    </phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>

Page 2:

<phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>
        <shell:ApplicationBar IsVisible="True" IsMenuEnabled="True">
            <shell:ApplicationBar.Buttons>
                <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="Icons/settings.png" Text="Settings"  />
                <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="Icons/list.png" Text="Comic List"  />
                <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="Icons/download.png" Text="Download Comic"  IsEnabled="True" x:Name="ApplicationBarUploadIconButton" />
            </shell:ApplicationBar.Buttons>

        </shell:ApplicationBar>
    </phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>

Page 3:

 <phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>
        <shell:ApplicationBar IsVisible="False" IsMenuEnabled="False">
        </shell:ApplicationBar>
    </phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>

The application bar is always the same and is always displayed (even with that explicit declaration in page 3 not to show it).

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Hi Bruno,

You can indeed have different number of buttons in the application bar across various pages. If you have added an application bar to a page and see 4 empty rounded areas in every page, nothing to worry about - it is only the designer view. As an example, in your MainPage.xaml, you can have an application bar like so -

<phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>
  <shell:ApplicationBar IsVisible="True" IsMenuEnabled="True">
     <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="/Images/appbar.refresh.rest.png" 
                                     Text="Refresh"
                                     Click="RefreshPage_Click" />
  </shell:ApplicationBar>
</phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>

In the DetailsPage.xaml page, you can have an application bar like so -

<phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>
  <shell:ApplicationBar IsVisible="True" IsMenuEnabled="True">
     <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="/Images/appbar.home.png" 
                                     Text="Home"
                                     Click="GoBackHome_Click" />
     <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="/Images/appbar.next.rest.png" 
                                     Text="Next"
                                     Click="NextPage_Click" />
     <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="/Images/appbar.previous.rest.png" 
                                     Text="Next"
                                     Click="PreviousPage_Click" />
  </shell:ApplicationBar>
</phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>

HTH, indyfromoz