Accessing the Accelerometer from HTML5 and Javascript with Windows Phone 7

Christian Helle

Mar. 16, 12 · Interview

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In my previous post I discussed how to have Javascript code hosted in a WebBrowser control execute .NET code in the host application and vice versa. I also demonstrated how to retrieve and display device status information using HTML5 hosted in a WebBrowser control.

For this sample I would like to demonstrate how to access the Accelerometer sensor from HTML5 and Javascript. To make things more interesting, the Accelerometer reading data will be constantly updated every 100 milliseconds and .NET code will repeatedly call a Javascript method as Accelerometer reading data gets updated

And here's the code...

Default.html (HTML5 + Javascript)

The code below is going to be used as a local html file that is to be copied to isolated storage. Let's put this in a folder called HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

    <meta name="viewport" content="width=480, height=800, user-scalable=no" />

    <meta name="MobileOptimized" content="width" />

    <meta name="HandheldFriendly" content="true" />

    <title>HTML5 and Windows Phone 7</title>

    <style>

        body

        {

            color: White;

            background-color: Black;

            font-family: 'Segoe WP Semibold';

            text-align: left;

        }

        h3

        {

            font-size: 20pt;

        }

        input

        {

            color: #ffffff;

            background-color: #000000;

            border: 2px solid white;

            vertical-align: baseline;

            font-size: 17pt;

            min-width: 40px;

            min-height: 40px;

            margin: 5;

        }

    </style>

</head>

<body onload="onLoad()">

    <div>

        <h3>

            X:</h3>

        <input id="x" type="text" value="0" />

        <h3>

            Y:</h3>

        <input id="y" type="text" value="0" />

        <h3>

            Z:</h3>

        <input id="z" type="text" value="0" />

    </div>

    <script type="text/javascript">

        function onLoad() {

            window.external.notify("startAccelerometer");

        }

 

        function accelerometerCallback(x, y, z) {

            document.getElementById("x").value = x;

            document.getElementById("y").value = y;

            document.getElementById("z").value = z;

        }

    </script>

</body>

</html>

 

MainPage.xaml

The code below is the main page of the Silverlight application that will host the HTML content

<phone:PhoneApplicationPage x:Class="PhoneApp.MainPage"
                           xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
                           xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
                           xmlns:phone="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone"
                           xmlns:shell="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Shell;assembly=Microsoft.Phone"
                           xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
                           xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
                           mc:Ignorable="d"
                           d:DesignWidth="480"
                           d:DesignHeight="768"
                           FontFamily="{StaticResource PhoneFontFamilyNormal}"
                           FontSize="{StaticResource PhoneFontSizeNormal}"
                           Foreground="{StaticResource PhoneForegroundBrush}"
                           SupportedOrientations="Portrait"
                           Orientation="Portrait"
                           shell:SystemTray.IsVisible="True"
                           Loaded="PhoneApplicationPage_Loaded">
    <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot"
         Background="Transparent">
        <phone:WebBrowser Name="browser"
                         IsScriptEnabled="True"
                         Source="HTML/Default.html"
                         ScriptNotify="browser_ScriptNotify" />
    </Grid>
</phone:PhoneApplicationPage>

MainPage.xaml.cs

And here's the code behind the xaml file

public partial class MainPage : PhoneApplicationPage

{

    private Microsoft.Devices.Sensors.Accelerometer accelerometer;

 

    public MainPage()

    {

        InitializeComponent();

    }

 

    private void PhoneApplicationPage_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

    {

        using (IsolatedStorageFile store = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication())

        {

            if (!store.DirectoryExists("HTML")) store.CreateDirectory("HTML");

            CopyToIsolatedStorage("HTML\\Default.html", store);

        }

    }

 

    private static void CopyToIsolatedStorage(string file, IsolatedStorageFile store, bool overwrite = true)

    {

        if (store.FileExists(file) && !overwrite)

            return;

 

        using (Stream resourceStream = Application.GetResourceStream(new Uri(file, UriKind.Relative)).Stream)

        using (IsolatedStorageFileStream fileStream = store.OpenFile(file, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite, FileShare.ReadWrite))

        {

            int bytesRead;

            var buffer = new byte[resourceStream.Length];

            while ((bytesRead = resourceStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)

                fileStream.Write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);

        }

    }

 

    private void browser_ScriptNotify(object sender, NotifyEventArgs e)

    {

        if (e.Value == "startAccelerometer")

        {

            if (accelerometer == null)

            {

                accelerometer = new Microsoft.Devices.Sensors.Accelerometer { TimeBetweenUpdates = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(100) };

                accelerometer.CurrentValueChanged += (o, args) => Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>

                {

                    var x = args.SensorReading.Acceleration.X.ToString("0.000");

                    var y = args.SensorReading.Acceleration.Y.ToString("0.000");

                    var z = args.SensorReading.Acceleration.Z.ToString("0.000");

 

                    browser.InvokeScript("eval", string.Format("accelerometerCallback({0},{1},{2})", x, y, z));

                });

                accelerometer.Start();

            }

        }

    }

}

What happens in the code above is that a Javascript method is executed that notifies the host application telling it to start the Accelerometer when the HTML has loaded. We then add an event handler to the Accelerometers CurrentValueChanged event that invokes the accelerometerCallback Javascript method and passing in Accelerometer reading data as the arguments. Notice that I use eval as the Javascript method to invoke and passing the method call as an argument, this is because the accelerometer reading data is retrieved on a worker thread and for some reason an unknown system error occurs even when executing code on the UI thread through the Page Dispatcher.BeginInvoke() method. I figured out that using eval was the only way to execute Javascript code from a .NET worker thread.

I hope you found this useful. You can grab the full source code for the example here:

HTML JavaScript Windows Phone

Published at DZone with permission of Christian Helle, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

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