This sample shows ways of improving directional navigation in your app. Controllers such as remote controls, gamepad joystick, or gamepad D-pad allow the user to navigate in the four cardinal directions.
The sample shows the following techniques:
- Opt the app into using directional navigation by setting
Application.RequiresPointerModetoWhenRequested. Without this step, the app defaults to using pointer mode everywhere. - Customize directional navigation to improve navigation targeting.
- Customize directional navigation to prevent navigation in a particular direction.
- A custom control which requires the user to press the "A" button on the game controller in order to engage the control.
- Mitigations for custom controls which are not aware of directional navigation.
When the IsFocusEngagementEnabled property is set to True,
the control is not given focus upon navigation.
The user must press
the "A" button on the game controller
in order to give the control focus,
and press
the "B" button to remove focus
from the control and allow the directional navigation
buttons to be used for navigation.
For information about directional navigation in JavaScript apps, see WinJS.UI.XYFocus.
Note The Windows universal samples require Visual Studio 2015 to build and Windows 10 to execute.
To obtain information about Windows 10 development, go to the Windows Dev Center
To obtain information about Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 and the tools for developing Windows apps, go to Visual Studio 2015
IsFocusEngagementEnabled property
Client: Windows 10 build 14332
Server: Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview
Phone: Windows 10 build 14332
- If you download the samples ZIP, be sure to unzip the entire archive, not just the folder with the sample you want to build.
- Start Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 and select File > Open > Project/Solution.
- Starting in the folder where you unzipped the samples, go to the Samples subfolder, then the subfolder for this specific sample, then the subfolder for your preferred language (C++, C#, or JavaScript). Double-click the Visual Studio 2015 Solution (.sln) file.
- Press Ctrl+Shift+B, or select Build > Build Solution.
The next steps depend on whether you just want to deploy the sample or you want to both deploy and run it.
- Select Build > Deploy Solution.
- To debug the sample and then run it, press F5 or select Debug > Start Debugging. To run the sample without debugging, press Ctrl+F5 or select Debug > Start Without Debugging.