Getting Direction Using Bing Maps in Windows Phone 7

Manoj Singh Panwar
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Hi guys, Its remarkable achievement in the technology that today we can complete most of our work through phone. It serves to be a best companion in daily life for example, if you consider yourself in a strange place and dont know where to go then your phone can sometime come for the rescue by showing you the right directions to the destined place. In this article you will learn how to implement this feature in your Windows Phone application. For incorporating this follow the steps below.

Step 1 : First of all you need to have Windows Phone 7.1 SDK installed in your system.

Step 2 : Then open Visual Studio

Select new project
Select your preferred language
Select the silverlight for Windows Phone application on the left pane and Windows Phone application in right pane.
Name the project

Step 3 : Now you land up in a screen showing the Windows Phone application and XAML coding into different partition. Now you may change the look of your application as you wish.

design view.gif

Step 4 : Now drag and drop the map control from the toolbox into the phone application.

Add a textbox and in the properties change the name of this textbox as "fromtxtbox". This text box holds the value of the start place.
Add another textbox and in the properties change the name of this textbox as "totxtbox" . This text box holds the value of the end place to find the direction between these two.
Add a button name it as "Change view". This is to change the mode of view of the map.
Add another button and name it as "Get direction" to start the event of searching direction between two places.

Step 5 : Now before we start the coding ahead you need to get the credentials for using the Bing map in Windows Phone application. To know how to get the credentials see this article . If you don't get the credentials then an irritating white strip keeps appearing over the map urging to get the credential for using the map control.

Step 6 : When you have the Bing map key, move to the XAML part and find the following:

<my:Map Grid.Row="1" Height="448" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="12,0,0,0" Name="map1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="456"/>

In this line add the following parameters to make the map work better.

CredentialsProvider="type the bing map key you got here" LogoVisibility="Collapsed"

Then the complete code becomes.

<my:Map Grid.Row="1" Height="448" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="12,0,0,0" Name="map1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="456" CredentialsProvider="type the bing map key you got here" LogoVisibility="Collapsed"/>

Step 7 : Now add the following references:

Go to Solution Explorer
Right click on references--> add reference

Also add a service reference--> Right click on reference
Add service reference
In the address bar type- http://dev.virtualearth.net/webservices/v1/geocodeservice/geocodeservice.svc?wsdl. This is to use the geocode related clases in the application

Step 8 : Now if you want your phone to show your location then write the following line of code in the constructor.

public partial class MainPage : PhoneApplicationPage

    {
// Constructor

GeoCoordinateWatcher watcher; // This is declared global

public MainPage()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            map1.ZoomBarVisibility = System.Windows.Visibility.Visible;   // This sets the Zoom bar in the map visible
            map1.LogoVisibility = Visibility.Collapsed; // The Bing map logo is set not to appear in the map
            map1.CopyrightVisibility = Visibility.Collapsed; // The bing map copyright text is hidden
            map1.Mode = new AerialMode(); // The map is set to load with default view mode as aerial.
            if (watcher == null)
            {
                //---To get the highest accuracy--
                watcher = new GeoCoordinateWatcher(GeoPositionAccuracy.High)
                {
                    //---the minimum distance (in meters) to travel before the next location updates---
                    MovementThreshold = 10
                };
                //when a new position is obtained---
                watcher.PositionChanged += new EventHandler<GeoPositionChangedEventArgs<GeoCoordinate>>(watcher_PositionChanged);
                //---event to fire when there is a status change in the location
                // service API---
                watcher.StatusChanged += new EventHandler<GeoPositionStatusChangedEventArgs>(watcher_StatusChanged);
                watcher.Start();
            }
       }

Now if the status is changed then this method covers the status change event.

void watcher_StatusChanged(object sender, GeoPositionStatusChangedEventArgs e)

        {
             switch (e.Status)
            {
                case GeoPositionStatus.Disabled:
                    if (watcher.Permission == GeoPositionPermission.Denied)
                    {
                        // the user has changed the settings in phone.
                        Debug.WriteLine("Location is disabled.Change Settings");
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        Debug.WriteLine("Location is not functioning on this phone");
                    }
                    break;
                case GeoPositionStatus.Initializing: Debug.WriteLine("initializing");
                  Debug.WriteLine("finding location");
                    break;
                case GeoPositionStatus.NoData: Debug.WriteLine("nodata");
                    break;
                case GeoPositionStatus.Ready: Debug.WriteLine("ready");
                    break;
            }
        }

Now if the position of the user changes then this method comes to the rescue to keep updated with changes in positions.

void watcher_PositionChanged(object sender, GeoPositionChangedEventArgs<GeoCoordinate> e)

        {
            Debug.WriteLine("({0},{1})", e.Position.Location.Latitude, e.Position.Location.Longitude);
            map1.Center = new GeoCoordinate(e.Position.Location.Latitude, e.Position.Location.Longitude);
        }

Step 9 : Now in the design view double click on the "change view button" and in the code write the code:

private void chngview(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

        {
            if (map1.Mode is RoadMode)
            {
                map1.Mode = new AerialMode(true);
            }
            else
           {
                map1.Mode = new RoadMode();
            }
        }

Step 10 : Now double click on the "get dir" button; write the following code:

private void getdir(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            var task = new Microsoft.Phone.Tasks.BingMapsDirectionsTask();
            task.Start = new Microsoft.Phone.Tasks.LabeledMapLocation(fromtxtbx.Text, new System.Device.Location.GeoCoordinate());
            task.End = new Microsoft.Phone.Tasks.LabeledMapLocation(totxtbx.Text, new System.Device.Location.GeoCoordinate())
            task.Show();
        }