Datasheet
Software Features
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7
which can be detected and handled programmatically. This means that although you can’t actually
capture the Start button, you can still respond to the events it generates when it suspends your game.
You’ll read more about the Start button in Chapter 6.
Search Button
Pressing the Search button launches the Bing Search screen on your phone, allowing you to get
answers to all your burning questions (including where to get the best sushi within walking distance
of your downtown Seattle hotel because your loser friends decided to go to a party and took the
rental car without telling you).
QWERTY Keyboard
Slide-out keyboards are not part of the minimum required specifi cation for Windows Phone
7 devices, but hardware manufacturers are free to incorporate them in their designs. The Dell
Lightning has a portrait sliding keyboard that extends from the bottom of the phone, and the LG
phone has a keyboard that slides out to the left (or the bottom if you are in landscape mode).
If your phone has a slide-out keyboard, you can use this in addition to the Soft Input Panel (SIP, an
onscreen keyboard) when you need to type something. You can also use XNA to detect and respond
to any keys pressed during a game.
You’ll learn more about the SIP in Chapter 4.
Regardless of what model of phone or type of keyboard you have, it should work fi ne with XNA
without any special confi guration or code workarounds.
SOFTWARE FEATURES
In addition to an impressive array of hardware features and functionality, Windows Phone 7 devices
sport some extremely cool software features. Let’s look at a few.
Start and Lock Screens
The Start screen on Windows Phone 7 serves as your desktop and is the primary point of interaction
with the device. This screen is designed to give you information at a glance about missed calls, text
messages, unread e-mails, and more.
Hubs (discussed in the next section) are accessed via the Start screen. You can see previews of con-
tent along with notifi cations from their respective tiles.
You can also pin your games to their own tile on the Start screen. You will learn how to do this in
Chapter 16.
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