CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windows-phone-8
Gustavo Guerra
Gustavo Guerra

Reputation: 5359

Text wrapping in the wp8 app bar

In my Windows Phone 8 app the app bar usually looks like this:

enter image description here

But for some reason on one of my users with a 1020 it looks like this: (it's a NOKIA RM-877_nam_att_205 3.3.0.2 3051.40000.1346.0001 with OS version 8.0.10517.0)

enter image description here

(the WP8 emulator also looks like the second one)

Anyone knows why this happens, and how can I fix it?

Upvotes: 11

Views: 1404

Answers (3)

Matt Lacey
Matt Lacey

Reputation: 65556

The default behaviour of English text accompanying an ApplicationBarIconButton is for it to be on a single line.

Multi-line support was added for some languages where word length is typically longer than in English. The wrapping was therefore needed for text to not be clipped.

The enabling of multi-line support is dependent upon a combination of device, OEM and regional settings. Developers/apps cannot influence this behaviour.

The expectation of all English text accompanying an icon button is that it should be on a single line. If it ran across multiple lines and then was translated to a language which used longer words for the translation then the translated text would not fit in the available space.

You should only use text that can fit on a single line.
For your examples above, I'd recommend "catalog" and "downloads" as labels for the two buttons on the right.

Upvotes: 7

Pantelis
Pantelis

Reputation: 2060

Icon button text is displayed beneath the icon when the user expands the application bar. If the length of the string exceeds 7 to 13 characters, depending on the width of the characters that make up the string, it is clipped.

Menu item text does not wrap and should be limited to 14 to 20 characters in length, depending on the width of the characters.

Many languages use different amounts of space to convey the same meaning. Therefore, when choosing menu item or button text, consider the different lengths of the text strings for the language your app will be in. Assume that an average of 30% more space will be required for any text. Depending on the language and the phrase, the localized string might even require twice as much space.

Upvotes: 0

crea7or
crea7or

Reputation: 4490

It looks like there some regional dependency and there is no fix yet, since it not accessible from the application. Same problem at the msdn.

Users reported: English-UK, French, German or Dutch - wrap. English-US - truncate.

Upvotes: 3

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