One of the things we heard about at MIX was the ability for you to register your application as a photo editing application. A registered application would appear in the Extras list when viewing a photo on the device, allowing the user to launch a third party application to edit, modify, manipulate a photo. The documentation released at MIX provided the necessary instructions (latest version is here) but it wasn’t until the April update to the WP7 developer tools that it was actually possible to see this in action.
The steps are super simple:
1) Create a new xml file in the root of your Windows Phone 7 project called Extras.xml (don’t worry about changing any of the build properties).
2) Change the contents to the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <Extras> <PhotosExtrasApplication>true</PhotosExtrasApplication> </Extras>
3) Build and run your application. Your application will now appear in the Extras list.
Ok, but how do I see it in action. Well the easiest way is actually to use the unlocked emulator image. You can then just open the Pictures hub and look at any of the sample images. Expand the Application Bar (somewhat hidden but if you click the image you’ll see it appear) and then select extras.
I can’t seem to work out how you then access the image that’s been selected from within your application but it’s either something I haven’t found yet, or not in this build yet.