Jack Stephens' Geek Brochure: “Fake Store” my way of testing the transition from IsTrial Mode

Native Trial Mode is an important feature of Windows Phone 7; there are several articles about simulating being in Trial Mode. My problem was that I had a fairly complex transition between trial mode and full mode I want the premium features to show up right away without requiring the user to restart my application. So I came up with this cute little hack to simulate the session when the user buys.

App Class

Since I want to change the trial state during the running of the program, I need to have a way to re-query trial state and communicate the change of status to the rest of the program. I could query the trial mode every time I ask, but that would be bad for performance and network chatter. Notice that there is a conditional compilation symbol called FAKESTORE, the code within the #if block is only compiled if the symbol is present. Also note the presence of the DoFakeActivate() method, this is called from the Buy Now code below.

        #region Fake Store Code
        public static bool IsTrial { get; private set; }

        public static event EventHandler ApplicationActivated;
        private void DetermineIsTrial()
        {
            bool armEvent = false;
            bool newIsTrial = getIsTrilaFromLicenseInformation();
            // I only want to fire the event when we are transitioning from
            // trial to full license, I also want to have IsTrial reflect
            // the current state, so I will remember to fire the event
            if (!newIsTrial && IsTrial)
            {
                armEvent = true;
            }
            // Update the IsTrial status
            IsTrial = newIsTrial;
            // And fire the event (if necessary)
            // This code will only be run once per user.
            if (armEvent)
            {
                if (ApplicationActivated != null)
                {
                    ApplicationActivated(new object(), EventArgs.Empty);
                }
            }
        }
        private static bool getIsTrilaFromLicenseInformation()
        {
#if FAKESTORE
            return !_fakeActivated;
#else
            var license = new Microsoft.Phone.Marketplace.LicenseInformation();
            return license.IsTrial();
#endif
        }

#if FAKESTORE
        private static bool _fakeActivated = false;
        public  void DoFakeActivate()
        {
            _fakeActivated = true;
            DetermineIsTrial();
        }
#endif
        #endregion Fake Store Code

And I need to determine if the app is in trial mode when the app is launched and activated.

// Code to execute when the application is launching (eg, from Start)
// This code will not execute when the application is reactivated
private void Application_Launching(object sender, LaunchingEventArgs e)
{
    DetermineIsTrial();
}

// Code to execute when the application is activated (brought to foreground)
// This code will not execute when the application is first launched
private void Application_Activated(object sender, ActivatedEventArgs e)
{
    DetermineIsTrial();
}

Normally when you buy an app using MarketplaceDetailTask, the app is re activated when the user returns from the store. Because I call DetermineIsTrial from the Application_Activted, the app will be in paid for mode when the user returns.

Buy Now Form

When I run the app in Visual Studio, I get an error message from the Store and anyway, LicenseInformation.IsTrial will always return false in Visual Studio.

        private void _btnBuyNow_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
#if FAKESTORE
            if (MessageBox.Show(
                "Here we would send you to the app store.\n" +
                "Do you want to simulate activation?", 
                "Fake App Store", MessageBoxButton.OKCancel) 
                    == MessageBoxResult.OK)
            {
                var x = ((App)Application.Current);
                x.DoFakeActivate();
            }
#else
            MarketplaceDetailTask marketplaceDetailTask = new MarketplaceDetailTask();
            marketplaceDetailTask.Show();
#endif
        }

It is necessary to call App. DoFakeActivate() to tell the App object to change the value of App.IsTrial. The user experience is radically different than normal

Setup Custom Configuration

I like to switch between developing / testing this part of the program and other tasks and I don’t want to have to alter actual code to change modes, so I create a custom configuration. To create a new configuration:

1. Build => Configuration Manager

2. Select <New…> from Active solution configuration: