How do I work with images in a portable class library targeting Windows Store Apps and WP7,WP8,WPF?

Question

I am working on a first PCL that targets : WSA (Windows Store Application), WPF,WP7,WP8. We can say that it is a rolerdex kind of application, you have contacts , they have

Answer 1

you can put the image on the view model as type "object" and use an interface (which is injected) to create the bitmap.

public interface IBitMapCreator
{
    object Create(string path);
}

public class MyViewModel
{
    private bool _triedToSetThumb;
    private readonly IBitMapCreator _bc;

    public MyViewModel(IBitMapCreator bc, string path)
    {
        _bc = bc;
        SetThumb(path);
    }

    public object Thumb { get; private set; }

    private void SetThumb(string path)
    {
        try
        {
            if (!_triedToSetThumb)
            {
                string ext = Path.GetExtension(path).ToUpper();

                if (
                    ext == ".JPG" ||
                    ext == ".JPEG" ||
                    ext == ".PNG" ||
                    ext == ".GIF" ||
                    ext == ".BMP" ||
                    false
                    )
                {
                    Thumb = _bc.Create(path);
                    OnPropertyChanged(new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Thumb"));
                }
            }
        }
        finally
        {
            _triedToSetThumb = true;
        }
    }

}

in the WPF version, you could do this

class BitMapCreator : IBitMapCreator
{
    public object Create(string path)
    {
        return BitmapFrame.Create(new Uri(path));
    }
} 

By using this method you can data bind right to the image and do not need a converter.