Any way to resize text on the back of Windows Phone 8 Live Tiles?

live-tile, windows-phone-8

Solution

It's not possible to resize text on WP8 tiles. You can fake it by creating an image and placing that on the tile instead:

- Create a user control that accommodate an image control and Text block

- Assign you tile image to image control and the text with desire size to text block.

- Then create a snapshot of the control through following code.

use this image for implementing tile generation.

 private WriteableBitmap RenderControlAsImage(UserControl element)
 {
    element.UpdateLayout();
    element.Measure(new Size(element.Width, element.Height));
    element.Arrange(new Rect(0, 0, element.Width, element.Height));
    return new WriteableBitmap(element, null);
 }

Problem

I'm using a Flip Template for my tiles. On the MSDN page the text is seen to wrap, as well as be a smaller size. This is not representative of behaviour I'm seeing in my live tiles. I can get a maximum of 3 lines, of large text, on the Wide live tile. The text does not wrap. This happens on all the different screen sizes of emulators. Frustratingly, I can get 4 lines of text on the Medium live tile, but the additional line of content is too long to fit there anyway so I don't include it. I update my tiles periodically using a scheduled task: ``` Earthquake latest = quakes.First(); newTileData = new FlipTileData { Title = String.Format(AppResources.LiveTileTitleFormat, quakes.Count), BackTitle = String.Format(AppResources.LiveTileTitleFormat, quakes.Count), BackContent = String.Format(AppResources.LiveTileBackContentFormat, latest.FormattedMagnitude, latest.FormattedDepth), WideBackContent = String.Format(AppResources.LiveTileWideBackContentFormat, latest.FormattedMagnitude, latest.FormattedDepth, latest.RelativeLocation) }; ShellTile tileToFind = ShellTile.ActiveTiles.First(); if (tileToFind != null) { tileToFind.Update(newTileData); } ``` The emulator on the left is attempting to show 4 lines. The emulator on the right is showing the text not wrapping. So, is there any way to force a fourth line, or specify a smaller font size, or both? I suspect there isn't, and the MSDN article is simply showing Windows 8 (not WP8) live tiles.

Original source