Accessing Contacts Information in Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 SDK has lots of updates and changes compared to Windows 8 SDK. As an epitome of all these changes most of the Windows 8 SDK methods and classes have been deprecated and not advised to be used in the new development.

This post shows how to access the Contacts information in Windows 8.1 and 8. The new SDK is easy to use for sure and more sleek.

Accessing Contacts Information using Windows 8 SDK

private async void GetContactsDataUsingWindowd8SDK()
{
    var contactPicker = new Windows.ApplicationModel.Contacts.ContactPicker();
    contactPicker.CommitButtonText = "Select a contact";
  
    ContactInformation contact = await contactPicker.PickSingleContactAsync();
  
    // For multiple contacts Selection
    //IReadOnlyList<ContactInformation> contacts = await contactPicker.PickMultipleContactsAsync();
  
    var viewmodel = new ContactViewModel();
  
    if (contact != null)
    {
        string name = contact.Name;
  
        if (contact.Emails.Count > 0)
        {
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            foreach (IContactField field in contact.Emails)
            {
                sb.AppendFormat("{0} ({1}) \n", field.Value, field.Category);
            }
            string email = sb.ToString();
        }
  
        // Display the contact’s thumbnail
        Windows.Storage.Streams.IRandomAccessStreamWithContentType stream = await contact.GetThumbnailAsync();
  
        if (stream != null && stream.Size > 0)
        {
            BitmapImage image = new BitmapImage();
            image.SetSource(stream);
        }
    } 

Same to be done in Windows 8.1 SDK

private async void GetContactInfoUsingWindows81SDK()
{
    var contactPicker = new Windows.ApplicationModel.Contacts.ContactPicker();
    contactPicker.CommitButtonText = "Select Contacts";
  
    // select specific properties only
    contactPicker.SelectionMode = Windows.ApplicationModel.Contacts.ContactSelectionMode.Fields;
  
    //contactPicker.DesiredFieldsWithContactFieldType.Add();
  
    var contactCollection = await contactPicker.PickContactsAsync();
    //contactCollection.Add(new Windows.ApplicationModel.Contacts.Contact());
  
    List<ContactViewModel> contactViewModels = new List<ContactViewModel>();
  
    if (contactCollection != null)
    {
        foreach (var contact in contactCollection)
        {
            var viewmodel = new ContactViewModel();
  
            viewmodel.Id = contact.Id;
            viewmodel.FullName = contact.FirstName + " " + contact.LastName;
  
            if (contact.Emails.Any())
            {
                foreach (var email in contact.Emails)
                {
                    if (email.Kind == Windows.ApplicationModel.Contacts.ContactEmailKind.Personal)
                    {
                        viewmodel.PersonalEmail = email.Address;
                    }
                }
            }
  
            var thumbnail = await contact.Thumbnail.OpenReadAsync();
  
            if (thumbnail != null && thumbnail.Size > 0)
            {
                viewmodel.ContactThumbnail.SetSource(thumbnail);
            }
  
  
        }
    }
}

Code for the View Model class used in 8.1

public class ContactViewModel
{
    public string Id { get; set; }
  
    public string FullName { get; set; }
  
    public string PersonalEmail { get; set; }
  
    public BitmapImage ContactThumbnail { get; set; }
}

You can notice that 8.1 version the methods have changes and enums have been introduced to make the development more concise.

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Accessing Contacts Information in Windows 8.1

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