How to implement the standard Windows Phone 7 ComboBox replacement UI

Question

I'm trying to implement what seems to be the standard UI replacement for comboboxes in Windows Phone 7. This is the TextBox + Navigate to New Page with Listbox approach you can see in the settings page of the Emulator.

I got the following issues while trying to implement this approach, speficically related to the TextBox:

1. If I use a ReadOnly TextBox the text appears in light gray, which is not really what I want. I want the normal black font there.
2. If I don't use a ReadOnly TextBox the virtual phone keyboard will appear in some rare situtations, even when I handled the MouseEnter event. I can't consistently reproduce the situations when the keyboard appears.

Which is the best approach to implement this behaviour?

Answer 1

Have you considered just using a TextBlock with an invisible button over the top? Or associate a gesture to take the tap event?

You could also check out Alex's implementation here of a picker box.

Implementing Picker Box functionality on WP7. - Alex Yakhnin's Blog