Here you will see some useful tools used to develop Windows Phone 8 applications. It is a free and open source package mainly used for controls.

Controls in Windows Phone Toolkit

  • AutoCompleteBox
  • ContextMenu
  • CustomMessageBox
  • DateTimeConverters
  • DateTimePickers
  • Effects: SlideInEffect, TiltEffect and TurnstileFeatherEffect
  • ExpanderView
  • HubTile
  • ListPicker
  • LongListMultiSelector
  • Map extensions
  • PhoneTextBox
  • RatingControl
  • ToggleSwitch
  • TransferControl
  • Navigation transitions
  • WrapPanel

First ensure that the “NuGet Package Manager” is installed as shown below. Go to Tools and select Extensions and Updates.



Now the Extensions and Uploads popup will be shown as below. Type NuGet in the search box and install it; in my case it was already installed so just click Close (after installing NuGet restart Visual Studio 2012).



After installing the NuGet Package Manager right-click your Reference folder in your project Solution Explorer select “Manage NuGet Packages” as shown below.



Then the new popup will appear as shown below. In that search box type “Windows Phone toolkit”.



Install this package. After the installation has finished the screen will be as shown below.



Close this popup and check your References folder in Solution Explorer as shown below.



Now your Windows Phone toolkit is ready for use. Then we need to include the XAML namespace in your XAM page as shown in the following screen.

xmlns:toolkit="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit"