Orientation and the PhoneApplicationPage Class

The PhoneApplicationPage class includes two orientation related properties: SupportedOrientations and Orientation.

The SupportedOrientations attribute allows you to restrict the orientation of the page and, if set to either Portrait or Landscape, prevent the orientation from being changed when the device is rotated. If the page is designed to support both portrait and landscape, set SupportedOrientation to PortraitOrLandscape, which allows the orientation to be switched automatically when the device is rotated.

The Orientation property indicates the actual orientation of the page and can be set only at design time. The Orientation property is discussed in greater detail later in the chapter.

When you create a new PhoneApplicationPage within Visual Studio, both SupportedOrientations and Orientation are set, by default, to Portrait in XAML.