Question

I just started on my second Windows Phone application, and I ran into a problem (ehm..challange). In my app, I have added a folder called “Images”, and some sub-folders, like this:
Images -> boys -> graphs

The boys folder contains 1 xml file, and the graphs folder contains hundreds of .gif images. And I’m now wondering how to access these files, how can I build them into the .xap file, what’s the recommended way to go?
Should I set the files to “Content” or “Resource”, “Copy to output folder”?

And how do I refer to these files, both the xml file in “boys”, and the gif images in “graphs”?

A bit confused, and hoping that there is someone who can kick me in the right direction 🙂

edit, more info

I got it working, loading the xml file with the code below, I haven’t tried with the images yet, but is this “the way to do it”?

string xmlBoys = @"images/boys/Names.xml";
Uri uri = new Uri(xmlBoys, UriKind.Relative);
StreamResourceInfo sm = Application.GetResourceStream(uri);
System.Xml.XmlReader xr = System.Xml.XmlReader.Create(sm.Stream);

XDocument data = XDocument.Load(xr);

Answer 1

If you set the BuildAction on the images to Content you can refer to them by the relative path.
e.g.: new Uri("\Images\boys\graphs\img1.gif", UriKind.Relative);

You don’t need to “Copy to output folder” unless you need them there for your own purposes. You probably don’t. That option is an artefact of other types of project. Everythign you need to distribute will be bundled in the XAP.

Importantly, however, note that WP7 does not have native support for gif format files. I’d suggest converting these to PNG before trying to use them.