Question

Is there some trick to make the Page.AppBars in WinRT squeeze/move the content of the page rather than going over the top of the content?

Answer 1

You can, but you would need to write some code to do it.

My version using visual states:

<Page.BottomAppBar>
    <AppBar
        x:Name="bottomAppBar"
        Opened="OnBottomAppBarOpened"
        Closed="OnBottomAppBarClosed">
        <StackPanel
            Orientation="Horizontal">
            <Button
                Style="{StaticResource PlayAppBarButtonStyle}" />
        </StackPanel>
    </AppBar>
</Page.BottomAppBar>
<Grid
    Background="{StaticResource ApplicationPageBackgroundThemeBrush}">
    <VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
        <VisualStateGroup
            x:Name="AppBarPushStates">
            <VisualState
                x:Name="AppBarClosed">
                <Storyboard>
                    <DoubleAnimation
                        Storyboard.TargetName="pushedContentTransform"
                        Storyboard.TargetProperty="Y"
                        To="0"
                        Duration="0:0:0.2">
                        <DoubleAnimation.EasingFunction>
                            <CubicEase
                                EasingMode="EaseOut" />
                        </DoubleAnimation.EasingFunction>
                    </DoubleAnimation>
                </Storyboard>
            </VisualState>
            <VisualState
                x:Name="AppBarOpened">
                <Storyboard>
                    <DoubleAnimation
                        Storyboard.TargetName="pushedContentTransform"
                        Storyboard.TargetProperty="Y"
                        To="-88"
                        Duration="0:0:0.2">
                        <DoubleAnimation.EasingFunction>
                            <CubicEase
                                EasingMode="EaseOut" />
                        </DoubleAnimation.EasingFunction>
                    </DoubleAnimation>
                </Storyboard>
            </VisualState>
        </VisualStateGroup>
    </VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
    <Border
        VerticalAlignment="Stretch"
        HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
        BorderBrush="Orange"
        BorderThickness="5">
        <Border.RenderTransform>
            <TranslateTransform
                x:Name="pushedContentTransform" />
        </Border.RenderTransform>
        <TextBox
            TextWrapping="Wrap"
            Foreground="Brown"
            FontSize="48"
            Text="Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. Nunc viverra imperdiet enim. Fusce est. Vivamus a tellus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Proin pharetra nonummy pede. Mauris et orci. Aenean nec lorem. In porttitor. Donec laoreet nonummy augue. Suspendisse dui purus, scelerisque at, vulputate vitae, pretium mattis, nunc. Mauris eget neque at sem venenatis eleifend. Ut nonummy. Fusce aliquet pede non pede. Suspendisse dapibus lorem pellentesque magna. Integer nulla. Donec blandit feugiat ligula. Donec hendrerit, felis et imperdiet euismod, purus ipsum pretium metus, in lacinia nulla nisl eget sapien. Donec ut est in lectus consequat consequat." />
    </Border>
</Grid>

Code behind:

    private void OnBottomAppBarClosed(object sender, object e)
    {
        VisualStateManager.GoToState(this, "AppBarClosed", true);
    }

    private void OnBottomAppBarOpened(object sender, object e)
    {
        VisualStateManager.GoToState(this, "AppBarOpened", true);
    }