Adding SemanticZoom controls (XAML)

[ This article is for Windows 8.x and Windows Phone 8.x developers writing Windows Runtime apps. If you’re developing for Windows 10, see the latest documentation ]

The SemanticZoom control enables the user to zoom between two different views of the same content. The topics in this section show you how to use the SemanticZoom control.

Watch this brief video for an overview of Semantic Zoom and how to implement it with C# and XAML.

Semantic zooming is performed through direct manipulation with the pinch interaction (moving the fingers closer together zooms in and moving them apart zooms out), or by holding the CTRL key down while scrolling the mouse scroll wheel, or by holding the CTRL key down and pressing the + or - key.

Zooming through content

Semantic zoom is useful for quickly panning through content. Tapping the content in a zoomed-out view will zoom the view and pan to the tapped point, as shown in the following three screen shots.

Zoomed out, the entire content can be a touch target:

A tap on a section of the content:

Zoomed in and panned to the tapped area:

A smooth cross-fade animation is used for the transition from one semantic zoom to another. This is the default touch behavior and cannot be customized.

In this section

Topic	Description
Quickstart: Adding SemanticZoom controls	Learn how to use the SemanticZoom control to zoom between two views of the same content.
SemanticZoom styles and templates	This topic describes the styles and templates for the SemanticZoom control.
Guidelines and checklist for SemanticZoom controls	Follow these guidelines for using the SemanticZoom control.