WINDOWS PHONE APP THRE: (yay metro)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > WINDOWS PHONE APP THRE: (yay metro)

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Doomsday Jesus: Oct 8, 2004; Doomsday Jesus we need you now.

I can confirm on my Focus it is not opening to the newest post.

# ? Nov 13, 2011 20:18

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 23:29

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Added post fontsize support:

That's 28 pt. Anything larger than that, and post content starts getting cut off due to the texture size limit.

# ? Nov 13, 2011 22:07

Lediur: Jul 16, 2007; The alternative to anything is nothing.

bootleg robot posted:

Added post fontsize support:

That's 28 pt. Anything larger than that, and post content starts getting cut off due to the texture size limit.

Sent you an email about Codeplex and my Live ID.

# ? Nov 14, 2011 09:33

Combat Pretzel: Jun 23, 2004; No, seriously... what kurds?!

bootleg robot posted:

That's 28 pt. Anything larger than that, and post content starts getting cut off due to the texture size limit.

You'll be facing that anyway with large posts in megathreads. You should consider splitting posts into multiple content elements hosted in their own stackpanels (multiple textblocks in a panel, each block will be its own texture), starting a given post length. I think separating images out of textblocks also improves rendering, means you should put text sections before, between and after images into their own content elements and images as plain images, all in stackpanels.

I seriously hope Microsoft's going to forcefully introduce DirectX and drop OpenGL ES. I had to introduce tiled images to bypass the limit in my application.

Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Nov 14, 2011

# ? Nov 14, 2011 13:12

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Combat Pretzel posted:

You'll be facing that anyway with large posts in megathreads. You should consider splitting posts into multiple content elements hosted in their own stackpanels (multiple textblocks in a panel, each block will be its own texture), starting a given post length. I think separating images out of textblocks also improves rendering, means you should put text sections before, between and after images into their own content elements and images as plain images, all in stackpanels.

I seriously hope Microsoft's going to forcefully introduce DirectX and drop OpenGL ES. I had to introduce tiled images to bypass the limit in my application.

I won't say this is an obvious solution, but arriving at it a few months ago is the only reason why I decided to write out an entire application.

Anyhoo, the algorithm to determine how much content should be broken down into individual elements is rather naive - works fine for smaller fonts, but not so for fonts larger than what I'm allowing. Feel free to try it out and report threads with cut off content.

# ? Nov 14, 2011 14:16

The Unfetered One: May 31, 2011; by Lowtax

Would like a try please

thank you

The Unfetered One fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Nov 15, 2011

# ? Nov 14, 2011 14:22

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Added you, The Unfetered One.

I submitted the application to the public marketplace; it's currently waiting for certification. I'm not sure how long it will take, but when it does, I'll post a link to it.

# ? Nov 14, 2011 14:41

obeyasia: Sep 21, 2004; Grimey Drawer

bootleg robot posted:

I submitted the application to the public marketplace; it's currently waiting for certification. I'm not sure how long it will take, but when it does, I'll post a link to it.

Happy day!

# ? Nov 14, 2011 19:52

CubanMissile: Apr 22, 2003; Of Hulks and Spider-Men

Is there a good app for TV listings?

# ? Nov 15, 2011 22:16

a real chump: Jul 30, 2003; noice; Nap Ghost

Sorry if I missed it but are you making the source available?

I playing with the SDK and would like a look at what you have done.

# ? Nov 16, 2011 02:11

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

-Spiffy- posted:

Sorry if I missed it but are you making the source available?

I playing with the SDK and would like a look at what you have done.

Yep! I'm in the process of straightening up the code so it's more modular and easier for others (and myself!) to understand what I did in certain places. Once that's done, I'll host it on codeplex for people to look at.

I'm strapped for time at the moment (full time job + end of semester grad work) so it will be a bit.

# ? Nov 16, 2011 17:18

Stay Safe: Sep 1, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

What is the best weather app?

# ? Nov 16, 2011 19:47

loquacius: Oct 21, 2008

Dead Man Posting posted:

What is the best weather app?

I actually have both WeatherBug and The Weather Channel due to an inability to choose between them, and TWC seems to update their live tile more often (and also looks prettier), but I never use either one for anything beyond "what is it like outside RIGHT NOW" so perhaps I'm not the best source. v :v:

v Both of them do have multi-day forecasts and radar map options, which makes them serviceable for most people's purposes; beyond that I couldn't say.

e: WeatherBug does like to push alerts for Winter Weather or Wind Advisories or other things you probably don't care about until you turn that feature off, just a heads-up

# ? Nov 16, 2011 22:09

Maneki Neko: Oct 27, 2000

loquacius posted:

I actually have both WeatherBug and The Weather Channel due to an inability to choose between them, and TWC seems to update their live tile more often (and also looks prettier), but I never use either one for anything beyond "what is it like outside RIGHT NOW" so perhaps I'm not the best source. vv Both of them do have multi-day forecasts and radar map options, which makes them serviceable for most people's purposes; beyond that I couldn't say.

e: WeatherBug does like to push alerts for Winter Weather or Wind Advisories or other things you probably don't care about until you turn that feature off, just a heads-up

Weather channel does the same push alert thing as well. I think they're both pretty similar, I happen to use the Weather Channel app because it's been installed on my phone forever.

# ? Nov 16, 2011 22:44

Chamook: Nov 17, 2006; wheeeeeeeeeeeeee

In Denmark there's the DMI weather app, which has options for handy live tiles - I use 2 tiles, one for now and one for the weather in 6 hours.

There's also Frost, which uses yr.no data and has a beautiful interface (but the live tiles aren't as good as dmi).

# ? Nov 16, 2011 22:54

Naffer: Oct 26, 2004; Not a good chemist

Dead Man Posting posted:

What is the best weather app?

Microsoft has a really nice weather app that is fast and clean, but for some bizarre reason it doesn't have a live tile! I usually keep the weather channel tile next to it for its nice livetile with temp and radar, but if I'm curious about the forecast I'll click into the microsoft one.

# ? Nov 16, 2011 23:12

mcpringles: Jan 26, 2004

Dead Man Posting posted:

What is the best weather app?

Frost is the best if you live outside of the US and use Celsius. Otherwise I'm using Weather Live right now which is decent.

I saw a new one on XDA yesterday that looked neat, but I can't find it now. It had the option of displaying a 3 day forecast on the live tile.

mcpringles fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Nov 17, 2011

# ? Nov 17, 2011 02:15

Broken Loose: Dec 25, 2002; PROGRAM
A > - - - LR > > - - LL > - - -

loquacius posted:

I actually have both WeatherBug and The Weather Channel due to an inability to choose between them, and TWC seems to update their live tile more often (and also looks prettier), but I never use either one for anything beyond "what is it like outside RIGHT NOW" so perhaps I'm not the best source. vv Both of them do have multi-day forecasts and radar map options, which makes them serviceable for most people's purposes; beyond that I couldn't say.

e: WeatherBug does like to push alerts for Winter Weather or Wind Advisories or other things you probably don't care about until you turn that feature off, just a heads-up

I've been using Accuweather because it was the first weather app to have Mango support. Haven't looked back.

# ? Nov 17, 2011 03:57

a real chump: Jul 30, 2003; noice; Nap Ghost

bootleg robot posted:

Yep! I'm in the process of straightening up the code so it's more modular and easier for others (and myself!) to understand what I did in certain places. Once that's done, I'll host it on codeplex for people to look at.

I'm strapped for time at the moment (full time job + end of semester grad work) so it will be a bit.

Awesome no rush

# ? Nov 17, 2011 13:09

Stay Safe: Sep 1, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

Thanks for the recommendations. It seems that none of the weather apps have live tiles working right, which is really all I need =(

# ? Nov 17, 2011 22:18

Rent: Jul 20, 2004; Steal the warm wind tired friend

Dead Man Posting posted:

Thanks for the recommendations. It seems that none of the weather apps have live tiles working right, which is really all I need =(

Accuweather's seem to always work for me.

# ? Nov 17, 2011 23:35

Maneki Neko: Oct 27, 2000

Rent posted:

Accuweather's seem to always work for me.

Weather Channel works for me too.

# ? Nov 18, 2011 00:03

Huge Lady Pleaser: Jun 17, 2005; hello how r u doing im just looking for ppl 2 chill wit relax go out n have funn if ur looking for da same thing hit me up; Nap Ghost

I'd like to try out the Awful app as well. Just got a WP7 device

eqprog -at- gmail

# ? Nov 18, 2011 07:17

Wild EEPROM: Jul 29, 2011; oh, my, god. Becky, look at her bitrate.

Dead Man Posting posted:

Thanks for the recommendations. It seems that none of the weather apps have live tiles working right, which is really all I need =(

Try Smart Weather. Live tile works great for me.

If you are in the US, try StormGlass. It's very good as well, but I don't use it since it still has a bug where it won't display Celcius on the livetile. Aside from that though, you can have multiple tiles, metro style/colored cartoon/realistic styling, locations, etc.

# ? Nov 18, 2011 11:13

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

BBW FEVER posted:

I'd like to try out the Awful app as well. Just got a WP7 device eqprog -at- gmail

Added. Here's the link so you don't have to track it down (because this thread moves so fast, right):

Click Me

# ? Nov 18, 2011 18:03

loquacius: Oct 21, 2008

Dead Man Posting posted:

Thanks for the recommendations. It seems that none of the weather apps have live tiles working right, which is really all I need =(

From what I can tell, most of them do; it's just that it's not set up out-of-the-box. In the case of the two I have (WeatherBug and TWC) you have to go through a process to explicitly tell them which location to use on the live tile; they don't just detect where you are and throw that up there. Which may or may not be a correct decision on their part.

# ? Nov 18, 2011 21:11

sleepwalkers: Dec 7, 2008

Just got a new Focus Flash, and would love to test the Awful app. Allthatcouldhavebeen@msn.com

# ? Nov 18, 2011 21:40

Huge Lady Pleaser: Jun 17, 2005; hello how r u doing im just looking for ppl 2 chill wit relax go out n have funn if ur looking for da same thing hit me up; Nap Ghost

bootleg robot posted:

Added. Here's the link so you don't have to track it down (because this thread moves so fast, right):

Click Me

Thanks, I will let you know how it works on my Venue Pro

# ? Nov 19, 2011 01:14

Wild EEPROM: Jul 29, 2011; oh, my, god. Becky, look at her bitrate.

The app won't download for me from the market. Any chance of an XAP?

# ? Nov 19, 2011 04:07

Huge Lady Pleaser: Jun 17, 2005; hello how r u doing im just looking for ppl 2 chill wit relax go out n have funn if ur looking for da same thing hit me up; Nap Ghost

testing from my phone

fake edit:

jwoven posted:

The app won't download for me from the market. Any chance of an XAP?

Its in beta so they need to add your Windows Live account to the access list.

Just now using the app (but typing this on my pc) and I already have a few comments. First off I think that the forums shouldn't be listed alphabetically and should be listed in similar order to the browser version. I think to keep the UI consistent with WP7's the "home" screen of the app should consist of tabs which outline the different divisions of the forums like so:

code:


(Bracketed words indicate a tab/page)

[Main]     [Discussion]      [The Finer Arts]               [etc...]
  GBS         Games              Creative Convention
  FYAD        IYG                Cinema Discusso
              etc...                etc...

And when you click on a forum, the subforums would be tabs like so

[GBS] [Front Page] [E/N]

Next thing is the quotation formatting, I'm not a big fan. One detail that irks me is that closing quotation mark isn't left-aligned on the page and it simply put on a new line. The quotation symbols themselves are fairly big and create 2-3 lines of wasted screen space. I think you should make the images inline with the text and have the text wrap around the quotations. Also, quotations don't seem to include who the quoted person is.

I think having each post on a single "page" isn't a good way to handle the posts. I like the paging idea but when reading a thread containing 90% one or two line posts (in games for example), flipping through all the posts is somewhat tedious. Perhaps you could consolidate smaller posts into one page? You could put a #[x] [poster] type of thing on each post so the user could keep track of the page.

When making a new post, the app doesn't go to the post. I have to reload the page and go down to my post. Speaking of that, I think it'd be a good idea to have the app remember which post it was on when reloading.

It'd be nice if the text input field were bigger and if there were a post-preview option incase I need to make a complex post from my phone for whatever reason.

Also, two bugs so far on my phone. When I touch the settings[gear/login?] button on the bottom of the page it simply disappears along with the menu [...] button. I can also go to thread pages that don't exist. As in, page 7 of 5. Trying to page back doesn't work after doing this and I have to go back to the thread listing to fix that.

edit: found a sort of bug. I can't exit out of the app by press back a lot because going to the AWFUL FORUM READER menu redirects me to the forum listing.

Huge Lady Pleaser fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Nov 19, 2011

# ? Nov 19, 2011 04:44

obeyasia: Sep 21, 2004; Grimey Drawer

When I try to download it says im not allowed. Can you make sure im added to the testers list?
asia.pickle@live.com

Thanks big big.

# ? Nov 19, 2011 04:44

Total Confusion: Oct 9, 2004

Is there the possibility of adding an option to get to the User CP somewhere?

# ? Nov 19, 2011 12:05

Kidney Stone: Dec 28, 2008; The worst pain ever!

I will be getting my first WP7 handset in a weeks time, so I would love to be in on the testing.

Could you add me to the list? vexborg @ live.com

Thanks

# ? Nov 19, 2011 17:59

Doomsday Jesus: Oct 8, 2004; Doomsday Jesus we need you now.

I like the way it lists the forums and being able to tap the letter to bring up a quick sort.

# ? Nov 20, 2011 03:44

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Added Kidney Stone, obeyasia, and jwoven.

Thanks for the bug reports and comments BBW FEVER. Sadly, I can't make changes to the current beta; I've fixed those bugs in the release version (which should be available real soon, thanks MS testers).

I'm pretty fond of having all of the forums on one list, on the same page. The forums list page is just that -- to find the forum you want. You find the thread you want on the thread list page, and you view posts from the selected thread in the thread view page. I think that keeping it simple like that is best for the mobile format, and in line with the Metro UX philosophy. I plan on adding bookmarked thread list to the forum list page (turning it into a main hub of sorts) so users can jump right to the threads they are interested in.
I agree with you on the quotes; inline is a good idea, and I will get to work on that. Showing the author of a quote is less of a concern, until I come up with a way to show that information in a way that matches the display style I'm going for.
I like the way posts are handled now, so I don't think I will change that unless someone comes up with a clever alternative.
A better reply interface is coming, what's currently there was a quick and dirty way to allow people to reply on their phones. Sit tight!

Gold and a Pager, I rarely use the User CP, so I'm pretty ignorant about it. What features would you like to see? I'm currently working on adding bookmark support and private messages.

# ? Nov 20, 2011 04:23

obeyasia: Sep 21, 2004; Grimey Drawer

I do like his idea of having the forums sectioned out. The familiarity of that ordering trumps a more logical alphabetical ordering.

obeyasia fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Nov 20, 2011

# ? Nov 20, 2011 04:57

Total Confusion: Oct 9, 2004

bootleg robot posted:

Gold and a Pager, I rarely use the User CP, so I'm pretty ignorant about it. What features would you like to see? I'm currently working on adding bookmark support and private messages.

Edit: drat, my reading comprehension is really poo poo.

Total Confusion fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Nov 21, 2011

# ? Nov 20, 2011 10:39

joebuddah: Jan 30, 2005

Please add me to the beta. Josephmhahn24@live.com

# ? Nov 20, 2011 18:25

kapinga: Oct 12, 2005; I am not a number

bootleg robot posted:

I agree with you on the quotes; inline is a good idea, and I will get to work on that. Showing the author of a quote is less of a concern, until I come up with a way to show that information in a way that matches the display style I'm going for.

...

Gold and a Pager, I rarely use the User CP, so I'm pretty ignorant about it. What features would you like to see? I'm currently working on adding bookmark support and private messages.

First off, thanks for all your work, it's wonderful to be able to read the forums in a half-way manageable way. I'd like to add my $0.02 on these two points.

First, with the way you're displaying posts (one post/screen), it's critical to display the quote author. It's very difficult to figure out who is being quoted otherwise - quickly scanning "up the page" isn't as feasible on the phone as on a computer. With your current quote layout, I'd just say to append the quote author after the open quote mark. Maybe bold it or use the highlight color.

(As an aside, I really like the way WonderReader displays quoted content on RSS feeds - with a simple 1-2px white outline surrounding the content. It's clean, simple, doesn't use much vertical space, and easily stacked for several layers if need be. But I can see you are going for a different style with this app.)

Second, I'd like to second the request for a User CP (i.e. bookmarked threads list). I use it a ton on the computer, and it'd be even nicer on the phone where I'm more likely to just check in on my threads of interest rather than be searching for new content to follow. All it really needs to be is a standard forum display, but showing the thread list normally displayed on the user CP. You'll probably have to rework your page parser a bit though.

Also, would it be possible to remember the location on each post when scrolling left and right? On very long posts, I find myself accidentally flipping to the next post, and it's slightly frustrating to find your spot again after accidentally flipping to the next post.

Lastly, a bug report: I find that browsing more than two consecutive pages of a thread will cause the app to flip out and load page 2 of the thread, no matter where I started (i.e. I'll start on page 5, flip to page 6, then flip and be brought to page 2). This seems to happen when starting with the last read post or when using the "goto page" function. At this point I usually go back to the thread list and try again.

# ? Nov 21, 2011 00:32

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 23:29

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

kapinga posted:

*stuff*

Thanks for the input!

I'll have the app remember post location. Also, I might make the flicking less sensitive so flick accidents happen less often.
Let me check out WonderReader to see what you're talking about, as I am a bit worried about the look of quotes-within-quotes. I hear you on the author labeling so I will take that into consideration.
What is currently the forum list page will become a page that has a pivot menu. Forums will be on one pivot, and bookmarked threads will be on another pivot. I'll post a screenshot when I implement it.
That page bug has been fixed in the release version. Thanks!

EDIT: joebuddah added.

bootleg robot fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Nov 21, 2011

# ? Nov 21, 2011 15:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > WINDOWS PHONE APP THRE: (yay metro)

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