Awful Forum Reader for Windows Phone

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Awful Forum Reader for Windows Phone

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Debugger is in, you can toggle it on or off in Settings. If enabled, debug files are saved daily to isolated storage on your phone. You can delete the debug files at any time. Apps can't seem to send text files as attachments, so you'll be sending me a bunch of text in the Body field for now. :v:

Everyone who posted their emails have been added to the beta list. When it gets published to the marketplace, I'll post a link in the OP.

bootleg robot fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jan 31, 2012

# ? Jan 20, 2012 15:38

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# ? May 3, 2024 06:50

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Finally off probation, thanks to MS testing replies using my account. Anyhow, beta has been available for a couple days (check the OP for the download link). If everything goes a well, a 1.9 release will quickly follow.

bootleg robot fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Jan 31, 2012

# ? Jan 25, 2012 15:14

Duckman2008: Jan 6, 2010; TFW you see Flyers goaltending.; Grimey Drawer

Trying out the marketplace version. My input:

1. It doesn't take me to last read post. Really frustrating.

2. No landscape support aka no physical keyboard support.

3. Personal opinion, but I would prefer the forums list be sorted how it is on the website vs alphabetically.

# ? Jan 25, 2012 15:37

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Duckman2008 posted:

Trying out the marketplace version. My input:

1. It doesn't take me to last read post. Really frustrating.

2. No landscape support aka no physical keyboard support.

3. Personal opinion, but I would prefer the forums list be sorted how it is on the website vs alphabetically.

Thanks for the input.

1. It should take you to the first unread post. Why would you want to see a post you already viewed? I assume we're talking about the same thing, though. There seems to be an issue with the "Mark Thread as Read" command, as it doesn't seem to be sending the request to SA correctly. Looking into it.

2. Landscape support is in 1.9.

3. Is it because you're having trouble finding the forum you want in the ordering? I've added a favorites section in the interim so you can at least navigate a smaller list, but I've added the standard sorting for the next release.

bootleg robot fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jan 25, 2012

# ? Jan 25, 2012 16:08

Tivac: Feb 18, 2003; No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are

Not available for my HTC Radar 4g on T-Mobile running 7720

# ? Jan 25, 2012 18:28

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

Can I get in on the beta as well? [Thanks]. I guess I removed my email a bit too quickly from my previous post.

kapinga fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Jan 26, 2012

# ? Jan 25, 2012 18:41

Ferg: May 6, 2007; Lipstick Apathy

bootleg robot posted:

Finally off probation, thanks to MS testing replies using my account. Anyhoo, beta has been available for a couple days (check the OP for the download link). If everything goes a well, a 1.9 release will quickly follow.

Amazon did this to me too (though I got it fixed before the probate). I just purchased them an account to login since they clearly don't read instructions.

# ? Jan 25, 2012 18:48

Duckman2008: Jan 6, 2010; TFW you see Flyers goaltending.; Grimey Drawer

bootleg robot posted:

Thanks for the input.

1. It should take you to the first unread post. Why would you want to see a post you already viewed? I assume we're talking about the same thing, though. There seems to be an issue with the "Mark Thread as Read" command, as it doesn't seem to be sending the request to SA correctly. Looking into it.

2. Landscape support is in 1.9.

3. Is it because you're having trouble finding the forum you want in the ordering? I've added a favorites section in the interim so you can at least navigate a smaller list, but I've added the standard sorting for the next release.

For point #1, I meant unread yeah. And it keeps just taking me to page one of the thread.

Can you add me to the email list? jimplaysdrums (at) gmail (dot) com

# ? Jan 25, 2012 19:23

Badly Jester: Apr 9, 2010; Bitches!

bootleg robot posted:

Finally off probation, thanks to MS testing replies using my account. Anyhoo, beta has been available for a couple days (check the OP for the download link). If everything goes a well, a 1.9 release will quickly follow.

Are you saying they picked out the thread by the girl looking for help with her PTSD, and then they posted a random string of letters to see if posting works? :negative:

Anyway, I'm liking 1.9 so far. While it still sometimes gets stuck even when I'm not tapping through posts quickly, tapping has been a lot more responsive.
I've also had a crash today when using the jumplist, but I was unable to reproduce it (I was navigating from #1 to #1 at the time) and I had the debugger disabled. I'll keep trying to mess with that and see what I can find.

# ? Jan 25, 2012 20:02

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Tivac posted:

Not available for my HTC Radar 4g on T-Mobile running 7720

There was a problem like this before -- it's something on the Marketplace's end. Wait a little a while and you should be able to grab it.

kapinga and Duckman2008, I'll add you guys after I get off of work today.

Ferg posted:

Amazon did this to me too (though I got it fixed before the probate). I just purchased them an account to login since they clearly don't read instructions.

Yeah, looks like I'm going to end up doing the same.

Duckman2008 posted:

For point #1, I meant unread yeah. And it keeps just taking me to page one of the thread.

Are you navigating a forum or your bookmarks when this happens? If it's taking you to page 1, then that thread is being parsed as a thread you haven't seen before. Do you see the number of unread posts for your viewed threads in the list?

Some bugs I discovered today:

Marking a post as read does not work, although it confirms success. Turns out the Uri class isn't a fan of url encoded strings. Fixed.
Some links work, some links don't. Some links were being parsed twice, which confused the javascript handling them. Also, if the link has a url containing a protocol that isn't "http://" or "https://", the WebBrowserTask instance fails. Found this out when I tried to click on the "zune://" link provided in the OP. The internal browser handles it without a hitch, though. Both issues are fixed.
If I try to navigate to another page in the thread from my current page, and the page fails (or I cancel the request), the old page doesn't show up again. The loading page animation removes the thread page content from the view, but a different animation brings it back. I forgot to start the latter on page request failures or cancellations . Fixed.
If I return to Awful after my phone has been asleep for a while, people are no longer swearing, and I see pictures of grandmas every other post... I could solve this (and the need to login every time you start the app) if I could figure out how to serialize CookieContainer properly. Until then, just restart the app (Start button -> launch app) Ongoing. Looks like it's currently not possible on Mango. Moving on for now.

EDIT (last one I promise): There's an API call that will let Awful run always, even when the lock screen is active:

code:

 Set PhoneApplicationService.Current.ApplicationIdleDetectionMode = IdleDetectionMode.Disabled;

This means that you should never have to login again until the application is restarted. Not ideal in my opinion, but "better than bad is good"�.

bootleg robot fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Jan 25, 2012

# ? Jan 25, 2012 20:37

Tivac: Feb 18, 2003; No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are

I still can't download, but hopefully this helps somebody else out so they don't have to type in that URL.

# ? Jan 26, 2012 08:22

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Tivac posted:

I still can't download, but hopefully this helps somebody else out so they don't have to type in that URL.

You typed all of that out? :negative:

The intention was for you to click the link by reading this thread in IE. I also sent out emails with the link included to all the testers.

The Marketplace just has issues all around:

http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/87910.aspx" posted:

Hello all,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. The issue that has been discovered is with the formatting of the deeplink provided to you for distribution of your Beta app. Until we are able to implement a solution, please get around this issue you can re-format the deeplink provided from the current zune format to the windows phone format. For example:
code:
http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=yourAppGUIDyourAppGUID.
We will implement a solution for this but hope that this helps to get around the current issue in the interim. Thank you for your patience.

Jo

(please start a new thread if you have a different issue with Beta Submission and Testing than the one addressed in this response.)

Thanks for the QR code, though. I never would have thought of that. Here's the workaround (which actually works):

Click here for link

bootleg robot fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Jan 26, 2012

# ? Jan 26, 2012 14:16

Tivac: Feb 18, 2003; No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are

Grabbed the dev version, still no unread post display. I turned on debugging & restarted the app but haven't actually been able to get my bookmarks to load now that debugging is on.

:sigh:

# ? Jan 26, 2012 19:57

Mt. Modular: May 18, 2006

Apologies if this is a known issue, but I figured I'd bring it up just in case you need another example of it:

In the app (Using the current marketplace app), if i go to a thread that I've read before (regardless of whether its just from the main screen or from the favorites screen), it will not take me to the first unread post. Instead it will take me to the beginning of the last page that I read. So, if the first unread post should be post #40 on a page, I still have to scroll through 39 entries before I get there.

Now, for what its worth, when I browse the forums on IE on my phone, it does the same thing. So...maybe there's some strange setting I don't know about?

# ? Jan 26, 2012 20:43

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Tivac posted:

Grabbed the dev version, still no unread post display. I turned on debugging & restarted the app but haven't actually been able to get my bookmarks to load now that debugging is on.

An email will be coming your way shortly, bud.

Mt. Modular posted:

Apologies if this is a known issue, but I figured I'd bring it up just in case you need another example of it:

In the app (Using the current marketplace app), if i go to a thread that I've read before (regardless of whether its just from the main screen or from the favorites screen), it will not take me to the first unread post. Instead it will take me to the beginning of the last page that I read. So, if the first unread post should be post #40 on a page, I still have to scroll through 39 entries before I get there.

Now, for what its worth, when I browse the forums on IE on my phone, it does the same thing. So...maybe there's some strange setting I don't know about?

It seems that this is an issue for some users and not others. Are the number of unread posts showing up under threads for you?

EDIT: What kind of phone do you have by the way? I can't reproduce this behavior on my account -- using a Samsung Focus.

You're right about IE not taking you to the correct post, too. I don't use javascript to show the first unread post, though. I wrote the app in such a way that if it doesn't find any unread posts on the page, then it just displays the first post. When you load up a page with unread posts on it, are they highlighted as unread (i.e. not with a colored tint) even though the app takes you to the beginning?

bootleg robot fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Jan 26, 2012

# ? Jan 26, 2012 21:44

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Tivac, thanks for the debug report. I found your issue

.

It's an html parsing issue. I check to see if the thread is read by looking at this element in the html:

code:

// blah blah blah

<tr class="thread seen" id="threadblahblah">

// blah blah blah

At least, this is how that element shows up for me. For you (and perhaps others), the class attribute value is "thread seen category0" or something similar. As a result, the code is assuming said thread is brand new. I've changed the code to find a catch all instead of that specific string. Cheers!

# ? Jan 26, 2012 22:45

Tivac: Feb 18, 2003; No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are

bootleg robot posted:

Tivac, thanks for the debug report. I found your issue .

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

PS: I really wish SA provided some sort of structured data feed for the forums, parsing HTML to get structured data out is a good way to drive yourself insane. I applaud you for doing it.

# ? Jan 26, 2012 22:53

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

You and me both. LINQ definitely makes parsing less of a pain the rear end, that's for sure.

Content: Viewing posts as a vertical list is almost done. I'm finally getting the hang of this css stuff. Also, if anyone has any cool ideas on how to present thread polls Metro-style, I'm all ears.

bootleg robot fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Jan 26, 2012

# ? Jan 26, 2012 23:13

Tivac: Feb 18, 2003; No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are

bootleg robot posted:

Content: Viewing posts as a vertical list is almost done. I'm finally getting the hang of this css stuff. Also, if anyone has any cool ideas on how to present thread polls Metro-style, I'm all ears.

Could you throw the HTML the app generates & the CSS it uses up somewhere? I'm mostly just curious but if I could help clean things up or polish up that'd be pretty rad.

# ? Jan 26, 2012 23:39

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

I'm also seeing the problems with not showing unread count (on the bookmarks page) and not jumping to the first unread post, or even the first page with unread posts at all when choosing a thread from there. (I just get the first post in the thread regardless.)
Using the current Marketplace version on a Lumia 800.

Isn't it most likely that these bugs are caused by variations in user settings on the forums? Maybe also by forum upgrades bought.

As for showing polls, maybe a pane you can pull down from the top of the screen?

# ? Jan 26, 2012 23:51

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Tivac posted:

Could you throw the HTML the app generates & the CSS it uses up somewhere? I'm mostly just curious but if I could help clean things up or polish up that'd be pretty rad.

Sure, I'll post it sometime today or tomorrow, with html examples.

# ? Jan 26, 2012 23:53

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

nielsm posted:

I'm also seeing the problems with not showing unread count (on the bookmarks page) and not jumping to the first unread post, or even the first page with unread posts at all when choosing a thread from there. (I just get the first post in the thread regardless.)
Using the current Marketplace version on a Lumia 800.

Isn't it most likely that these bugs are caused by variations in user settings on the forums? Maybe also by forum upgrades bought.

As for showing polls, maybe a pane you can pull down from the top of the screen?

I'm sure you're quite right. As I mentioned before, I could only go by my browsing experiences when I initially wrote this thing. Hell, I barely even used bookmarks until recently! Hopefully, as more users participate in the beta, I can catch those differences and deal with them accordingly. For example, I'd love to know what that "category0" thing is for.

Can you post a screenshot of your UserCP? Do you have Platnium?

# ? Jan 27, 2012 00:07

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

bootleg robot posted:

Can you post a screenshot of your UserCP? Do you have Platnium?

I have Platinum, ad-free (with user banners at the bottom enabled) and archives.
Also, my Thread Tracking options are (in order): Y N N N N N
Thread View Options: Y N Y Y Y Y Y Default Default

I can mail you some forums HTML as I receive it, if you like.

# ? Jan 27, 2012 00:43

Mt. Modular: May 18, 2006

bootleg robot posted:

It seems that this is an issue for some users and not others. Are the number of unread posts showing up under threads for you?

EDIT: What kind of phone do you have by the way? I can't reproduce this behavior on my account -- using a Samsung Focus.

You're right about IE not taking you to the correct post, too. I don't use javascript to show the first unread post, though. I wrote the app in such a way that if it doesn't find any unread posts on the page, then it just displays the first post. When you load up a page with unread posts on it, are they highlighted as unread (i.e. not with a colored tint) even though the app takes you to the beginning?

I have a Samsung Focus, actually.

In the app, it IS showing me the number of unread posts under the thread titles. But regardless of it's one unread post or 20, it still takes me to the first post of the last page I read.

In IE, it IS tinting the read posts (even if its not taking me to the first unread post). In the app, there is nothing to differentiate between unread and read posts (that I can see, at least).

# ? Jan 27, 2012 15:01

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Mt. Modular posted:

I have a Samsung Focus, actually.

In the app, it IS showing me the number of unread posts under the thread titles. But regardless of it's one unread post or 20, it still takes me to the first post of the last page I read.

In IE, it IS tinting the read posts (even if its not taking me to the first unread post). In the app, there is nothing to differentiate between unread and read posts (that I can see, at least).

Hmm, okay. When the page loads up, the code determines if a post has been seen or not by checking for the following url:

http://fi.somethingawful.com/style/posticon-new.gif

or

http://fi.somethingawful.com/style/posticon-new.gif

It's the first link that sits under the post info area, where the post date and direct link to the post are.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is once again another custom settings issue.

Enable the following in your Control Panel:

Show an icon next to each post indicating if it has been seen or not
The icon can be clicked on to set the seen time to that of the post. [yes]

Also, I bet that the category0 thing refers to this option:

Show bookmark category "star buttons" next to threads
Allows you to assign different colored stars to a thread, click the star to cycle through colors [yes]

If you are using 1.8 and are having issues with bookmark behavior, try setting the option above to "no". See the edit below.

I'm going to add this to the reserved post below the OP.

EDIT: The option that is tripping up the bookmarks view is

Colorize threads according to the bookmark category I've assigned [yes]

Set this to "no."

bootleg robot fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jan 27, 2012

# ? Jan 27, 2012 16:56

Mt. Modular: May 18, 2006

bootleg robot posted:

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is once again another custom settings issue.

Enable the following in your Control Panel:

Show an icon next to each post indicating if it has been seen or not
The icon can be clicked on to set the seen time to that of the post. [yes]

You know what? This right here fixed the problem for me. I feel silly because I didn't even know that setting was an option (of course, it never seemed relevant before either).

Thanks!

Oh, and, I love the app. I thought it'd be just a novelty and that I'd use my phone's IE for the forums more. But no, I use the app more often (and probably more now that I've got the unread post thing resolved). Loving it!

# ? Jan 27, 2012 17:16

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Vertical Style reading will be available in 1.9:

To access per-post features, simply tap on the post header (poster handle, avatar, post date). You will have the option to toggle between this style or current one in the settings menu.

# ? Jan 29, 2012 03:56

big mean giraffe: Dec 13, 2003; Eat Shit and Die; Lipstick Apathy

You got some grey bars in your metro :v:

# ? Jan 30, 2012 15:07

obeyasia: Sep 21, 2004; Grimey Drawer

bootleg robot posted:

Vertical Style reading will be available in 1.9:

To access per-post features, simply tap on the post header (poster handle, avatar, post date). You will have the option to toggle between this style or current one in the settings menu.

When can we have it?

# ? Jan 30, 2012 15:35

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

big mean giraffe posted:

You got some grey bars in your metro

I have no idea what you're talking about. :colbert:

Haha, early on I tried to present quotes by being wrapped in giant quotation marks, but it didn't look too good. I think the current style looks rather nice. Gray bars, like sweets, are okay in moderation. :v:

obeyasia posted:

When can we have it?

There are still some things I want to tackle first (hunting down elements that break tables, smooth scrolling when post jumping) before I put out another beta. Be on the lookout for one around the first or third week of next month.

# ? Jan 30, 2012 16:23

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

How about in blue callouts, similar to the messages app?

# ? Jan 31, 2012 04:51

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Okay, finishing up didn't take me as long as I thought it would. The current 1.9 beta will be ending today, and a new beta for 1.9 will begin. When it becomes available on the Marketplace for testers, I'll update the OP.

Caged posted:

How about in blue callouts, similar to the messages app?

For quotes? That's a cool idea, I'll make a mockup and see what everyone else thinks.

# ? Jan 31, 2012 17:38

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

bootleg robot posted:

For quotes? That's a cool idea, I'll make a mockup and see what everyone else thinks.

Awesome, new beta!

Nested quotes are semi-rare on SA, but how are you picturing handling them here?

Edit: I think there's also a limit to the number of nested quotes:

quote:

quote:

quote:
[quote]
[quote]
[quote]
[quote]
[quote]

[/quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]

kapinga fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Jan 31, 2012

# ? Jan 31, 2012 18:51

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

kapinga posted:

Awesome, new beta!

Nested quotes are semi-rare on SA, but how are you picturing handling them here?

Edit: I think there's also a limit to the number of nested quotes:

Like you said, it's super rare, so I'm just not going to bother dealing with posters who like to go overboard with 4 layer quoting.

As far as bubble styles go, a bit of googling brought this up:

Pure CSS Speech Bubbles

Styling block quotes with accent colored borders might look pretty cool.

# ? Feb 1, 2012 23:01

Tivac: Feb 18, 2003; No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are

bootleg robot posted:

Like you said, it's super rare, so I'm just not going to bother dealing with posters who like to go overboard with 4 layer quoting.

As far as bubble styles go, a bit of googling brought this up:

Pure CSS Speech Bubbles

Styling block quotes with accent colored borders might look pretty cool.

If you put up the HTML its generating I could probably provide some nicely-styled quote examples to choose from.

# ? Feb 1, 2012 23:35

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

Tivac posted:

If you put up the HTML its generating I could probably provide some nicely-styled quote examples to choose from.

Whoops, I meant to do that earlier, slipped my mind. Here you go: http://pastebin.com/UDcj8vH2

This is the html for this page, output from the most recent build.

# ? Feb 1, 2012 23:57

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

1.9 beta 2 is available for download. If you were on the test list for the last beta, you get to participate in this one. As always, if you'd like to participate, post your Windows Live email address and I will add you to the list.

Known bugs:

The status of the debug switch does not update when you toggle the control. Fixed.
When switching to vertical style in the settings panel, the hidden "smooth scrolling" fails to appear. This means that you don't get to try it out until later. Sorry! It's nothing major, though. Just pretty. Fixed.
There's no visual cue when the request to reply to threads is working. You'll still get a confirmation on whether or not the reply was successful.

Wreck it as much as you can, guys. Cheers!

EDIT: Check for the QR code in the OP.

bootleg robot fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Feb 2, 2012

# ? Feb 2, 2012 01:15

BeastOfExmoor: Aug 19, 2003; I will be gone, but not forever.

I'd love to be a beta tester. Windows live ID: (Edited)

edit: Thanks!

BeastOfExmoor fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Feb 2, 2012

# ? Feb 2, 2012 02:53

bootleg robot: Dec 8, 2004

BeastOfExmoor posted:

I'd love to be a beta tester.

Added.

# ? Feb 2, 2012 03:55

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 3, 2024 06:50

Tivac: Feb 18, 2003; No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are

bootleg robot posted:

Whoops, I meant to do that earlier, slipped my mind. Here you go: http://pastebin.com/UDcj8vH2

This is the html for this page, output from the most recent build.

I've started mucking with it here: https://github.com/tivac/awful-reader

Still very much WIP. I also don't know exactly what the phone supports/doesn't support. Need to get the emulator installed. For now I'm just attempting general cleanup without changing too much of the visuals.

There's some elements that I need to ask you about & I'm not sure of the best venue for that. Email?

# ? Feb 2, 2012 08:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Awful Forum Reader for Windows Phone

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