Last edit: March 26th 2014 Greetings fellow Starbounders! --- Short version --- "StarFlow" is a Windows Phone 8 app that reads the official news. Q: Why would I want this app? A: Looks and feels better than reading about the next wipe using the mobile website. It's game themed (pixelated, assets from game). Link: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/starflow/af614af3-951b-4174-b6f6-914d5227bafd --- Long version --- My name is Andrei but you can call me ...whatever you like really... and I'm a big fan of the game but fan in a quite odd way. I barely play it, instead I try to bring contributions aimed at the community (and thus, at myself). I'll spare you the what might seem to be empty words and cut to the point: this is a news reading mobile app! So, what can you find in this thread? Information about the app, change logs, progress, questions, feedback, criticism. As you might have realized the targeted population (because it's for just one specific game) is really small so any ideas that you have, please do share them. This will be used by you (hopefully) and a lot of the contributions might get implemented. We also got a lightweight project page (click) where anybody interested can see more insightful details. Promises: we strive on bringing quality over quantity; if a feature brings the performances down (constantly below 30 FPS) it will be removed/redesigned (already done it with several eye-candy animations) the app will have continuous improvement updates after it's live as long as there are features to add (animations/graphics...basically eye-candy) we're going to try to be as transparent as we can (if you ask us our php server password, that won't happen ) change log over is getting updated after each minor modification permanent communication with the users (you won't have to wait days to get an email reply for a feature you suggested/a problem you encountered even though the response might be negative but with arguments - "we can't add that because" "we can't fix that because" "we will try to do that next [week][month][update]" Thanks for reading Again if you wanna see more, click my signature and you'll be redirected towards the thread. Well? What do you think? Have a nice day!
Hi - looking forward to seeing what you can do A few things: You might want to change the color of your posting - I love purple, but it's just a strain on the eyes with the whole text in purple (against black) You may want to revise your post a little, remove some of the (funny but unimportant) filling you have in there And lastly, make it very clear what this app is about, it was actually hard to figure out fast ... most people will click here check for 2 seconds and leave... Just my 2 cents
Thanks for that. It was very late last night when I wrote it and I didn't focus well on the main points. - changed font (it's not pink!) - added short and long version - removed silly things
Pre-alpha 0.6 version is out! (internally) You can find a video showing it off just below In a few words, it brings theme-awareness, a few animations, 2 backgrounds, better ad integration and a bit of optimization. In the next update we're gonna focus on making the app more stable as there are some issues with it running out of allocated memory, creating a smoother experience when the app is downloading the content and working on more parsing to add more content for the other categories. Also some bird animations will probably be added to make it more dynamic. For anybody interested about the details, here's the changelog: Pre-alpha 0.6: failed to recolor the logo, quality not high enough to replace the current one started the discussions with Jasper van Egmond about migrating the parsing algorithm from the app towards a dedicated php server in regards of utilizing more platforms; having standard content would only add to efficiency factor - in progress started the implementation of the php code that will parse the forums content by Jasper van Egmond - in progress found a new ad provider after a long research session; this will allow more customization in order to create it relevant to the theme as much as the policy allows redesigned the NewsPage to make good use of the new advertisement API removed the ad from the MainPage as it was inefficient with regards to the design (layout and theme) removed the application bar from all the pages to provide better immersion removed the tray (top bar with the clock) from all the pages to provide better immersion finished work on making the app theme-aware slightly modified the in-app title 3D foreground redesigned the ad integration in NewsPage; it now features a rolling animation accompanied with a wall panel and steel block background; removed the bottom margin to increase the text viewport as this (more text upfront) was more important attempted to remove the current font with the one used in-game; had to rollback the resource page due to an issue - fixed it but reinstalled the original font since the quality of the font used in-game was low when scaled up removed the native ad rolling animation to fix an out of memory crash added a fake ad rolling animation (not inherited, fully hard scripted) added delays to showing the ad as to minimize the frame drop spikes due to the content downloading failed at trying to make the content download asynchronize which results in a frame drop, must fix! - in progress optimized the code a bit decided for now to let the ad show for 15 seconds per page, that means that once navigated, if the user spends more than 15 seconds with the ad shown, it will disappear for the page & session fixed some more parsing issues with characters like ‘ ... etc added a MainPage background for the light theme added a MainPage background animation for the light theme (blinking eyes) added a NewsPage background animation for each theme but with little differences (blinking green lights) Misc: Application's logic written code lines number: 901 Application's design code lines: 779 What do you think about the 15 sec ad? Too long? Too short (lol) ? I hate ads too Thanks for your time have a nice day!
I've attached a file which presents the report of a quick performance analysis done on the device. (for anybody interested) We will be releasing these after each patch's changelog as we make them (way more often though) for internal testing so why not share? Have a great Monday!
Hellu! Long time no post. --- Short version --- Development stopping in regards to other forum categories. Only the News will be available...and the cute animations Reasons: team disbanded due to time-related issues; low interest from possible users --- Long version --- We've been busy! Sadly it's about real life and not the app. The person in charge of creating the php service to parse the forums doesn't have enough time on his hands to continue work unfortunately.....so 1 php server went to waste....eh, team reduced to 1 person - moi...but I got a Microsoft certification exam closing in so ... what can you do? I managed to parse and read the first page of this forum post with a few hundred lines of code, which is fine...the problem occurred with all the pages available... so my effort would have had to be (from my honest estimations) quadrupled. So I'm wrapping it up with only the News section, which I believe is the most important, reason why we started it first. I will however provide support for that lonely section and the main menu and will probably roll out several updates to increase the customization options available while considering a platform to port it to, just as promised. The first post of the forum shall be updated to reflect the change of heart....also the Facebook page has been delete ( 0 likes lol ) So what now? (you might ask) Well, I'm gonna do some finishing touches, go from version pre-alpha 0.6 to alpha 1, post newest Changelog, video and start looking towards creating Push Notifications and Live Tiles as well as another platform to port it to. Sorry if you're disappointed....but as soon as I pass (or fail ) my exam, I will be considering making a small game with the Starbound theme in mind (if only someone would reply to my permission request email )
1 versions has passed and the app is now officially in Alpha stage...pretty closed to beta (which will consist mostly out of stress testing) Pre-alpha 0.7: finished more tests for the out of memory issue; had a 6 hour stress testing session which included using all the navigation methods available - app is stable finished work on making the content download asynchronize, more specifically virtualized the parent container where all the content was being added executed a performance analysi test (click for result) to determine the outcome of the virtualization - good performance executed a more thorough performance analysis test (click for result) along side a component stress test; considering the test was done on a Lumia 520 the results were satisfactory added two animated bats on the MainPage's background started parsing the HTML source for the Rules & Announcements page - in development started discussions with the advertising network support since an older problem has been found regarding sending ad requests; apparently the app was sending 1 ad request each 6 seconds\ Here's how it looks right about now. Tell me what you think cyaaa!
Alpha version 0.8 is finished! El video with teh awesum: Changelog for anyone interested: ended the discussion with the advertising network support contact, everything is fine decided to remove features from the app due to several reasons; app will feature only the News section rolled back project removing everything but the News section added a message for rating the app after a few uses moved the News button at the bottom of the screen added 2 more buttons: About and Contact finished work for the About button finished work for the Contact button added a moving background animation in the About section added an accelerometer animation in the Contact section performed lengthy stress test and debugging on the accelerometer animation fixed crash from accelerometer.Start() tweaked the accelerometer animation tweaked the ad control appearance, pops up sooner now and also disappears faster more stress testing completed Beta approaches which will mean that I need to finish the tiles and implement live tiles as well. Last thing is a huge stress test in which I shall include a (hopefully last) performance analysis. Any suggestions ? Fly safe
The app is posted on Pre Apps http://www.preapps.com/new-windows-phone-apps/starflow/1322 Managed to work a lot and I believe I can do the stress test tonight. It will be ready for certification tomorrow YAY
Alrighty then! After 2 updates and a few waiting days the app is finally live on the Windows Phone Store http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/starflow/af614af3-951b-4174-b6f6-914d5227bafd Hope you like it ^^
Windows Phone 8.1 is soon to go live ! So I prepared the app for it You can get it from here: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/starflow/af614af3-951b-4174-b6f6-914d5227bafd The features are the following Version 1.3 - 18 April 2014 : prepared for Windows Phone 8.1 minimized requirements reducing privacy breaches by 100% making Microsoft unable to collect data for advertisement from you within the app removed the ad completely expanding the reading view changed from live tiles to static tiles to take advantage of the Windows Phone 8.1 Start Screen tile background minor design modifications on the 'About' page Have a nice one!
Greetings Wondering if there are people that wish to use this app for Windows 10 universal (desktop + mobile). I got several requests and I'm trying to extend my reach a bit and get more feedback and see if it's worth for me to spend time and update this thing or not Cheers!
consider my shocked to see someone make an app for windows phone. I was basically settles that my phone was doomed to be useless.
Hey man, Ill take it. The browser is so crappy on that things, so this will actually be of use. Only regret is that Ive not know about it for the past... almost 2 years...
Don't expect much...it needs some updates, which is why I posted to see if people are interested. I don't like wasting my time for nothing
I can understand. Unfortunatly I can only speak for myself. Only other person I know with a windows phone is my aunt.
I've made a facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/StarFlow-809925345804491 ) where I'll be posting little bits as I work on an update for StarFlow for W10 devices.
Just submitted to certification StarFlow v. 1.4. The main update is in the news section where most images will appear alongside the text. Sadly gyfcat uses movies which cannot be rendered. The contact page has been updated with a new contact method (this facebook page) and the about page has been fixed (black text and proper link) Hope you like it and more news here (usually ): https://www.facebook.com/StarFlow-809925345804491/
