[Free App] Water Log

[bdlou]

Hello everyone! I wanted to let you all know about my first Windows Phone 7 app that was published yesterday. After the holidays were over, I thought to myself, "What is a change I can make for the better this year, that doesn't necessarily have to be a resolution?" The answer was, "Drink water!" (Notice I don't say 'more' water, as my blood is pretty much made of Diet Pepsi). Then I realized this would be a great opportunity to create an app that would help me with this goal. Thus, Water Log was born!

From my fancy description:
"Water Log is a simple application designed to help remind you to drink water on a daily basis. It can give you notification reminders, as well as be pinned to Start to visually show daily water drinking progress. Use it to track your daily water consumption progress!"

So, yeah. It's got live tile support. It's got notification support. It helps you keep track of your daily water consumption!

Now that it's submitted, I've already noticed some issues, like the marketplace icon not being visible on the light theme, and I have no idea why it says it will use owner identity, music and video library and data services, so I will look in to that.

But if you're interested in better hyrdrating, or just want to test it out and send me feedback, please give it a go!

Head over to http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/6e4c5f9e-0734-4f18-b883-d2fc53230c00 to download it. Thanks!

Louis

 

[TheWeeBear]

Thanks for sharing your app bdlou, and welcome along to WPCentral.

 

[bdlou]

Click to view quoted image

Thanks for sharing your app bdlou, and welcome along to WPCentral.

Thanks for having me!

 

[FedoraShark]

Hey, I like this app I would classify it as nifty. I was thinking that it would be nice if you could keep of log of how much water a user had per day. Ex:

• 1/23 - 3 Glasses
• 1/24 - 8 Glasses

and a running average on the bottom of the page, something like that would be great.

As for the owner identity and stuff this link might be a good place to look for assistance How to: Determine Application Capabilities

 

[bdlou]

Hey, I like this app I would classify it as nifty. I was thinking that it would be nice if you could keep of log of how much water a user had per day. Ex:

• 1/23 - 3 Glasses
• 1/24 - 8 Glasses

and a running average on the bottom of the page, something like that would be great.

As for the owner identity and stuff this link might be a good place to look for assistance How to: Determine Application Capabilities

Thanks for the feedback! On Sunday evening I actually found that article, so I took care of the capabilities. Thanks for taking the time to send that. I'm currently working on implementing the ability to customize how often the notifications fire, as a friend found it jarring that I hard coded it to be every hour. (I knew that was going to happen!)

I can certainly take a crack at adding logging capability. I'll need to determine the right approach to that. I'd also like it to be able to reset the count automatically on a daily basis, but I'm not sure that's possible if the notification service isn't enabled.

So, lots of challenges ahead!

Thanks!
Louis

 

[FedoraShark]

For reseting the count. you might just want to store and compare dates, when the app first loads up check the date, if its different than your last date. Reset the count. Thats how I would work around that. It would be a quick check so the user wouldn't notice. But good luck, I'll be sure to leave a review soon.

 

[bdlou]

For reseting the count. you might just want to store and compare dates, when the app first loads up check the date, if its different than your last date. Reset the count. Thats how I would work around that. It would be a quick check so the user wouldn't notice. But good luck, I'll be sure to leave a review soon.

That's the approach I was thinking of taking, so I'm glad to hear someone else reinforce that. My biggest concern was around people (like me), that need the constant reminder in the first place not triggering the action the next day so they start getting reminded again. Pin it to the top people!

 

[wagedomain]

Thanks for the feedback! On Sunday evening I actually found that article, so I took care of the capabilities. Thanks for taking the time to send that. I'm currently working on implementing the ability to customize how often the notifications fire, as a friend found it jarring that I hard coded it to be every hour. (I knew that was going to happen!)

I can certainly take a crack at adding logging capability. I'll need to determine the right approach to that. I'd also like it to be able to reset the count automatically on a daily basis, but I'm not sure that's possible if the notification service isn't enabled.

So, lots of challenges ahead!

Thanks!
Louis

Are you familiar with LINQ to SQL and basic database work? Seems like keeping a log in a local db would be a great addition. Store all the data there and the log basically writes itself.

 

[bdlou]

Are you familiar with LINQ to SQL and basic database work? Seems like keeping a log in a local db would be a great addition. Store all the data there and the log basically writes itself.

A little bit. I'll definitely give a go at trying to add logging.

Fun fact, in case anyone was interested in why the app is called Water Log, but doesn't actually log anything:

When I was discussing the idea to write this app, I was originally going to call it Water Tracker. Well, Water Tracker was already taken, so I looked to my wife and asked her if she could think of any ideas. She came up with Water Log, and I immediately fell in love with it because in my head, it had a double meaning, and was a play on words of being "water logged". Well, that's clever, except that people expect something with name log in it to actually log something.

So, after I push out the first update, I'll start digging into logging.

Thanks again so much for all the feedback so far!

 

[bdlou]

Wanted to let folks know about a couple of updates I pushed out. I've got some other projects I'm working on, but will be looking into adding a database soon so that I can provide actual logging, statistics, etc soon!

v1.1
- Fixed a bug where the notifications were not showing any information
- Updated the ad control which will hopefully address an issue where the ad was crashing the app. (If you are still hitting this, please let me know by using the feedback button in the About page.)

v1.0
- Added the ability to select how often the notifications are shown
- Added ability to send crash data

I'm humbled by all of the downloads the app has received, and I thank each person that's taken the time to send me feedback. Thank you all!

Louis

 

[bdlou]

As was featured twice on the site (thanks WPCentral folks!) Water Log gets updated adds charts and more | Windows Phone Central

The latest update for Water Log is finally live!

v1.2
- Added logging of daily results (yes, finally!)
- Added a chart to let you view your progress
- Added automatic resetting of counter each day
- Added optional sound effects
- Fixed an issue where the reminders could go off more often than the user's preference

Thanks for all the support and positive response I've received privately regarding this app!

Louis