Help - want to create a simple app [for wp 8.1]

[Nutle]

Hey all,

I'm not really sure where to post a question like this, but some of you might be able to help me.

The thing is, I want to create a simple app for myself, which would virtually be just a simple timetable for my lectures. As for simple - I mean one press of a button, and, depending from the current day of the week I could see todays lectures and some other minor information. Would be best of course, If the app could connect to the timetable that is posted in the web and get the info from there, incase there is a change.

I could of course find something similar already created, or just use OneNote or whatever. And probably, after failing making this, I might have to resort to something like that... But then it wouldn't be as easy to check as I want it to (my idea is only one click - turning on the app - and today's lectures are there black on white, without any clutter around). Also, I'm not a programmer myself, however am familiar a little with beginner level coding, so it would be really interesting for me to try creating something like this. As how I imagine it so far - it should be enough to find a simple app template, with all head/body etc written, and to just fill the empty space with a simple "ifelse".. Just don't know where to start and whether it would be actually possible to make or not..

Any help would be really appreciated

 

[Nutle]

So far I've been fiddling around, and came up with a (not so much satisfying yet) solution - to make a PHP web, that would print out a timetable depending on the current date: http ://uosis.mif.vu.lt/ ~sajo9715/Puslapis.php (can't post links yet, cause i'm new here)

However, it looks like crap using IE through the phone. One way would be to work a little more and make it readable through the phone, however, isn't there a way to make a simple app that used this .php but made it easier to read and use?

 

[Nimdock]

When you say looks like crap... Do you mean too small? What exactly do you mean?

If you think the size is the issue add:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />

To the header and see if that helps your perception.

The main problem is that since you are using a table if it has too much data horizontally it will make you scroll sideways.

 

[Nutle]

Thanks for the reply!

I meant that the table looked really small, taking up like 10 percent of the screen, when I want it to take at least half of it. Probably it was because the table was so long in width..

Anyway, your supplied code really helped, it made the whole thing look much better on the phone! Thanks a lot for that! I'm not much used to html/php, so don't really know all of the capabilities and even what to google for..

Though there's still some work left to do figuring out how to make it look more simplistic and easier for the eye..

Oh, by the way, I've found this thing - http ://appstudio.windows.com/ - which kind of lets users create their own simple apps using templates. So it might be what I need! Though not really sure how it all happens and whether it is that simple as it seems. Maybe any of you tried this?

 

[Nimdock]

Yes that is one way to go to build something simple / get started.

I haven't used it but I am pretty sure you can figure it out. Hopefully someone that has used it will chime in.

My only concern is that I don't know how powerful it is. What I mean is if you want to retrieve data from a website how feasible it would be. Seems to me for this kind of thing you do want to retrieve data unless all your lectures are already planned and you can build all the required info into your app.

It also may be the case that is really simple to use app studio to display your html table inside of it (retrieving it from your URL) so what I said is moot. But I don't really know.