Get content from webpage (non-html5 or mobile)?

[dlalonde]

Hello

I want to make an app for a news website that only has apps for iOS and Android. Normally I would just visit the mobile website but... yes we are in 2013... there are NO mobile website...

So at first I wanted to use the Windows Phone App Studio with the RSS. But the RSS the website offers gives the title, the featured image and an intro to the article. To read the full thing, you have to go on the website (which pretty much voids my app in a way).

So I thought I'd take it to the Visual Studio Express to try to get the full articles from the website. But I don't know how to do that (I'm a PHP developer with knowledge in C and Java but I've never done C# especially in a Windows Phone context).

Does anyone know if it can be done and how?

Thanks

 

[Hefinator]

You were right the easiest way to do it was using RSS but as you say the RSS does not have content...are you sure it does not have it? Usually the RSS should have Summary...if it does not have it...then you might have to Scrape the content using WebClient object and play around with the HTML String it returns...I would suggest you check the RSS once again and confirm wheter it has the Summary or no...sometimes the App Studio Apps do not read the summary correctly so you might think that it does not have the content in the RSS but actually it is a known bug in the App Studio Builder...

 

[dlalonde]

Thank you for your reply.

I have checked the RSS directly and indeed it does not have the content. I have tried adding the feed to another reader (Feedly) and it shows the title, image and summary but to see the article you have to go on the website.

I will try the WebClient object as you suggested and will keep you updated. Thanks for the tip!