Announcing the Official WPCentral app for Windows Phone 7

[Streak Leader]

I am brand new to the site. After taking a look around, I shelled out my hard-earned .99 for this app. It's great!

 

[Streak Leader]

I installed the app and everything appears to be working as it should with one exception: The Live tile. I enabled it in the settings and got a message saying it could take 2-3 hours before it begins working. As far as I can tell, there's nothing there but a static icon.

Am I missing something? I am still feeling my way around figuring out my Trophy so it's very likely it's me not knowing exactly what to do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[TheWeeBear]

I installed the app and everything appears to be working as it should with one exception: The Live tile. I enabled it in the settings and got a message saying it could take 2-3 hours before it begins working. As far as I can tell, there's nothing there but a static icon.

Am I missing something? I am still feeling my way around figuring out my Trophy so it's very likely it's me not knowing exactly what to do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

It's usually just on the WPCentral logo Streak Leader, it won't change until they decide if the news item is worth an image.

If an image does appear, it will revert back to the WPC logo after so long, so don't ecpect it to always show something, it' won't

You should perhaps get one soon for the latest Podcast. Just carry on waiting a little more and fingers crossed LOL

PS if you're impatient, try turning your phone off and on again, that sometimes speeds tiles up.

 

[Streak Leader]

It's usually just on the WPCentral logo Streak Leader, it won't change until they decide if the news item is worth an image.

If an image does appear, it will revert back to the WPC logo after so long, so don't ecpect it to always show something, it' won't

You should perhaps get one soon for the latest Podcast. Just carry on waiting a little more and fingers crossed LOL

PS if you're impatient, try turning your phone off and on again, that sometimes speeds tiles up.

Thanks for the quick response (and also, once again for the wallpaper - it's fantastic! My wife, not a gamer at all, LOVED it).

I will wait and see what pops up! Is there a maximum number of apps that can be installed at any one time for the live tiles to work? On my Trophy, the live tiles currently update for Xbox Live, People, and the Me sections. I have other apps that have live tile capability, but I haven't pinned them to the start screen.

I am off to give those a try to see if the live tile works for those as well. Thanks again!!

 

[TheWeeBear]

Glad you like your wallpaper Streak Leader. In pre Mango WP7's the live tile limit is 15 but the pre mango operating system has some registry problems that can stops live tiles updating after a while.(End point problems)

See link below (Complicated LOL)

http://mobilitydigest.com/hey-microsoft-whats-up-with-those-live-tiles/

The built in live tiles don't count in this limit. (People, me etc)

This is cured in Mango of course so even more patience will be needed on your part LOL.

 

[Jay Bennett]

The tile we use also doesn't count towards that endpoint issue as it's not using a push channel. This is unfortunately also the reason it's not 100% reliable on NoDo.

Everything should be much better in the Mango version as I'm sure my beta testers will confirm!

 

[TheWeeBear]

Everything should be much better in the Mango version as I'm sure my beta testers will confirm!

Indeed Jay, not had any issuses at all, and the 24 million daily wpc alerts work perfectly.

 

[starblade876]

I have a suggestion. How about a comment count indicator on each article in the lists (e.g., if there are 3 comments on the article, have a little talk bubble in the user's accent color with the number 3 and put it next to the article author and timestamp)?

 

[Jay Bennett]

I have a suggestion. How about a comment count indicator on each article in the lists (e.g., if there are 3 comments on the article, have a little talk bubble in the user's accent color with the number 3 and put it next to the article author and timestamp)?

That's a good suggestion starblade, unfortunately it's not possible right now with how I retrieve content from the site. I may put this to the site guys and see if we could do it sometime in the future

 

[velvetelvis]

im sorry, but i didnt read the whole thread, can we access and post on the forums thru this app?

 

[1jaxstate1]

No, you'll need Board express for that.

im sorry, but i didnt read the whole thread, can we access and post on the forums thru this app?

 

[Jay Bennett]

im sorry, but i didnt read the whole thread, can we access and post on the forums thru this app?

I plan on adding it at some point, but it's relatively low priority right now as Board Express is an acceptable substitute.

In fact I think most of the features I've been looking to complete first are in the imminent Mango version, which I had to get sorted before the public release of Mango otherwise I'm quite sure the community would have demanded my head!
I'm going to focus all my efforts on the adding comments feature that everybody (myself included) wants next, forum access will probably follow that.

 

[TheWeeBear]

Just got a notification of my latest bug fixed WPC app Jay. V1.5.01 Excellent.

 

[Dusteater]

One suggestion. Can there be a timezone setting so I can see the article published time as Pacific?

 

[Jay Bennett]

One suggestion. Can there be a timezone setting so I can see the article published time as Pacific?

Hmmm, I get the time/date as a String from the site but yes I should be able to work out something... Look for this in a future release

 

[lumic]

Here's an "issue" with the layout of the app:

The stories are stacked vertically, but the main image for each one is also vertically placed. Images simply don't load instantly over 3G - this means that scrolling and reading is constantly interrupted as the stories above have their images loaded, bumping all the content down.

I know you're aiming for the ability to read at least the opening of each post, so the Weave implementation (having the image on the right of the story) won't work. I'm not too sure what you could do, but it's slightly annoying.

 

[Jay Bennett]

Here's an "issue" with the layout of the app:

The stories are stacked vertically, but the main image for each one is also vertically placed. Images simply don't load instantly over 3G - this means that scrolling and reading is constantly interrupted as the stories above have their images loaded, bumping all the content down.

I know you're aiming for the ability to read at least the opening of each post, so the Weave implementation (having the image on the right of the story) won't work. I'm not too sure what you could do, but it's slightly annoying.

The aim was quite simply to have a different style to other newsreader apps out there and look a bit like you were flicking through a metro-ised version of the website. Of course if people have ideas for a better layout for these screens I'd love to hear them, I personally am not a fan of images on the left/right but I'd bow to popular vote.

The only other option would be to always have a gap there even if there was no image associated with the article which would mean a fixed size for each article and no stuttering.

Edit: I have actually just had an idea, I could have a small amount of an image shown behind and slightly above the article headline & author with a black gradient background to the text so it could be picked out on lighter images.

I'll have a play with that idea but I'm still open to any suggestions as always

 

[1jaxstate1]

I just got a update for your app? What's new. I also got a update for Board Express too.

 

[Jay Bennett]

I just got a update for your app? What's new. I also got a update for Board Express too.

If it's v1.6 I'm afraid it's not an exciting one, it's just bug fixes and a change that Microsoft asked us to implement. The only thing you'll notice is a little change to the Images in an article, so that if there's only 1 image it takes you straight to the Image viewer rather than the tiled overview

 

[TheWeeBear]

Was just bug fixes 1jaxstate1 and a change in the way images are shown.