MetroSE

Current Status: Version 1.0 is now in the store!

App Description:

Experience Stack Exchange like never before. With MetroSE, you have over 180 Stack Exchange sites at your fingertips. Browse interesting questions on your favorite sites. Search questions from anywhere at any time. View your user profile and your top questions/answers for each registered site. All of this from the comfort of you tablet, desktop, or laptop.

Note: This is the unofficial Stack Exchange App for Windows 8 Metro.

Technical Specifications and Features:

Built using:

  • C# with XAML
  • JSON.Net
  • JSON Class Generator
  • Will be interfacing with StackAPI v2.0+

Stack Exchange Features:

  • Search for questions or answers
  • View User Profile for each registered site
  • Comment on questions/answers**

Windows 8 Features:

  • Synchronized settings across devices
  • Search
  • Open questions in a browswer
  • Live Tile Updates (Messages, Notifications, and Top Questions from favorite sites)
  • Push Notifications**
  • Background Tasks (For Push Notifications/Live Tile Updates)**

Challenges/Current Developement:

There are a few things that I'm still working on, so bear with me as I figure these out.

  1. Toast Notifications: Windows 8 Store Applications use the Windows Push Notification Services to handle any toast notifications from outside of the application. Since I don't have direct control of Stack Exchange's servers I'm going to have to create a separate server to serve up notifications for users.
  2. User Interface Design: This application is still in Beta Stages and therefore the UI still need a LOT of lovin. I plan on changing the color schemes to better match the SE feel, and may even add customized UI per site.
  3. Live Tiles: Live tiles are currently being process whenever the user navigates to the main page. Again, since I don't have control of SE's servers or API and since Live Tile background calls require the responses to be in XML, I'm going to have to create a service similar to what I need for Toast notifications to convert JSON to xml for live tile notification in the background.
  4. Web View vs. Rich Text Block: I'm currently using a WebView in order to display the content of the Questions/Answers to the user. However, these WebViews are very limited on what they can display, and sometimes are just not pretty. I'm considering migrating to a Rich Text Block where I can more control of how the content is displayed to the user. However this is going to take some time, as I have to interpret the HTML tags into the correct content.
  5. Front Page Redesign: The front page is going through a redesign where questions aren't going to be contained by sites, but rather sorted by how "hot" they are. This will enable the user to view interesting questions from their favorite sites, similar to SE's own Hot Questions of Stack Exchange's Hot Questions, but customized to the sites that the user is interested in.

Feedback:

  • cases[at]kronoskoders[dot]fogbugz[dot]com
  • KronosKoders.FogBugz.com
  • or the Fake Programmers Chat room

*Currently developed and added to application. Waiting for Microsoft approval.

**Currently in developement.

Videos

Screenshots

Comments

user1606266 Dec 3 '12 at 11:21
This is just awesome. I loved the App. Gives me more time to browse on all SE sites withouth opening the browser. Thanks for a great app
KronoS Dec 3 '12 at 16:59
Your welcome. Release 2 brings even more features that you'll like.
subkamran Nov 29 '12 at 15:41
Following up, good thing you did this because I wasn't able to spend enough time on mine! Can't wait to install this baby.
KronoS Nov 29 '12 at 16:38
Just waiting on approval for my first version. It's a little less featured as what's pictured here, but as soon as that's released I'll immediately be releasing the newest version.
KronoS Nov 30 '12 at 19:31
App has been approved! Version 1.0 has now been submitted as well.
subkamran Dec 5 '12 at 16:07
I am currently working on my Steam app, but I don't think I'll make the Dec 6 deadline. Good luck to you, man!
3
MBZ Nov 26 '12 at 17:40
all the SE similar sites, even forums require such app. tnx :)
Aditya Patil Nov 25 '12 at 2:39
Great Dude Nyc App superlyk :)
1
White Dragon Nov 23 '12 at 0:48
Very handy. I use SO a lot :)
Abid Rahman K Nov 17 '12 at 9:49
Nice one. Does it has a live tile facility which shows current reputation, new questions on favorite tags etc?
KronoS Nov 18 '12 at 15:51
I haven't enabled logging into account just yet. That's hopefully soon.
KronoS Nov 21 '12 at 22:04
I'm very close to getting logging into the account fully finished and adding toast notifications as well as live tile updates. As soon as I do, I'll let you know.
Knownasilya Nov 16 '12 at 16:21
Could you post screenshots, for those that don't have access to W8 yet?
KronoS Nov 16 '12 at 16:23
Um... if you look directly above you ^^ you should see some screen shots.
3
b0x0rz Nov 11 '12 at 9:06
the color scheme is awful :(
Remy Nov 13 '12 at 9:52
Agreed, could be improved :-)
Ethan Lee Nov 14 '12 at 7:03
Yeah, different colors for different sites, maybe?
KronoS Nov 15 '12 at 20:30
I've made some changes to the color scheme and overall styling, however, I'm focusing more on content management and generation. Once I have that fully figured out, I'm going to tackle style and color schemes more aggressively.
1
Georg Nov 6 '12 at 22:45
Good idea, I will try it as soon as the app is in the market.
KronoS Nov 8 '12 at 18:29
I'm hoping to have phase 1 submitted to Microsoft this weekend.
Software Developer Nov 19 '12 at 21:46
How'd it go? Any news? Looking forward to giving it a whirl...
KronoS Nov 20 '12 at 9:39
@SoftwareDeveloper I've just submitted the app and hopefully we'll get the approval. For testing, I've linked a copy of the application that you can download and use (if you have a dev license). Feel free to run it, and let me know what you think.
Abhinandy Oct 27 '12 at 18:01
hey great thing bringing on StackOverflow at Win8 readily accessible..
1
Jaydles ♦ Oct 8 '12 at 17:01
@kronos, while we're excited that your app is a stack exchange client, the logo you're using is a violation of our trademark. I know you were concerned about this, and reached out to us. Unfortunately, you need a logo that does not appear to be a derivative of our "bubble" trademark. We're genuine supporters of your efforts, but have to consistently require that our logo and derivations of it are never used where they could possibly cause a third-party product to appear (even to some) to have been made by us.
KronoS Oct 8 '12 at 18:23
@Jaydiles I plan on rectifying this ASAP. Just haven't had the time or creative power to come up with an alternative logo.
KronoS Oct 10 '12 at 14:08
I've updated the logo so that it no longer is a violation of the stack bubble.
2
George Edison Oct 5 '12 at 5:43
First of all... I love the icon. Secondly, and chance of supporting the API 2.1 write methods (for posting comments)?
KronoS Oct 5 '12 at 6:17
This is the eventual plan. I know the description is long, but if you look at the phases in more detail you'll be able to see my plan on implementing the different capabilities. Also, I love the icon as well but I may have to change due to the trademark on it.
2
subkamran Oct 3 '12 at 17:46
Hey! I already started this! :) I actually already have the main screen done and coded with HTML/WinJS, that lets you choose the site to browse. I have a private GitHub repository, I don't know if you'd be interested in tag-teaming this together or whether we should just have a friendly competition. I mostly started it to get familiar with building apps and releasing it was just a nice-to-have.
KronoS Oct 3 '12 at 17:50
I'm not sure if we can tag team this or not, but I'm not sure how useful the collaboration would be as I'm not very familiar with HTML/WinJS. I'm developing in XAML/C#. Also just as a FYI there's another submission that is doing this as well, but feel free to submit if you desire and best of luck.
subkamran Oct 3 '12 at 17:58
Oh, the other thing I was going to mention: why restrict yourself only to SO? The SE API v2 lets you get a list of sites and all further API calls can be specific to that site; there shouldn't be anything stopping you from write an SE app that lets you browse any SE site, which is what my plan was. All the API calls are the same for each site. I could see customizing functionality using OData on a per-site basis, which might be what you were planning to do.
subkamran Oct 3 '12 at 18:01
The more the merrier, right? At the least, there's gonna be some StackOverflow Windows 8 apps, which makes me happy.
KronoS Oct 3 '12 at 18:36
@subkamram If you look at my phases I'm going to add more sites as I move along. I'm just going to be doing this in incremental stages, instead of all at once, but eventually I'll have all sites added.
subkamran Oct 3 '12 at 18:38
@KronosS, awesome! Can't wait to see it in action.
Mamta Dalal Oct 3 '12 at 4:20
Any technical specifications laid out yet? Are you going to be using XAML or HTML5? Are you going to use any frameworks? What about OData (guess, that might be a given). Please share any info about these that might help reviewers.
3
Robert MacLean Oct 2 '12 at 7:03
Are you not worried about the rumours that Microsoft is blocking the usage of the name metro in apps?
Sigh Oct 2 '12 at 7:34
istartedsomething.com/20120816/…
KronoS Oct 2 '12 at 15:19
I hadn't even thought of this. However, if I read @Sigh's referenced article I should be ok as long as nobody claims a trademark on it.
KronoS Oct 4 '12 at 22:37
In regards to this, I've reserved the name online and it didn't raise any flags so...
user1731468 Oct 9 '12 at 16:11
normal you may not use this, because "metro" is a trademark in germany (for a store).
KronoS Oct 9 '12 at 19:42
@user1731468 as I've been doing research it appears that there isn't anything stopping it. I see no warnings on the developer site: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh694077.aspx and I have reserved the name without any problems.
user1731468 Oct 10 '12 at 19:33
you as developer must know if i may use the name or not. example here i can reserved the name "iGoogle" but realy this violated here Google trademark. Any reason why use the word "metro" inside? (you can do nothing but you can have problems later... and it will not be cheap)
KronoS Oct 10 '12 at 19:53
> Don’t use names trademarked by others Make sure to select a name for your app that belongs to you. If you use a name that doesn’t belong to you, the owner of that name could have your app removed from the store. If that happens, you would need to change the name of your app and all instances of the name throughout your app and its content before you can submit your app for certification again.
KronoS Oct 10 '12 at 19:53
It appears the worst they can do is take down my app until I change the name.
mvark Nov 6 '12 at 14:13
At one time, the clause "Make sure your app name doesn't include the word metro. Apps with a name that includes the word metro will fail certification and won't be listed in the Windows Store." did exist, but as per this article its now taken off - arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/08/…
vignesh4303 Oct 1 '12 at 5:48
phases were great but it can be improved with one small additional feature user review in se sites
KronoS Oct 1 '12 at 16:32
Just for clarification, when you say user review, do you mean a review of the app and it's functionality? Or testing to make sure the app does what it says it does?
Sathya Oct 5 '12 at 6:55
wonder if he means the /review queue - which isn't available via API, faik
vignesh4303 Oct 26 '12 at 6:04
@Kronos mate i mentioned /review queue as sathya said above
Rahat Khanna Nov 17 '12 at 9:28
Nice App for Developers using Windows 8