Daily

This app was a candidate in the Apptivate.MS semi-finals. See how it did among the other candidates in the Knowledge group.

End User’s Perspective

The morning news. The stock and currency market. The weather. Points of interest. These are some of the things you would check on a regular basis. Daily is a lightweight minimalist application that is designed to provide quick and easy access to all the information you require on a daily basis.

If all you want is your daily dose of everything, then this application is for you.

Developer’s Perspective

Development Process

I’ll be taking an iterative and incremental development approach for each feature. Team Foundation Service (https://tfspreview.com/) will be used to keep track of my progress and as source control. Similarly, each feature will be done in a test-driven development/design mindset when possible. Visual Studio’s integrated test framework and runner will aid me in this task.

General Architecture

The application will be built with the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) architectural pattern. The framework that I chose to aid me is Laurent Bugnion’s excellent framework “MVVM Light Toolkit”, which can be downloaded from CodePlex (http://mvvmlight.codeplex.com/) or from NuGet (http://nuget.org/packages/MvvmLight). The article “Using the MVVM Pattern in Windows 8” (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/jj651572.aspx) will help get started.

Front End

The front end will be built in XAML and it will use the common hierarchical system of navigation with hub and section/detail pages. This will allow users to dig into the information desired.

Back End

The back end will be built in C#. This is where a TDD approach will be the most appropriate. As I mention earlier, I will be using Visual Studio integrated test framework and runner. Since I will be dealing with external data, mocking will be required, and for that I am planning to use Moq, which can be downloaded from NuGet (http://nuget.org/packages/Moq)

Data Service

The data will be retrieved from both Bing and Google. In both cases, I will be using JSON.Net (http://nuget.org/packages/Newtonsoft.Json) to easily parse the information.

Storage

Currently, since I don’t expect too much data, I’m planning to simply use XML files and the built-in Windows Storage and Application Data. If it is insufficient, a move to SQLLite or to Windows Azure Mobile Services might be considered.

Videos

Screenshots

Comments

user2428118 Dec 13 '12 at 14:48
After viewing the video, I've got a few suggestions:<br><ol><li>Add the degree symbol (°) between the temperature and C / F (or use the Unicode equivalents ℃ and ℉).</li><li>Make it more visible if stock names are truncated, for example by adding … or by fading them out like this.</li></ol>
KronoS Oct 17 '12 at 14:48
How is this going to be different from the other news/stock-market apps that come with Windows 8?
Grigmin Oct 31 '12 at 22:43
There are going to be some similarities between news/weather/stock markets apps in the store. What I am aiming here with this app is to provide both a high level and low level view on things users would check on a regular basis, which can be localized and customized. News, weather and stock are obvious choices. Similarly, local traffic information, public transit status and gas prices are others can come to mind.
jschell12 Oct 15 '12 at 14:07
I love how minimalism and metro seem to go hand in hand. Nice (and useful) app idea.