Windows Phone / Store app

[NicoVermeir]

Hi guys & girls,

been running HomeGenie for a couple of weeks now, works great!

I want to help the project out and since I'm a Windows Phone developer I think I can help the most with the WP app. I forked it on GitHub and starting working on it.

What I currently did:

- extracted a bunch of server calls into a portable SDK project (easier to port to other platforms)
- reworked the UI a bit to have a more "metro" look
- started implementing a template selector & different templates for the modules

what I plan on doing:
- add Universal app (Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1)
- add Cortana support
- add Geofencing
- improve UI

some questions that I have to the HomeGenie owner:
- does this fall in line with your roadmap for the app? if not, does it now? ;-)
- if I put more work into this and create a pull request on GitHub, is there a chance that it'll get accepted (just making sure that I'm not wasting my time

question to the other WP app users:
- any feature requests?

thanks!

PS: as a reference, here's my latest WP app http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-be/store/app/library-of-eorzea/9dfe5218-aa0c-4428-b114-06c3285c9087
and I blog about WP development at http://www.spikie.be

[mvdarend]

Hi Nico,

I downloaded the Windows Phone code as well in the weekend, but unfortunately haven't been able to invest much time into looking at it. If you need anyone to test your new code I'll be glad to help (I have a Lumia 520 and 1520 to test with)

A few things I've noticed with the current app (and the reason I downloaded the source to see if I could fix it)

- IP cameras show a generic Icon (UML diagram?), and no 'popup' control. I'd like to change this to show a snapshot as an icon, and a feed when opened.
- My Fibaro Roller shutter also shows a generic icon, also no 'popup' control is available.
- jkUtils OpenWeather and SolarAltitude also show the generic icon, no other information.

[NicoVermeir]

thanks for the offer on testing, I'll let you know when / if I get that far

as for now, I had a few minutes to spare so I threw together a small design. What do you think?

(https://qpfplw-ch3302.files.1drv.com/y2pPiHtY0ZX5ob_P_pyx2mKxHc0Bc8efAC-_V4-a5mJwWlYapfWW0KigMYQhzv2o5QlUBDhUWYqB-jEovZmnbTanCbdjWEjXAufo_ms9OBjSns/design.png)

[Gene]

Hi Nico this is wonderful.
Any pull request is welcome and will be accepted.
There is no roadmap for the WP app at the moment, it was quite abandoned... well the hope was exactly to find other contributors =)
I can help with testing (old lumia 800 with 7.5 os).

Cheers,
g.

[NicoVermeir]

Hi Gene,

good to hear Having a WP app is the whole reason I choose Homegenie to run my Z-wave setup

I'm quite a busy person so it will take time to get the app in a finished state but I'll try to post regular updates here.
Other question: Is there a way to simulate modules? For example, I don't have any sensors in my home (yet Can I still add a sensor module to Homegenie and have it show up in the app?

[NicoVermeir]

update:
got the datatemplateselector up and running. meaning that I can have all sorts of modules in a list and make them all look different without using one big template. (this is supported out of the box in Silverlight & WPF but not in WP8 so I had to recreate this behavior)

next step: creating different templates for all the module types (dimmer & program already done)

[NicoVermeir]

small update: fixed a bug that triggered a bunch of databinding errors at startup due to unknown context.

I'll probably won't be able to work on it this week and next week I'm attending a conference in seattle so dev time will be limited there as well. but I'm not giving up, I like this project

[mvdarend]

Is it possible to download a test version?

[NicoVermeir]

it's not at beta level yet. just to give you an idea, I stripped out like 50% of the original code, refactored another 20% into an sdk and I'm reworking the entire UI.

I currently have light switches, dimmers and programs fully running but with the ip address of my setup hardcoded. In the coming weeks I'll focus on getting the settings done and I'll start working towards a beta version, but I won't make any promises on an ETA.

if you're a developer yourself you can check out my code at https://github.com/NicoVermeir/HomeGenie-WindowsPhone

[NicoVermeir]

I spend some time yesterday implementing the Windows Runtime version of the mobile SDK and it got me wondering if WP8.0 is still worth it? Should I just focus on Windows (Phone) 8.1 and drop 8.0 support? (the existing app will still be there for 8.0 users)

any thoughts?

[Gene]

Hi Nico,

don't know what to suggest about wp8.0 support, but wanted to say you're going to be the main mantainer for the WP app =)
So also feel free to publish the app in the store.
The old app will still be there for WP 7.6 users (not updated though).
Keep up the good work!

Cheers,
g.

[NicoVermeir]

had some free time today, decided to try out the Runtime version of my SDK
(don't mind the UI, this page was hacked together quite quickly)

(https://qpfrlw.dm2301.livefilestore.com/y2pFVWBpWSUnoEVTdJ1esDcZe9EKenpnFmVrveeA3_5HXC-ZrHD5Uuvslq8Oan8ENhxOkNfBYwAb9b1ESOz9q4Y8T5HzviSG2e3Y3gtsj3QGq0/Untitled.png)

[Gene]

Looks promising, all data already there... even this basic layout give an idea of where it could get to.
Good work! Keep us updated =)

Cheers,
g.

[nolio]

Hi,

Thanks Nico to work on the windows phone app.

I have some stuff that doesn't work (but work on android) :

• WebCam doesn't show
• Shutter doesn't show
• jkutils - Solar altitude doesn't show
• jkutils - OpenWeather doesn't show
• Possibility to use HTTPS instead HTTP

Perhaps, you can include in your work on it ...
Bye

[NicoVermeir]

Hi Nolio,

I'll get on it as soon as the app is in a less alpha-state
thanks for the heads-up!