[APP-DEV] XDAFacebook Beta 4.8 (8-24-11) Groups!

[joe_coolish]

XDAFacebook has a new home! Please update your links

Introduction: XDAFacebook is a Facebook Client application for Windows Mobile 6.5 written on the .net Compact Framework 3.5 platform.

News:

• This project is currently NOT in development. I (joe_coolish) have stopped work on the application indefinately and I've moved on to the Windows Phone platform. If you would like to take over the project, contact me for details.
• Due to school, homelife, and the search for my first "Big Boy" Job, development has slowed a little. Your support is crucial for motivating future development!

Google Code page: http://code.google.com/p/xda-winmo-facebook/

 

[joe_coolish]

Updates

Follow updates on Twitter! Use the #xdafb hashtag to spread the word!
Here is an article on what kinds of feedback we're looking for when helping test the public beta: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=9227274


[UPDATED 11/14/11]

BETA 4.8.9

• Added old notifications
• view likes
• like comments on posts
• view comments for photos
• fixed photo rendering
• fixed login
• LOTS of bug fixes!

[UPDATED 10/6/11]

Well, I just became a father to a wonderful baby girl! I hope you like the UI update Thanks to hungelt8 for all your efforts to support me and the project! Cudos to you


BETA 4.8.6

• New skinning system. Utilizes ZIPs to package the images and deploy them to your device
• Improved graphics rendering
• Better memory management. Should help out with the OOMEs
• CHAT login should work. You should be able to see your online friends. Nothing else has been implemented at the moment, but it will shortly!
• Fixed the Friends Tagged in Checkins
• LOTS of bug fixes!

[UPDATED 8/24/11]

It's been a long time, but we're still here!


BETA 4.8

• Groups! Yes, groups are now visible
• Improved graphics rendering
• Comments now include history. By clicking on Add Comment, a history is shown so you can remember what you're posting about!
• LOTS of bug fixes!

[UPDATED 5/4/11]

Happy Star Wars Day! "May the 4th be with you!"

BETA 4.7

• Skinning!
• Improved graphics rendering
• GZip and Deflated HTML downloading
• Better threading and thread handling
• Added the latest 25-50 status updates to friends list
• Image viewer has been completely overhauled and re-done
  • Including Swiping back and forth to change the current picture!
  • You can also use the side buttons to do this too!
• More accurate Post Likes and Comments count
• LOTS of bug fixes!

BETA 4.6.1

• Fixed GPS issues for non Eng-US phones
• Fixed Friends not being selected for Home Screen
• A couple of new bug fixes
• Better first-run experience

BETA 4.6!

• Icon based Homescreen: Now you can customize your homescreen however you would like!
• New Graphics rendering/memory management: The code for displaying and managing images has been 100% re-written. Memory is now much better managed as well.
• Pull down to refresh: Update your feeds by pulling down on the panel and releasing after the pull threshold
• Bug fixes: Lots of bugs have been found and fixed

BETA 4.5!

• Places/Checkins! Yep, the only Facebook client for Windows Mobile to support Checkins and places! Just know that GPS data is sent to Facebook when you use the Checkin portion of the client. Some devices may experience lag!
  • IMPORTANT! In order to use the new Places features, you must Logout and then log back into XDAFacebook. This will cause you to authorize XDAFB to use the Place APIs. I recommend using the External Browser login method to do this.
• Landscape Support! I've tried to implement as much of the app with landscape compatibility. There still are some things that aren't 100% (eg, dropdowns) but they are in the works! If you find something that doesn't look right in landscape, feel free to bring it up!
• Bug Fixes: A couple of key bugs were fixed. One of which is the old graphics cropping up every once in a while.
• I also added a First Time message that will display key features with each release upon first install.
• Finally I added a donate button in the About menu. Feel free to test it all you'd like!

A little bit about the Checkin protocol. The UX (User Experience) for using the new Checkin features is as follows:

1. Click on places
2. Click on "Checkin" tab
3. Wait for GPS coordinates to be received (depending on the device, this can take some time)
4. Select nearby "Place" to Checkin to.
5. (Optional) Add a message
6. (Optional) Tag friends
   • This can be a little confusing.
   • To tag, select the "Tag" Item. This will slide the screen left
   • Click on the "Add Friends" item. This will slide the screen left
   • Select the friends you want to tag. their background will turn lavander
   • When you have selected the friends you want to tag, either swipe right or click the arrow in the top left corner
   • Verify that the correct friends have been selected and swipe right or click the arrow in the top left corner
7. Click the "Checkin" item.

Some people may be wondering where the "Deals" section is. This feature has not been added to the Graph and is only available to 1st party Client applications. Once Deals are available to the Graph, it will be added!

BETA 4.4.1!

• Bug fixes

BETA 4.4!

• New Post items! Posts now support viewing links and all the information that is available via Facebook Graph
• Fixed Photo albums! Now you can view all of the photos in the photo albums. Not just the first 25 pictures!
• Inbox! Unfortunately, Facebook does not allow 3rd party apps to compose messages. This was enabled for a short period of time, but was heavily abused and thus, removed. But you can veiw them!
• Post Deletion! This one was actually one of the biggest let-downs. With Post deletion, you can only delete posts that YOU made with XDAFacebook. Also, there is no way to know if you made the post with XDAFacebook (that I've descovered atleast) so the only way to know is try and if it fails, too bad!
  • To delete a post, simply swipe from right to left over a post that you made. The post will slide over, revealing a delete button.
  • Upon clicking, if the post is yours AND was done by XDAFacebook, it will successfully be deleted. If the post was not made by XDAFacebook, it will error out.
  • If the post does not slide, make sure that you are swiping from Right to Left, and that the post was made by the logged int XDAFacebook user. Also note that you have a Y-axis tollerance of 1/8 your screen size, so make sure that you aren't moving your finger up or down too much
• Requests are now MUCH faster!
• Events! Now you can view your invited events and your events that you have responded to. This is still in early stages and more will be added to it.
• Add and view Notes! The notes section has been created
• Speed improvements! Several optimizations were required to handle the new items, so things should be more efficient. However, there is always room for improvement!
• Small Bug fixes:
  • Fixed a small bug with Textbox Items not handling OnFocus events
  • Also! Added a "Done" and "Cancel" buttons to the Textbox Items. Now you can click the softkey and have the dialog disapear OR cancel the changes
  • Various other fixes that I can't think of

BETA 4.1.1

• Photo Albums! Pictures can now be viewed in XDAFacebook.
  • Big pictures will open up in the default browser for the time being. Once I make a good photo viewer, I'll replace that.
  • Also, the settings menu has a whole section dedicated to photos. Feel free to play with the settings, but numerical values == 0 or <0 will cause the app to crash! There is no safty net for this!
  • There is a number for concurrent image downloads. This number should be between 6-10. Any more can cause slow down, and less and the effect seems non-existant. I've gone as high as 25 and felt pretty good about it. But I haven't dared push it to the limit!
  • New albums had a few bugs so I held back on this release. It will be coming soon!
• Older Posts! Feel free to browse the older posts I've successfully gone about a days worth of posts back w/o any lag.
• Searchable Friends List! I added a search box at the top of the friends search list
• Memory Management! Special Thanks goes out to Corwin9S. He helped me look at the memory usage. I reduced the CPU cycles by ~30%. It still takes up about 3-6 mbs of RAM. This is caused by Form Allocations, DLL imports, etc. Most of the space is just allocated space that I can't get rid of. I will try to find more ways to make the RAM usage go down, but from what I've been told by some people at MSFT, this numer isn't uncommon or bad. CPU cycles are what count and that's what I'm trying to optimize
• GUI fixes! I finished the drop-downs, so they look a little more professional. I also added the numerical counters. There are still more that can be done on them, so I will continue improving their apperance and performance.
• Rollup of bug fixes
• And finally SPEED!! This version should be the fastest yet. Rendering times are super quick and load times seem to be back to where they belong.

Instructions for Localization:

Please create a blank language file (instructions are above) and edit ONLY the text in between the quote marks "". The quotes need to remain!
Verify that your text doesn't fly off the screen. Anywhere that the text is too long for the graphic, try shortening the word or pick a different one (if that's possible) if not, let me know (via picture) and I'll make the necessary changes.
Once you have a translated file, save it as <Language>.txt and upload it to your device. Place it in the same directory where you got the Blank.txt.

Please share your translations!

ALSO! Since the app will be transforming and new features will be being added, the translation process will be ongoing.
If you click "Create Blank Language File" and you already had an alternate translation loaded and working, the Blank.txt will only have the new strings in english, so you will only need to translate the changes.

Unfortunately, after a couple of hours searching the web and looking at platform SDKs, I have learned that poking is not supported by the Graph or REST APIs (what I use to interact with facebook). I've been looking, and I might be able to hack something that might work, or I could have the option to support Pokes via SMS. I need your feedback. Which option (or both) sounds the best? Does anyone even Poke anymore?!

Wall posting is very basic at the moment. I will be making an advanced text editor that has more options for posting links, privacy settings, etc.

I also changed the road map a little. Let me know if that works for everyone!

Hope everyone likes the new updates!
ENJOY!

 

[joe_coolish]

Road Map

Road map of releases leading up to the final release of Version 1.0:


BETA 4.X

• This beta release will focus on posting data to Facebook and making sure everything works well.
• This beta release will also include newer GUI pieces, such as Inbox!

BETA 5.X

• This beta release will focus on Chat!

BETA 6.X

• This beta release will focus on App Completeness! Or making sure all the functionality of a full Mobile Client have been implemented

RC 1

• This release candidate will focus on Bullet-Proofing! All minor bugs should be worked out

RC 2

• This release candidate will only happen if major bugs are discovered in RC 1

Release 1.0

• Hopefully all is well!

That is the road map I have planned. I don't anticipate Beta 3 to be out very long (unless there are major bugs). I want to get to beta 4.X as soon as possible. I also might mix and match But that is the proposed roadmap to Release 1.0!

 

[joe_coolish]

Bugs

Here is a list of known bugs. If you are experiencing any of these, please do not post about them. I am working hard to eliminate all of them, but I am one person with limited time to work.

If you find a bug that is not on this list, go ahead and post. If it doesn't make it up here within a few days, please PM me and I'll add it.

As always, please view http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=9227274 for guidance on making good bug reports!


Devices that this beta has been tested on:

• HD2 WVGA

BUGS!!!

• Windows Mobile Std will error out. There is no work-a-round for this yet.
• Landscape is currently not supported.
• Smaller screens will have graphics errors.
• Authorization should be working, but using the new URL is a lot cleaner (I think). Go here to authorize directly. Once you see the browser transfered to "Success" then try the application again

And the status of this beta is:

 

[joe_coolish]

FAQs

Here is a place for Frequently Asked Questions (once I get some questions, I'll post them!)

 

[joe_coolish]

Donations!

Here is the list of people who have donated. If you would like your name or information changed or removed, please PM me and I will do that as quick as possible. If I have forgotten to add you, also send me a PM.

And, if you would like to make it onto this list, please follow the link in my signature

Thank you all for your support!

• (31 Dec 2010) L. Rolas - $5
• (31 Dec 2010) digital doctor - $5
• (30 Dec 2010) R. Weissman - $10
• (27 Dec 2010) henryblake - $7
• (23 Dec 2010) J. Kendall - $15
• (13 Dec 2010) wolfwolf - $10
• (13 Dec 2010) Corwin9S - $10
• (19 Nov 2010) sinoo - $10
• (13 Nov 2010) flommaster - $5
• (10 Nov 2010) y0himba - $10
• (31 Oct 2010) onebyside - $20
• (26 Oct 2010) nachoijs - $5
• (21 Oct 2010) pvdven - $5
• (12 Oct 2010) stetzen - $5
• (8 Oct 2010) goducks3620 - $4
• (6 Oct 2010) namwollem- $5
• (6 Oct 2010) thekillingroad - $5

 

[said_tandio]

question update 4.4

umm... btw joe.. where can we download new 4.4 update i can't find the link..

great change log!!!

 

[joe_coolish]

umm... btw joe.. where can we download new 4.4 update i can't find the link..

great change log!!!

lol, sorry for the delay. I had to go back through the old thread to find all the screen names of the people who have donated. It was like finding needles in a haystack! Should be up now

 

[cajunflavoredbob]

4.4 is looking good so far. No problems to report yet. I'm looking forward to Beta5 with FB chat!

 

[Watahboi]

Yay new home!

Filtering the feeds works well, Opening posted links also work. Ive noticed that you added when clicking on a status you can now click on the person to go to their profile (cool). The inbox works well, its okay that we cant send but being able to read it is nice. Events and notes are opening and displaying properly for me. This is my first time doing this but, when uploading a picture it doesnt get posted to the feeds letting people know you uploaded something??. Im extremely impressed with this update! Excellent job! I was still looking forward to places but its not here yet? I already got one error and the App randomly crashed on me with no error log, this was probably caused by me clicking randomly but hehe just testing everything out xD

-   at Microsoft.AGL.Common.MISC.HandleAr(PAL_ERROR ar)
   at System.Drawing.Graphics.DrawImage(Image image, Rectangle destRect, Rectangle srcRect, GraphicsUnit srcUnit)
   at XFControls.XFGraphics.drawImageAspect(Graphics g, Rectangle recDest, Rectangle recSrc, Image i, Boolean maintainAspectRatio)
   at XFControls.XFGraphics.<>c__DisplayClass7.<DrawImage>b__5(MemoryStream stream)
   at XFControls.XFGraphics.<startImageDownloading>b__17(Object v)
   at System.Threading.ThreadPool.WorkItem.doWork(Object o)
   at System.Threading.Timer.ring()

 

[m0nkeyman]

Love the new update Joe very fast again. Sorry to say I did get one error when playing about with it.
NullReferenceException- at XFControls.XFPanels.XFPanelBase.prepSlideLeft()
at XFControls.XFPanels.XFPanelBase.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
at XFControls.XFPanels.XFPanelList.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WnProc(WM wm, Int32 wParam, Int32 lParam)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control._InternalWnProc(WM wm, Int32 wParam, Int32 lParam)
at Microsoft.AGL.Forms.EVL.EnterMainLoop(IntPtr hwnMain)
at System.Windows.Forms.Application.Run(Form fm)
at XDAFacebook.Program.Main()

 

[wil_dee]

hi joe_coolish, thanks again for this great app, and the effort you're putting into it! much appreciated!!

just a quick one, i've been meaning to alert you to this minor issue...(been happening since v4.1, at 4.4 it's still the same)

there are various screens where i cant see the text with the black background, i.e. there is black text on black background, i can only see it if i touch the black area then it highlights and i can see the text.

some of the screens where this is on inlcude:

1. drop down menu on news feed
2. on a friends info page the 'poke' text can't be seen, but the 'disabled' can be seen
3. on a friend's wall, 'write something cannot be seen
4. on photos page, 'create a new album' cannot be seen..

i'm sure there are other pages, but it looks like it is occuring on the banner beneath the title of the page.

hope you can fix this...

im on a samsung omnia i8000 wm6.5 stock rom.

thanks!

 

[pvdven]

Error with 4.4

Hello Joe_coolish,

Installed 4.4, looks great but when I click on a photo in the feeds section I get an error. So here's the log it generates.

Good luck and I will keep on testing.

Greetz, Patrick

NullReferenceException-bij XFControls.XFPanels.XFPanelBase.prepSlideLeft()
bij XFControls.XFPanels.XFPanelBase.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
bij XFControls.XFPanels.XFPanelList.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
bij System.Windows.Forms.Control.WnProc(WM wm, Int32 wParam, Int32 lParam)
bij System.Windows.Forms.Control._InternalWnProc(WM wm, Int32 wParam, Int32 lParam)
bij Microsoft.AGL.Forms.EVL.EnterMainLoop(IntPtr hwnMain)
bij System.Windows.Forms.Application.Run(Form fm)
bij XDAFacebook.Program.Main()

 

[Avalon-99]

German translation

Hi, XDAFacebook 4.4 looks very good.

I added german translation of new terms.

 

[End001]

ErrorLog.txt

Hello my friends. Thanks for this great app... Well... I've being testing in my touch pro 2. When I've tryng to open a picture from the "feeds", and error message is shown and the app was closed. I look in the file directory and found the "ErrorLog.txt", and says this:

NullReferenceException-en XFControls.XFPanels.XFPanelBase.prepSlideLeft()
en XFControls.XFPanels.XFPanelBase.OnMouseUp(MouseEve ntArgs e)
en XFControls.XFPanels.XFPanelList.OnMouseUp(MouseEve ntArgs e)
en System.Windows.Forms.Control.WnProc(WM wm, Int32 wParam, Int32 lParam)
en System.Windows.Forms.Control._InternalWnProc(WM wm, Int32 wParam, Int32 lParam)
en Microsoft.AGL.Forms.EVL.EnterMainLoop(IntPtr hwnMain)
en System.Windows.Forms.Application.Run(Form fm)
en XDAFacebook.Program.Main()

Sorry by my english... Is very poor. Saludos desde Venezuela...

 

[End001]

ErrorLog.txt again...

Hello again... I'm still testing the app...

I've tried to upload a picture from my MicroSD card in my TP2... But I got once again an error message and the app was closed...

In the ErrorLog.txt I have the following code:

Could not find file '\Tarjeta de almacenamiento\DCIM\otras pics...'.-en System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String str)
en System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean useAsync, String msgPath)
en System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share)
en System.IO.File.Open(String path, FileMode mode)
en FBEntities.WebDownloader.GetFileQueryResponse(IEnumerable`1 parameterDictionary, FileSystemInfo uploadFile, String contentType, String url, Delegate CallBack)
en FBEntities.FBObjects.FBParseUtilities.PostPictureGraph(String id, String filePath, String caption, Delegate Callback)
en XDAFacebook.photoUploader.<>c__DisplayClassa.<>c__DisplayClassd.<.ctor>b__6(Object v)
en System.Threading.ThreadPool.WorkItem.doWork(Object o)
en System.Threading.Timer.ring()

However, The app still being great... I hope good news about it...

Saludos...

 

[Colossus92]

Are there no exceptions for composing messages?

I´m Looking forward

 

[Corwin9S]

tx for this new version. Great improvement since last tests !

keep up those good job.

by the way :

1. added in attachment the french version with new terms
2. make a 10$ donation for you to be able to buy beers to keep developping (5KJ22307JX861124C)

I'll report asap if I found some bugs... but for now, seems to :

aka SGH-i900

 

[wolfwolf]

Great !!!!!!

@joe

thanks for this great application - donation has been placed

work on my HD2 (Stockrom German) and the HD of my wife

Is there an possibility to open the pictures in my prefered
picturemanager ? instead of the internetbrowser ?

In future can you create a REFRESH - Button or something ?
for the feed?

servus
Wolf

 

[raja'i]

New thread!!
it is nicely organized
im loving the way this program develops

quis. i use the windows folder alot
does the new versions affect this?!!
im afraid to try the newer versions of the program bcoz of this


btw, u have forgeten to add the link for google code

thanx for ur effort