yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Another update this morning. Nothing major, just some bug-fixes and cleanups.

No more crash on auto-update.

Lots of fixes dealing with clickable text.

Some UI cleanups.

mikebphoto: Yeah, my main problem with the other clients was the "feel" too. Just so utilitarian. I'll admit I'm a bit jealous of all the fun the iphone folks seem to be having and I want to give us WM folks some of that same feel. I know my UI takes some getting used to, but the fun I get out of it makes it seem worth it to me. I hope others feel the same way.

Quakk looked nice, but scrolling did a wierd refresh thing every time. If you haven't seen Twitula, it's UI was pretty smooth too, but I had other problems with it. I know there are a bunch of clients out there (and the mobile web site is plenty useable too), but I was able to whip something up in a few hours using existing components and decided it was worth sharing.

And unlike the others I've seen, it's open source. Anyone can see how it all works and anyone is welcome to submit code to help out. I know my code is messy and can be tough to read, but I'm not too embarrassed to share.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
I know I must sound like a total fanboy by this point, but I think this app is almost easier to use, and certainly more fun that the website itself.

Both the right justification and the linked text changes work well.

Next suggestion (I am almost starting to feel you are building this just for me) maybe add a setting for how far back it pulls twits? say 20/50/75 newest twits? or something like that. I am not a high traffic user but as I get more and more into this app I can see me relying on the sms forwards less. and it seems most my friends are west coast and ***** twit on their way home. So I get a lot of twits in a short period.

Thank you again for all the hard work.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
The twitter library I used is already starting to hold me back. It doesn't support:

1. Follow/unfollow/block

2. Fetch more than one page of tweets

3. Set favorite on/off

4. Probably a bunch more I haven't looked at.

It's very very bare bones, but it was the only one I could find the source for and convert to fit the compact framework.

Looks like the fun development has to slow down while I work on adding features to the library itself :(
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
yet another (hopefully easy) suggestion from the peanut gallery. In mid twit today I wanted to flip over to opera to look something up, and realized there was no minimize option anywhere, and as it is a full screen app, didn't have access to the top bar, and had to get creative to do it. So maybe changing the right (or left) exit to a minimize button?
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Another good idea, but I'm embarrassed to admit I don't know how! I've just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to make the application go to the background and come back the next time it is run in CF.NET and I've gotten nowhere!

To contrast, I was able to add a feature to automatically check for upgrades in 30 minutes (to be in the next build).

I feel silly :(
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Ok, finishing up "fun development" on the weekend and have to start "pay my bills development" again on monday. I squeezed in a few more features though:

1. Can make a tweet "favorite". I use this to go back and follow URLs once I'm on a PC

2. Can Follow/Unfollow users

3. All timeline updates happen in the background so the UI doesn't pause while updating

4. Automatically check for new versions and upgrade

I think the next step will be storing tweets locally and only fetching new tweets since the latest stored one, to make it more friendly to the servers and able to display a longer list. But for now, I have to do my real job :(
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
I'm watching the download count grow on the homepage, and my excitement is tempered by the fear that the auto-update has gone out of whack and is re-downloading the application for someone over and over again.

Is the auto-update working ok? Should be up to v.09 now.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
Shouldn't you be coding for food right now? ;)

It updated just fine for me from .08 to .09 yesterday. closed itself launched IE D/L the .cab etc ... however nowhere does it say .09 (ie: no about or version in the remove program area)

also still listing as "from web" I guess the twitter folks are slow to trun around the client request form.

Had a random crash, and then when I reloaded it the top bar was still visible (cutting off the top line of txt in the time line) ... rebooted phone all is well. is there any type of log or anything I can send (assuming it would be helpful; and not jsut a random glitch as I was running a couple other apps at the time. I am running on a sprint ppc-6700 running one of the cooked up 6.1 upgrades)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Yeah, I'm adding an "About" form to the next version :)

Just got an email from twitter saying my source tag was approved, but it'll still take 24-48 hours for the web site to start showing it.

If you get a crash, it should offer a "Details" button that will show a lot of text. You could just provide that text and I might be able to track down the problem. Most likely, the network connection was lost. I'm not handling that very well yet.

Looks like a freewarepocketpc site got hold of it, so that's why the downloads are starting to tick. I'm excited :)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
I see one of PockeTwitDev updates got tagged as from PockeTwit but mine are not ... Upgraded to .10 the program size keeps growing what else is on your dev list ?
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
The source tag will show up in the next release -- it was a stupid error on my part.

I've been trying to cache tweets locally and only request new tweets, but I'm not sure if it will work out. It feels like I'm hitting a wall on memory usage or threads or something.

But that has shown some other bugs that I need to look at, mostly around the text parsing and clickable links.

So I'm just not sure what's next. Over 200 downloads of .09, but way fewer upgrades to .10. And no feedback other than this thread. But that's just the way it goes.

Maybe I'll just do an upgrade with just the source tag fix. I just don't want to give people upgrade fatigue.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Another day, another update. I've got the "source" tag licked now.

And it won't kill the program if you get disconnected now. So you can keep reading the tweets it already has until it can reconnect :)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] nolageek:
Wow, love this app. Very responsive! WIll definitely be following it. (speaking of following, do you have a twitter account for updates? :)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Thanks!

The about page links to my development twitter account (PockeTwitDev). Be warned that I use it for testing too, so I might spam out "Testing xx feature" messages from that account occasionally.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Churned out another update. Put in the important ability to view the Replies timeline, allow customization of colors, and a few more speed tweaks.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
Obviously I have no first hand experience. So can you explain how the caching system will work? If it works how I think it will it may cause a rather fractured timeline.

as it is, I get the 20 newest entries, a little window into what is going on right now. if those are now cached and the next time I launch the app I get the 20 newest but not all 40 that happened between then and now ... see where I am going with this?

The memory useage is currently 1.8megs on my device so I don't think I can leave it up and running all the time w/o a significant battery drain. And more to the point I wouldn't want to run it all the time.

So I am worried this may turn out to be a non-feature ... with a long loading time one thing I really don't want to see
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Here's how the friends timeline will work--

1. Load from cache. If no cache exists, ask Twitter for the entire friends timeline, up to 200 tweets.

2. If the cache exists, ask twitter for the entire timeline SINCE the last entry in the cache. If this is only one item, the oldest item in the cache is dropped. If it's 200 items, the entire cache will be flushed and replaced with the 200 new ones.

This has several advantages. It's much easier on twitter's servers if we only ask for the tweets we need, instead of the last 20 every single time. And it covers a longer timeline so you're less likely to miss out on anything :)

The 200 tweet cache is also configurable, you can set it anywhere from 10 to 200.

The latest build is currently using 848k of memory on my machine, and that's with the full tweet list. Once I get some more bugs ironed out I'll do a better comparison of memory usage based on timeline size. Unfortunately, I had a bug that ended up hammering the server and I've exceeded my rate limit, so I have to take a break :( But at least it happened to me before I released it to you, eh?

I have a memory-starved Mogul (and I used a 6700 before this), so I understand that a small footprint is important. I also want to provide a full-featured client. I think that balancing speed, memory usage, and cpu cycles (for battery) has been the most fun part of building this application, and I'm pretty proud of how well it's doing so far.

The animations are the real battery killer, and one of the biggest appeals of the application. I think I made some real headway by increasing the "friction" of sliding the list so it stops much sooner. That'll save a lot of cycles.

Filesize grows with the codebase. I actually shrank the filesize between v.11 and v.12! I try to "tidy-up" as I go, but there's only so much I can cut down and keep the features I want.

Memory usage is very important to me, and I'm doing everything I can to keep it in check. I'm also allowing options (like the cache size)that should help users tweak their experience.

And finally, the loading time sucks. I don't like it. The new "Loading" screen distracts you from it, but it's still there. BUT, the majority of it comes from loading the cached tweets, which can be reduced through the setting. And I have an idea on how to load the cache much faster, but it's going to be code-intensive and won't make it for another release or so.

I really do appreciate the feedback and I am trying my best to balance things out. Please keep letting me know how it's working for you.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Ok, here's some memory usage info:

v.12 used 846k of memory (having scrolled past all 20 tweets).

v.14(test build) used 844k of memory when the cache was set to 20 tweets

used 948k of memory when cache was set to 200 tweets

So you CAN keep using v.14 with 20 tweets like before, and it'll still be nicer to the twitter servers on updates. And with a 20 tweet cache, the load time shouldn't be noticably different.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
I feel silly for even doubting you now, that's why you are the cone monkey and I am the network .. uhh .. monkey

It is pretty rockin I must say I have converted at least two friend over to using it. most still feel that sms is the superior interface ... some people ...

I noticed ..

I will, is there a different forum or site I should be responding in? I have noticed a few user request features crop up ... identi.ca for example. that weren't mentioned here.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
The other feature requests have came from twitter itself. Some folks message me, and I admit I spend some time on search.twitter.com to see if anyone's said anything. But I kind of appreciate the bumps here too. And you can use more than 140 characters :)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] nolageek:
One thing I'd like is if there was some indication of whose tweet you're reading. Some of the people I'm following change their incon or have the default icon --- when that's the case, I have no way of knowing whose update I'm reading... unless I'm missing something, Also, where do we configure the cache size?
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Screen real estate is tight and I don't know where to fit the screen name! I've been ok with just the avatar, but I knew someone would eventually bring it up. I'll look into it.

The cache size will be on the settings page, but that's in the upcoming (v.14) release. I still have a few more bugs to work out before I release it. I'll post here when I do.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Any crazy UI suggestions on where to fit the screen name? Or am I going to end up biting the bullet and taking up tweet text space?
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
v.14 is released
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
Not sure if it is doable but maybe superimpose it on the icon some how? Like setting the icon as a transparent background or something? honestly I kind of like not having their names. and think having name: leading every post may detract from slickness of the interface.

Here is a suggestion from left field and may not even be doable as I see very few home brewed apps do it. Instead of have the option for the default beep under config; would it be possible to have the app hook into the settings/ sound& notifications? that was we could choose our own alerts, and even set it to vibrate.

As this app becomes more feature rich, I see myself running it pretty much all the time, and not relying on the sms alerts for "important" twits. however louder and vibrating notifications would be a must for me.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] nolageek:
Superimposing it might be cool, or just under the avatar? I definitely agree sticking "username:" before the tweets woutd be ugly. Maybe just place the current-tweeter's name over the right hand menu (with the other per-tweet information) would be good?.. so if there's a doubt, just slide the tweets over to the left and see who posted it:

username

------------------

Reply

------------------

Direct Message

------------------

Make Favorite

------------------

Profile Page

------------------

Stop Following

------------------

Exit

------------------
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
Well that would be way to easy and elegant (Why didn't I think of that?)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
I like the right-menu idea too. But I might be out of room over there too. It's pretty tight in landscape mode. I'll give it a shot and see if it works.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
v.16 is up.

It all scales nicely for VGA machines now, and I added an option to show tiny avatars for the @reply a tweet is directed toward.

BUT, that's turned off by default. Each one of those avatars is is 1.25k, and showing all those extra avatars might be too much for some folks.

Sorry the size jumped Chuque, but it's almost all because I redid the "unknown" avatar art to scale better for VGA. It shouldn't make much difference at runtime.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
Here's an idea that wouldn't take up any screen real estate. On the right menu change the words Reply and direct message with @<user> and D <user> ?

two birds one stone as it were ...
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
it went from 1.8 to 1.81 according to memmaid. ... I think I can live with that ;)

I like the scrolling improvements, tho I am seeing some odd bug where the SIP won't go away after an update, but I can't minimize it either, I have to scroll/launch an update area and then cancel it.

Just me? I am using the pocketCM keybaord sip if that matters.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
It's probably a refresh issue. Since the SIP is outside my product, my product doesn't know to redraw that area. Scrolling a little bit causes it to redraw everything.

I'll add it to the list of stuff to look at.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Quick update here because I'm so excited. I got twitpic support added. You can take pictures straight from the status screen and tweet them.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
And another bump because I added a youtube link to the first post.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
the video shows reply @user on the right menu is that a .18 feature ?

also in .17 there is now a huge (defined as more than 4 second) lag from the time I see the timeline till the user icons show up. even if all said icons are chached. WAI or is this an issue? this may have started in .16 but seems more noticeable now, I have timeline set to 50 and reply images are off.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Oops, I ruined the surprise. Yes, that's a development build showing a little of v.18. I did manage to stay away from showing the other big feature for v.18 though :)

And you're right about the icon loading. The cached ones do show up as soon as you touch the screen though. I'm pretty sure I know how I broke it. Now I just have to figure out how to fix it.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
v.18 is up with WM notifications, improved right menu, and several bugfixes.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Updated the first post with v.19 info--

Smartphone (no-touch) support

D-pad fixes

More UI tweaks
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Release early, release often. v.20 includes search.twtter.com integration
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] jdcook:
Pownce integration

Hi, could you consider adding Pownce support? www.pownce.com

API documentation is at http://pownce.com/api/

Thanks for your app!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] xd1936:
This app is certainly on one of my must-haves... I love the camera "include picture" support! Very slick!

I have two feature requests, if I may:

1. How do I upload a previously taken picture? Is there a way to view my album?

2. Can you have the next version remember if the app is fullscreen on program exit and restart?

GREAT WORK! Thanks!!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
jdcook: I'll add it to the list, but it'll depend a LOT on how similar Pownce's api is to twitter's.

xd1936: Twitter's a "right now" application, not a "what I took a picture of three weeks ago on vacation" application :P (But you're not the first one to ask about this, so I'll add it to the list too. Maybe allow you to choose)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] xd1936:
I apologize, I didn't know this had already been discussed... Twice in the last week I went to take a picture and Twit it, when the program crashed in upload due to lost data service. They're still on my phone though, so... It was just a thought, thanks for considering!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
No need to apologize, it's a valid request. I really do appreciate the feedback and will find a way to work it in soon.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
I am not sure exactly I should forward the problem tweet, but here is the whole text from the web interface:

mommagoth	mommagoth Icon_red_lock http://twitpic.com/779w Kiska is always so happy when someone gets new shoes. about 14 hours ago from twitterrific

the test looked like:

http://twitpic.com/779w Kiska is always so happy when someone gets new shoes.

with when someone gets new shoes. over typed on Kiska is always so happy

The url when it launched in opera ( and yay! for adding default browser support btw) was:

http://twitpic.com/779w Kiska
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
v.22 is out and features the ability to connect to multiple twitter and identi.ca accounts at the same time.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] xd1936:
What a great app! I look forward to every time I see an update :)

The only thing about the software now that I would want to see is it remembering what timeline I'm viewing on startup, remembering whether or not I'm in fullscreen, and an indicator that shows if I'm about to upload a link, like this:

Just an idea... Keep up the great work!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
Thanks for the suggestions. I've already got it remembering full-screen vs. normal for the next build.

I'll see about the indicator you mentioned. It shouldn't be too hard to implement, but may take a release or two to get to.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
v.29 has a pretty major feature addition -- GPS support. You can see what other people are talking about in your area!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] xd1936:
Awesome! Will test tomorrow and post back... I've been looking forward to this!

Any chance you've confirmed or looked at that non-fullscreen mode bug? It's whenever I start up, and goes away when I do settings sometimes, or set it to fullscreen and back :(

http://twitpic.com/8p1c
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
getting some weird issues with this update. it looks like all of the timelike is compresed into one screen, and if I scroll it goes to a black screen. Exit and restart issue fixed; however soft reset and it is back, exit and restart fixed again.

I don't have GPS so can't take advantage of those features, however I noticed that the memory footprint went way up fro 1.81 to 2.45M

It is now using almost as much as voice command

also what all is being e-mailed out on the crash report ?

ETA: xd1936's screen cap looks like what I am seeing as well, however I just noticed it with this release.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] xd1936:
The bug was introduced sometime around when remembering the status of fullscreen was introduced. As for the memory, try unchecking 'use gps' in settings
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] chuque:
Odd I never saw that bug before. I normally use full screen but switch around now and then. and I did un-check use gps, that's what got it down to 2.45.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
No, I haven't looked at the non-fullscreen mode bug because I never heard about it :( I got a @reply from you over the weekend hinting at it, but never one describing the actual problem. Now that I know about it I'll look into it more.

Crash reports email the Error message and a "stack trace". No personal information (like account names, tweet text, etc.) is included. I will know your email address though, since it's sending an email.

Memory usage really skyrocketed when I set it up to do notifications from the background. It has to keep both Friends and Replies timelines in memory so it can tell how many new messages you've received for each.

GPS was the last big feauture that I wanted to add (though there are still requests from others), so I want to spend some time hunting down ways to optimize it. I've already picked over it with some profilers, but I still believe I can make it smaller and faster.

In the meantime you can reduce memory consumption by turning off reply avatars and shortening the max tweets length.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Dromio:
You aren't using reply avatars and it's that high? What is your Max Tweets set to? With Max tweets set to 50 and reply avatars turned off, I'm at a little under 900k right now (merging three accounts).