yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] thejigsaw:
The poll says: Yes, we need this app to be built as soon as possible, since we all use XDA and we need the App.	32	43.84%

Where are the rest of 7018???

Not that is a big thing but i am actually thinking of how much is this efficience. Maybe a browser is a better idea. Cos at the and this will have limited options. It will not be fully workable app. Like this one on internet.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] uniqueboy:
Every person who has viewed the thread has shown an interest, though I guess a lot of that number are repeat viewers. :)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
I think he's talking about the views this thread got. And everyone that uses XDA-Devs would most likely want to use it from their phone too!

As for Notifications, they would be essential since you want to know when a new post arrives. But we can probably implement a notification system on the server side that would be more effecient than using e-mail.

And an App would have a lot more features than a mobile site. We could do lots more with our own App, and it can be cached so that you don't have to load every reply each time.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] joel2009:
As already previously mentioned, 90 percent of this app is server side. i could write an app that would read the website in a couple hours probably. Parsing the html isn't hard, we need some type of api access to the server to be able to mess with accounts/posting ect. Until changes are made server side, i would recommend setting your alerts to be forwarded to your email, and checking them from your phone that way.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Awesome! Sounds like you can get the App made then! I told the Administrator which system would work best, and hopefully you can work with it too:

6/13/2009 - My Reply About Mobile Server Theme

Hello,

We've been thinking about what the best system for designing the Mobile XDA App would be, and we believe this would work best:

I think the best way to get xda on our handhelds is to install to the forum a mobile theme like this one: Mobile, Cell, Phone, PDA, iPhone Style (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=174375), and also this Mobile Phone / iPhone / PDA Detection and Style Assignment (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=173239)

So do you think that would work well? You would have to install the theme on your servers, but it sounds like it can be done! If you don't like that, then there are other possibilities, but they are lacking in security or functions currently.

Thanks for helping with this!

Andrew​
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Buzz_Litebeer:
I took a stab at this today (at least getting the login/posting working).

What I found is that the vbulletin uses some kind of hashing algorithm and its obfuscated. The hashing isnt strictly md5, i dont think.

If someone could confirm that the hash is MD5 (strictly) I could take another stab at it, as I can do the hashing myself if I can get the algorithm right.

But it seems to be taking the password and hashing it twice. Once after applying some string manipulation and once applying just the string itself.

It then passes the two hashed passwords through.

I tried to use a javascript interpreter against the md5hash algorithm so that I could pass the same values in and set the same values for return.

Unfortunately the md5 algorithm they are using seems to expect to be running in respect to browser resources and makes some browser calls that the javascript interpreter doesn't have access to (as it is just a c# class).

If someone has a method of logging into the site, the rest should be relatively straight forward, but as I am not a professional web scraper I do not really want to invest the time at the moment. I just thought I might post this as some hints on where to go if someone does want to invest the time.

What is needed is a way to emulate the MD5 hash function so that you can submit the exact same material out to the user environment.

If I were going to spend more time with this, the way I would approach this is to install Fiddler and watch and get some clues on the MD5 hash.

If this were in windows, the way you could do this would be to instantiate an instance of windows explorer, log in using that, and then scrape the internet explorer instance for what was needed. The only issue with that is the only reason to do that on a desktop would be for web scraping.

I dont even know if the same methodology would work with PIE, and I don't really have a dedicated environment to test all this with

Anyway, hopefully someone will figure out a straight out method of logging in via C#, and at that point it should just be just web scraping work.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Thanks for looking into it! Hopefully when the Admins implement the mobile version, login will be very simple.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] joel2009:
Best would be direct access through an api, example:

www.xda-developers.com/mobileapp/?action=DEVANDHACKING&username=USERNAMEHERE&password=PASSWORDHERE

The more that is rendered server-side the better. Its more secure and faster.

Other actions could include "order by" and filters
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] sinoo:
Sounds like an interesting idea. Hope it will work... ;)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] codybear:
I tried the ppcgeeks app,

and no offense to the developer,

but I don't like it.

I have to use my dpad or keyboard keys to scroll,

and it won't even let me click on the page number next to the thread names, i have to scroll far right to see what phone or section the thread is in.

I don't like those things, there's a few more that I can't deal with.

Personally, I'm using Nfsfan's optimized opera,

and it's way better than opera by itself, and better than that app.

I won't be using the xda app if its has the things I hate about the ppcgeeks one.

When it does get finished, and if it addresses those issues and has everything suggested in this thread, I'll donate around $5 to the developer. but that's only if it meets what I just said. Till then, I'm definitely staying with opera.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Don't worry, we'll make the app WM6.5 compatible, and it will be really amazing. I put you on the bounty list :) Thanks!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] _4saken_:
please make this a finger friendly app and try to get some nice graphics. the slide2sms thread is a good reference for that I would say.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Duh! of course it has to be finger friendly! But most importantly, it has to work.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] mr.denis:
Good activity!

Man, i was thinking of it. It would be very useful stuff!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] sinoo:
You should be able to install it on the storage card, and even the cache should be there.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] jmckeejr:
Good point. Might want to make choice in a settings dialog as to where to store cache, and possibly how much(a limit).
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] uniqueboy:
It should also have a big shiny button, no lots of big shiny buttons!:D

One nice thing that could be of use would be some kind of download manager, we get a lot of stuff posted on rapidshare so if it could do the rs log in thing automatically for those of us with accounts and bypass the need to launch a browser for rs links....:)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
hmm good thought. I don't use RapidShare that much, but I'm sure others do!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] mbarvian:
ugh, not rapidshare, how about mediafire ?
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] apreichner:
I think we should phase-out the use of Rapidshare and Mediafire in general. Windows Live Skydrive is so much easier and you don't have to wait a certain amount of time to download something! Besides, you can't go wrong with 25gb of free storage.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Lol that is verry true! +1 for Skydrive! Now if we could get Skydrive implemented into the program somehow...well that will be a later project.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] A.J:
hey guys

how r u i like the idea well i dont know if its new or old lol but i guess i can help im not that good in programming windows mobile i can program it for u as normal program on pc using php and vb6 ...
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] CosmicDan:
All i've got to ask is this...

How are you going to create a forum client without making significant changes in the server backend on xda-dev? There is only one way...

...the WM client has to download the entire webpage in HTML then parse the code and render it itself. Correct me if i'm wrong, but I don't think there's any other way.

Without implementing some kind of proxy or broadcast frontend in XDA dev (I think raw XML output would be best by far), there is no way to get all this real-time notification or forum reply updates unless the WM client is CONSTANTLY downloading.

Like it or not, HTML is still the major language here. And HTML is not an active connection. Web 2.0 revolution created the illusion of an "active" internet with dynamic pages and fancy AJAX, but the WWW is still essentially a master/slave echo system - not a server/client active link.

Don't use HTTP. Please. XDA Staff needs to think about a new protocol transport for this, otherwise it'll be horrible on CPU usage and bandwidth. And very very very prone to bugs and security issues.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] uniqueboy:
Agrreed I think, whatever happens this should be a real show piece that is truly state of the art and demonstrates that XDA Devs is a real frontline forum. I mean what is the point if it is crap, none of us have these phones because we want to be oldschool, I want the latest most up to date thing I can get, my life is firmly in the past apart from my phone which is bang up to date, and I would like this app to reflect all the 21st century virtues that I feel the whole XDA Devs community represents. No Holds Barred! Make it good, or don't make it!:)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] dnieman13:
Well I surely think that a programmer that's up to the task of creating a app that has all these features would be more willing to try to do is if the bounty was a little higher. We would all us this app daily, make our life easier and better. I've heard many suggestions but no one seems to be able to up the bounty hell if everyone who suggested something beefed up the bounty a bit. We might be in business.

Hell I put 5 more down

We Have a App in development that is Slide To TXT for $180 ( But $20 For a App that will actually do something)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] jmckeejr:
I'll double down too. Make mine 10 instead of 5. This for a fully functioning app with at least abilty to reply to posts without waiting for 5 minutes and trying to chase Opera around to see what I'm typing.

Maybe something like RSS for only your favorite threads. I tried using RSS to keep up, but its realy useless as it was only showing me Q & A posts, or one's I didn't care to see. I want to be caught up on threads that I am watching at a moments glance.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
No worries guys, the Admins should be working on implementing the mobile system on the servers. I sent them the info, and hopefully they are working on it, just give them time. I'll post here when they tell me something.

Thanks to dnieman13 and jmckeejr for donating more! Lol, dnieman, that's so true about the Slide2Send app. This one would be usefull, not just another texting app. I'd love to donate in the near future, I'll see what I can do.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] uniqueboy:
OK money where my mouth is put me down for $20, more if it is that good, I mean I don't want to donate to just some basic app, but I do want to give to something like I visualise, state of the art!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Wow!! Thanks uniqueboy! Well make it extra awesome for you, lol. We want the app to have full forum funtionality, and then a bonus would be a cool looking app. First thing is to be able to use the forum just like on a PC. But I bet we'll be able to make it look cool too.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] uniqueboy:
Make us all proud!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] krook6023:
I just found this thread and I too have been wanting this…see my similar thread. I just read the whole thread from beginning to end I would be lying to say that I am not very disappointed to see where we are at….it appears not even one developer is actively working on this???

I think it may be very naive to assume that a mobile theme for XDA imminent…the site admin’s have not exactly giving us any reason to think this will happen at all...let alone soon. The truth is we are a thousand miles away from this being an actuality.

But remember a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step

Put me down for $15 on the bounty for a working version

with all the bells and whistles described

The only way this happens as envisioned is with a good developer and XDA working closely together…I am hopeful but not optimistic.

But, most importantly we must increase the bounty to a respectable number!!!!!!

Edit: I just updated my signature to try and raise awareness.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Wow thanks for the bounty! And thanks for putting the link in your signature, I should do the same.

But, we have some developers that would be willing to work. Thing is, is that we're waiting on the Admins to implement the mobile theme or interface or API into their system. Once they do that, they should tell me, and then I will notify everyone here. Hopefully a developer would be able to write the program then.

So, I think this could happen!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] akp99:
$10 here as well :)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Thank you sir!

...still no response from Admins....I'll keep everyone posted...
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] krook6023:
IMO --I think it may be a good idea to take the poll down or update it with something revelvant...

Maybe "Do you think XDA should adapt a mobile theme?"

...I know it is a joke but it may be in poor taste...this is imporatant to us but the poll might leave a bad taste in a developers mouth...
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
haha ok, I guess I'll take it down. We're just waiting on the Admins, and they should be installing the "mobile theme", so that question is already answered.

But if anyone would like to have a new poll put up, just reply here, and if a few people second the idea, then I'll gladly put the poll up.

Ahh, idk how to remove the poll. Does a moderator have to remove it, or am I just missing something? If moderator, then yes, you can now remove the poll, we're done with it I guess. Thanks!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] deeznuts:
You guys are silly, the app is already out! Its called opera mini 4.2. Yes its web based but super fast and super mobile friendly and does any and everything this site has to offer. What else do u really need to surf this forum on ur phone? BAN all other development to focus just on this, thats cute.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
ha ha. Idk about everyone else here, but I'd rather have a real, faster, and more efficient app to use for XDA. Imagine having push notifications of when someone makes a new post! Imagine having your subscribed threads cached so that you only have to load new posts! etc, etc.

The benefits outway anything else, and I think almost everyone would agree with me.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] @rj*n:
yh i use opera mini aswel n its fast!! bt i wld lik an XDA-app too.. for th ease of purpose. i surf other site alongside Xda forum aswel and its a nag loading xda-forum time and again jus to check in one/two posts and the replies! so yh an app wld b nice wit developers workin on it bt all developments neednt b halted.. it depends upon th devs to choose if he/she wants to pause his/her other projects
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Bijdehandje:
Count me in.

Hi all,

I would love to have a XDApp for my Kaiser. Great idea. I would pay € 25,- for a good and complete app. Count me in for the bounty. Secondly i will add the link to this thread in my sig. :cool:

Greetz
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Thanks man! A Kaiser version should be no problem.

Our bounty's lookin pretty good!!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Bijdehandje:
The bounty is certainly looking good allthough i think it should be at € 100 at this moment instead of € 110. I guess you are counting some what to quick ;)
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Well I converted your donation value to USD. You put in 25 Euros, and according to Bing, that equals about $35 USD. Our bounty is in USD, so I made the conversion. Is that right? I think the conversion should be correct. And with your donation of ($35 USD), our bounty goes up to $110 USD, which is correct.

If the conversion's wrong, just tell me!

And still no word from the XDA Admins yet. I know XDA was down yesterday for a while, so possibly they were working on the mobile site?!? Hopefully!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Bijdehandje:
Ur absolutly right sir. My bad. :D
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ktemkin:
I'd be interested in contributing to this project; I've been programming both server and client side for years. My last experience programming for Windows Mobile was back in the days of WM2003 using the early .NET compact framework, but I'm familiar with the newer paradigms and should be able to pick up the new CF 3.5 pretty easily.

In my opinion, the best way to manage an application like this would be in two parts:

A server-side component would run on a server other than XDA, and would be written in an interpreted/scripting language (probably PHP, Perl, or Python).It's purpose would be to read the pages from XDA as usual, selectively choosing when it's appropriate to use 'archive' (lite) pages, and when it's more appropriate to use full versions. This would take no more bandwidth for XDA than a standard page-view (slightly less if archived versions are used).

The server would then construct a succinct, data-only version of the page requested (probably formatted as some kind of XML). Ideally, this would be compressed server-side, then relayed to the device (kind of like the technology Opera Mini uses- the throughput should be a lot faster).

Hopefully, eventually the server-side load could be distributed between many servers running the PHP script, with one lead server that has the (sole?) purpose of distributing load, and ensuring that other servers are in working order.

The client(device)-side component would then dynamically decompress the information and display it on the screen in a method that kind of resembles the Inbox; forum threads would be displayed in a similar manner to e-mails in WM6(.5), except they would flow from one to the other as if they were all stacked one-on-top of the other.

Screen-shots, pictures, and attachments would be downloaded by the device itself, forgoing the server-side 'proxy'. User would obviously have options to enable automatic display of pictures.

Uncertainties:

The only major uncertainty I see right now is how logins would be handled. One could simply store the login cookies as session variables on the proxy server, but that would require the user to submit their username/password to the proxy server.

I'd obviously implement security so that the logins would be safe, but would people feel uncomfortable passing their information to a third party, even if that third party doesn't store it?

---

I might decide to whip up some server-side prototypes tonight. I have a fully working CentOS (community RedHat) server all my own I can use for the development of this project. Theoretically I can run compiled binaries to ease this process on it, though I'd prefer to keep all related server-side coding interpreted.

PHP would be best for the server-side, as it's so widely available; this would mean that many users could run it and distribute the load.

Any opinions/suggestions/comments/etc?
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
Sounds like you know what you're talking about! We already told the Admins which system we thought would work best, and you can read what we told them on the first page, in the "Messages from Admins" or whatever area.

It seems like they might be working on the server-side proccess, since I haven't heard back from them yet. But we'd love to have you helping us, you have lots of experience with this!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] Bijdehandje:
Sounds goooooood !!! :D
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ktemkin:
Okay, I've done a bit of preliminary testing, and I can get my server-side 'proxy' to do what it needs to in just PHP; I just need to actually make parsing templates (series of regular expressions that separate out the data from the formatting/nonsense), and decide on a XML schema which will transmit the data to the device.

I did some experimentation with push notifications on subscribed threads, but that would require polling, as the XDA servers have no way to inform the devices/proxy directly of a new post.

The only feasible way I've come up with of doing something like that is to instigate an update upon receipt of a subscription e-mail. The program could be triggered by pocket outlook to immediately delete the notification e-mail and then perform its own check. That seems kind of silly- the user needs to already have push e-mail in place for it to be real-time, and they get the updated data in their e-mail anyway.

Does anyone have any other ideas?
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] uniqueboy:
I suppose it would be unfeaseable to extract the thread update from the notification email and the add it to the mobile app, then do a full update to a schedule to add any images or downloads.

I am making this reply from my phone and it is a pain in the arse! The app is needed and would be so useful.
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] ace10134:
I think it'd be possible to extract the notification system and have it relay to a mobile server, with the help of the Admins. Hopefully we can do push notifications, that would make this incredible, and even better than the PC web browser version!

And yea, phone browsing on XDA is a pain, lol.

But to the person two posts up, dude, AWESOME!! You've done soo much on this, and when the Admins write back to me, I'm gonna push them all of your ideas, and hopefully get them talking to you directly. You just might be the one that makes this happen, and gets the bounty!
[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] uniqueboy:
Graphics

Thinking ahead a bit, what's it going to look like? Is it going to look and feel just like the web page I am looking at now? or will we get a customised look specific to the mobile app? I guess we will need a nice set of icons and maybe even some skins. I am just hypothesizing that a few mock ups of some screenshots might encourage people to contribute to the bounty and that overall it could inspire people and help with the development. Personally I feel it would be nice to choose a colour scheme but best to preserve the appearance of the familiar page. :)

So if anyone would like to mock up some screenshots......:D