yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
1. I'm not that good at developing winmo-apps (could probably do it, but it would take me longer than someone who has done it before)

2. The web-site is important for uploading apps, and having a base before making the app. No web-site, no winmo-app.

3. The API needs to be completed, and the best way to test the API is to make a web-site that displays the exact same information that an app would do.

The project is closing on almost 3000 lines of code, and there's still stuff to be done.. So, it's quite a big undertaking :)

It's important that the data and service-layer of the project is stable, reliable and doesn't fail without reason, and as soon as the site has all the required features working, the actual Store App will come :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] snerkler:
Difficult? I've struggled to find anything I want, the only way I've found it is by asking on another forum.

Is there any indication as to when the XDAmarketplace will be up and running?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Karlos G:
Absolute classic post!!! Excelent! lmao! :D

Thi whole project looks like it will work really well, great work so far fella's! :D
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] depl0y:
This is an awesome idea! I would really like to encourage it and maybe help out here and there if that is needed.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind.

- Storage and transfer. The Marketplace will put a huge load on any server hosting it.

- Clutter, if you look at Apple's AppStore, which is a huge succes if you are a big time developer. Only its cluttered with useless stuff and really hard to find anything if you dont know the exact phrase of an app you are looking for.

Also, maybe the store Marketplace should support packages that arent stored on the server itself, so that developers can keep hosting their own packages and have control over them (e.g. when they need to pull a package really fast, because it has some high-risk bug in it?).
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] br3nt:
been reading the posts all along, and what I can say is pretty much said, but here's some things I've come up with (i hope) :P

* Filter by Author, Country (the app is for and/or in what languages its available)

* Tags (so you can search,preferably multiple search words)

thats a lot of code mate, keep up the good work, but dont forget to rest!

Think I'm missing a "Donate" button on the site ;)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] degake:
If we want this marketplace to be real good, we should come up with a way to translate each program into different languages (e.g. English, French, Dutch, German, Spanish).

In this way, we could create a *universal* translation system, so there wouldn't be x apps doing the same thing, but 1 app to download, and on installation the question what language we want to use it in..

Grtz,

Degake
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] smuppy:
Degeke: Not an easy feat to accomplish. That would need every developer to use the same kind of data for text in the app. Of course, creating such a thing, for example in xml, is not the difficult part but rather to have every single developer rewrite their code to implement it.

I like the idea - I really do - but unfortunately I doubt it will be possible to implement, at least with already existing apps. Could possibly be a suggestion from us to the developers for future apps/games?

I would be happy to contribute with whatever I can here: testing and coding (basically my job-description :-) ), documentation...

Can someone sum up who's working on what here and elect someone to run the project?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] omershahab:
I'm a webdesigner myself and I must say, nice work!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] mickfarr:
Excellent, I can't wait to see the end products. :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] djngal:
This threat is on fire :D

i'm waiting i'm waiting...

its gonna be a stand innovation ;)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Pretenderr:
awesome idea!

I like!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Bayria89:
amazing =)

wow, this idea is amazing...

and the Prototype of this site/market is great =)

if Pics are needed or somebody how can design, write me =)

i will wait for it =)

bayria89
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] lbhocky19:
very excited and will definitely support when it arrives
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] sonydesouza:
What a marvelous idea !!!

I will donate for it !!!

Continue your hard work Guys !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cool:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Chainfire:
Not the first attempt but if it works... :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] djngal:
since you're an old member probably u have experience to how was it attempted before and what went wrong and why? I believe your opinion(and possibly others with experience) will help current developers not making the same mistakes and thus making this attempt more successful.

so would you like to share your knowledge? :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] arvi007:
Excellent Idea.

Love the way its going ... our own marketplace !!! yay!!!

Keep up the good work.

Will definitely donate when ready.

Arvin
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] patrick1883:
XDA Marketplace

+1 for this!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Chainfire:
Well... long story, several things. It all pretty much comes down to followthrough, though.

While I have not followed all of those developments, frankly most of them were either poorly done or the developers did not put effort in long enough to make it come to fruition. The dude who made the one with the biggest following gave up too, I'm not sure how operational it was at that time.

I have attempted to join a group of them once, because I did not want to go at it alone, however I was adamant about certain requirements (if you go do it, I believe you have to do it well) which others did not agree on (easy way out), as I stated I didn't want it to become a personal project but a group effort, so that stranded there too.

Actually my list of requirements, stuff it should track, how updates work, compatibility with a number of existing system, how to build a mirror system, seperation of different types of applications, etc etc was pretty long ... perhaps that's my fault, I don't know :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] band27:
Yes, I remember using an app on my device that had categories of things that could be downloaded directly to the phone. It wasn't fully completed but they had some decent head way into the project.

Not sure if we are talking about the same project Chainfire but do you remember what it was called?

By the way, Keep up the good work guys!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ChrisJP:
Yeah... don't believe in that. Anyone actually in the hosting business will tell you what bull**** "unlimited" is... similar to Dreamhost... it is to a degree... however you are severely limited in the RAM and CPU department. There is no way a website of the scale you're all making it out to be is going to run well on that, it'll need a dedicated server. I pay over £200 a month for one currently and it's totally worth it for the sort of sites I both run and host.

And am I right in thinking most XDA users are Europe based? Makes sense to have a UK based server, or at least an EU country with equally good connectivity to ensure it's fast for the majority.

Has development actually started on the website? What language is it be coded in? And going back to the hosting, did you get any sorted out?

I saw one guy here offering his services with stuff like "free mysql" (as if it costs lol). I might be able to also offer this though, if someone could figure out what sort of resource usage it's going to take. I'm currently pumping out well over 3TB of data a month so I only have a few TB to spare... if that's enough?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Dport33:
Great idea. This would help out some much in finding stuff.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Moskus:
Takk, Yngve.

Keep up the good work! :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
I suppose you might be right. Godaddy states that it's limited to server diskspace and resources, of course... Having said that, it's a place to start as the web-site gets on to it's testing phase... I don't see the point in paying £200 pr month for a dedicated server until I know a little bit more about the server-strain, resource requirements and so on.

But your arguments are by all means highly valid!

For now, I'll stick with the hosting I have for testing purposes...

I'm currently coding the website in .NET 3.5 (language C#), and I have a MSSql server running as db.. Shouldn't be a huge problem switching this over to MySql should it be necessary, but I would need to do some rewriting of the data-access layer of course..

And yes, development on the website is well underway :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
Do you still have this list of requirements somewhere? Could be worth taking a look at, to see if I'm forgetting something :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] krew402:
heck yea!

bring it on!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] [★]:
Lovin that design :p

have any of you guy spoke to the creators/moderators of xda yet?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
Nope, not yet.

Now about the affiliation. I've been talking to several people with fairly advanced phones who would love to have some sort of "app-store" for their phones. Problem is, noone of them would be able to identify with the term "XDA". It's a fairly technical term, and what I vision for this site is that it's easily accessible for everyone. Not only the users of XDA-developers.com. Remember that xda-developers is a site for more-than-average phone-users.

I'm not ruling out some sort of affiliation, but I would like people to think it through a little bit before making it a certainty.

Comments?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] [★]:
well once they know the name, they wont easily forget it, I dont think you will loose any traffic having the word xda in the site. Less tech savvy people will just read it as a market place called xda, whilst people like us who know what we're looking for, will be encouraged to use it as it is related to the best and most known smartphone site out there.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] irusul:
very good idea. i hope it becomes reality.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Recoda:
I have to agree with this. Calling it XDA may also encourage people to find out even more, it may draw them to these forums, and once they realize the true potential of their smartphones, they may actually become a part of this community.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] djngal:
+1 for mister ★ :D
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zefiltrin:
And you've made it to the news: http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=12133

Hope this helps the project...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
Yeah, that's a good point.

I just went ahead and registered xda-downloads.com before someone else snatches it :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] c8zola:
please make this marketplace here on xda! would love dat!! its so hard to find apps and games even when im willing to pay the price for it...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
Hah! That's excellent! :D
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] [★]:
Thanks :)

Thanks and nice one I think that sounds pretty good, or maybe something like www.xda-marketplace.com in the future, I know youve already bought it but just for future reference its my suggestions.

Or maybe as all the stuff we want to provide is free, we could call it something smart like www.xda-appplace.com / www.xda-applace.com / www.xda-appzone.com
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] depl0y:
Maybe another small question. Who is gonna maintain the website? Building the website itself is quite a job, but maintaining it afterwards is also a LOT of work.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
Yeah, although xda-appplace.com contains alot of p's :p

I was just thinking, even though apps on this site are free, maybe the site should open up for shareware/trialware in the future...? just a suggestion... Anyway, for now, it'll all be free :)

I just registered xda-downloads because that's what was designed into the sketch earlier in this thread...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] depl0y:
Ok, another maybe simple question. Havent really seen a DB design yet, but have you thought of the following:

- How to handle apps with multiple versions, support different resolutions. Will they be findable as 1 app?

- Sometimes patches/tweaks/apps need different versions of Windows Mobile/Manilla/Radio ROM's. Will you store these kinds of requirements with the apps and again, will they be findable as one app again?

(These are all differences that can be with one phone, e.g. the HD2)

One of the reasons MS is not supporting as many resolutions with WinMo7 is that developers find it too hard to develop for such a broad audience. There are too many variables to take in account when developing a WinMo application.

For a living I develop applications, for Windows, for the Web and as a job-on-the-side I develop applications for the Apple Mobile OS. I tried getting stuff of the ground for Windows Mobile, but with the complete set of different OS's, resolutions, touch-screen/no-touch-screen to take in account, I found it very hard to create a GUI that is usable on all those devices.

With the setup of this marketplace, you have to take in account EVERY variable there is, to make sure less-experienced users can get their hands on the right versions of applications.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
Here's the structure for what I've called a "Project" in my db:

- User (of course)

- Project 1​

- Multiple Releases with versionnumber (#.#.#.#) and optional Alpha or Beta flag​

Each release has it's own set of files, and optional screenshots (Screenshots can be added directly to the project)

On each release you can select the following (everything except OS is optional):

- Supported phone-models

- Supported OS-versions

- Supported screen-types (touch/non-touch/capacitive/resistive/multi-touch and so on)

So, if you set up for instance a release supporting Windows Mobile 6.5 and capacitive touch-screens, it will automatically be available under every Windows Mobile 6.5-phone with capacitive touch-screen.

if you select resistive touch, it will be available under every WinMo6.5-phone with touch-screen (regardless of touch-type)

Hope my explanation made any sense :)

Edit: I've also got optional advanced settings like GPS, GPRS, Bluetooth, and all other kinds of phone specs if the app requires any of those... (I just pulled it from the spec-list for HD2, since it has pretty much everything) :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] LBTaylor1984:
i'd be happy to setup a site for this, even it was a site even if it was basic in the sense of a description, screen shot, system requirements etc.

If some people were willing to help write up information and do screenshots etc, i'd happily put up the webspace, and a php site, if a few people were willing to review, and document mods and tweaks.

if anyone is up for it, PM me, maybe e can sort it out :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Archer:
yngvebn is already doing this - that's what this thread is about!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] t-readyroc:
I think that the idea of a separate site with a database of all the apps & tweaks one can find on this site would be a great idea. I'd propose moving this thread out of the HD2 forum & maybe adding a poll.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Archer:
+1 it should be in a more general area since it's not phone specific.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
I agree, but I don't know who can move it :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] [★]:
XDA-downloads is pretty nice :)

oh and I know it has alot of P's that was the intention :D

we could be 'artistic' and call it www.xda-aplace.com lol

oh and I dont think you should have any pay items, ever, becasue eventually some company will start using it, then it'll grow and other companies will come in and eventually you will be dominated by companies selling apps
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Archer:
Post a request in this thread...

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=276306
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
Any suggestions where this thread should be located then?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] depl0y:
Yeah, it makes sense ;) its good that you thought of stuff like that. It sounds very good. What programming/scripting language will you make the site in? Is there anything other people can do?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
I'm doing it in ASP.NET C# (using ASP.NET MVC)

Other people will be able to help, but I want to get an initial release up and running first :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Chainfire:
I am not sure where it is... I'll take a look later (but I have like 15TB of data so I don't know how fruitful the search will be)

Just from the top of my head there are so many things that are needed to take into account. To take Bluetooth as one example. Is it required for an app, or is it supported? What about MS vs Widcomm stack? Is capacitive specifically NOT supported? GSensor apps, which brands of GSensor? Same for other sensors. Are there requirements? For example an app might require Samsung SDK v2.x. Will this be automagically installed? Or is only HTC going to be supported?

Those are just a few examples, I probably got over a 100 of those (I did put a LOT of thought into this... one of the reasons I dropped it at the time was to see first was MS Marketplace was going to do...).

Perhaps I will join in in this effort, but as this is not the first time I'm not jumping in until I've seen a lot more effort and (technical) design on it... There is a lot more to doing this properly than visible on first sight!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
Heh, well, no offence - but this pretty much explains why there are no xda-marketplace out there.

I can only speak from my own experience, and after 8 years in the programming consulting business, I surely know that "over-specifying" and trying to cover every single detail in a project before it's even of the starting grid is a scrapped project waiting to happen.

There is simply no way of considering every single combination from the get-go. What is important is to make the application scalable... If the application has a good structure with posibility to add more filters, we're all set. I mean, in a couple of years, phones might have capabilities we can't even imagine right now.

I respect your arguments, but I disagree in your approach when it comes to over-thinking the solution. Usually an application needs to be beta-tested before we really see what attention to detail is needed. Overdoing this will only make the app to complicated and bloated.

As of now, this is what I have in detailed specs for phones (in addition to os-versions, screentypes and resolutions):

WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth, GSensor, Compass,Gprs, Edge, HDSPA, Proximity, VideoCall, SpeakerPhone, FrontCamera, BackCamera.

Both the data-class and the db-table is a simple task to update with more specifications.

Well, then I guess you select the samsung-phones when you create the project, and not HTC.....

This is not going to be a HTC or windows mobile marketplace. It's going to be a mobile-app marketplace. That means you'll have to be able to choose what kind of phone the app is applicable for.

Anyways... I'm gonna finish the initial release of the application, and if it's not good enough, we'll adjust and fix it until it is.:)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] carlos_polanco:
Great idea

I really liked the idea, I would like to donate some $ when it's done.

The only bad thing is that I havent read anything from mods or admins...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
why is that bad...? It's not an official XDA-developers site :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Karlos G:
I agree with not overcomplicating/overthinking things from the start......

Getting a Beta site up and running that is scalable and adaptable is the way forward, it can then grow and develop as needed!

With regards to Chainfires comments about supported OS's and phones, as said you choose the catagory for your phone and within that you should only find apps that will install on your phone/OS if anything else is required ie: NCF 3.5 for example then that can be specified in the App's description.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Chainfire:
I completely disagree. In my professional experience (including designing and being head-developer on some very large government systems) if you are truely serious about a project over-specifying from the start is usually a good thing.

The important thing there is that you have considered as much scenarios as possible. Putting them all on paper, then prioritizing them into different stages. What is important initially, what is important a few stages later, what would you ultimately want in the very last release.

I am definitely not saying all of these things have to be implemented in the first 3 (or 6, or 10) major versions, far from it. But keeping 'future' scenarios considered will likely prevent from making technical design decisions that will bite you in the behind later, and will cost you lots of time (and thus money) refactoring and/or otherwise making large changes that will quickly become boring and a drag to do (which for many free applications and such is for many devs a reason to simply stop doing it).

All in all, if I recall correctly, the basic system with support for all the requirements I estimated at under three weeks of full-time coding (excluding UI and such, just the bare bones). If that is already scaring people away, well then that says it all, doesn't it?

Then again, it is a matter of preference. I know what works best for me and has worked best and has worked worst for the projects I have worked on. Some people swear by ad-hoc coding, some people swear by a fully proofed design before writing a single line of code, most swear by something in between.

Just my opinion, not saying you have to agree with it :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
If I got a project in my hands estimated at three weeks of full-time coding bare-bone, I wouldn't be scared - if it was at my day-job...

But, considering the factors in this project, most people here have a full time job already, or are studying. That means you could have maybe 2-3 hours a day coding considering time for extra curricular activies (life :p). This ends up giving us 7-8 weeks actual coding time for just the barebone. (if you're a single developer).

You are of course right that a project should be detailed in specification, and getting a barebone up and running stable and scalable is important... Now, I decided to go with a database-model and service-model that I've previously used in other projects with success, so that gave me alot for free :)

As you say - we all have our preferences, and of course, I meant no offence with my previous post :)

Now if you will excuse me, I have an application to write :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] barbapappa_86:
Uhm... What i can remember this has already been done. I saw a xda dev app store way back. dont know what happend to it though.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Chainfire:
The most popular one (cant remember the name) was abondoned by the dev...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] godfa7h3r:
Gecko seen here: http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=2489
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] LBTaylor1984:
my bad didn't read the entire thread.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] yngvebn:
Seems like this was just a mobile-application...

I'm gonna sit down with a friend of mine on monday to start planning a winmo-app for this marketplace.... I'll keep you all updated on what we agree on :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] aevh:
completely agree

Great idea, I'll love it