Show of hands: Who else submitted an app to the First Apps Contest?

Question

I got my entry in last night with less than a minute to spare. Not at all polished, unfortunately, but it was nice to submit something with the basic functionality working.

Hit lots of roadbumps, including:

• No library support (was planning on using RestSharp and Newtonsoft.Json but ended up rolling my own REST classes and using the built-in Json support)
• The ObservableCollection vs. ObservableVector thing
• The lack of .FindResource for finding controls within templates
• The lack of an IndexedDB equivalent for C# (I ended up storing .json files in the local app files folder)
• The inability of WebView to open local files, and its lack of a bindable property to set the HTML content (vs. the NavigateToString method), and the fact that you can't derive from it to provide that property yourself

 

The screenshots were also a pain in the ass since the simulator scales down the content and I had to resize them up (at 1366x768 resolution the simulator display is actually smaller).

It will be nice when the "Generate screenshots" menu item in Visual Studio 2011 does something. :)

Answer 1

I submitted an app as well. Built an HTML5/JS Paint App that allows users to share a paint surface over the internet through NodeJS and WebSockets. Had a lot of trouble building the WebSockets code, as the WinRT WebSockets classes are less than reliable at the moment. I ended up using the Native JS WebSockets implementation, which, while not being Async, seemed to work beautifully. 

I didn't find the screen shots too hard to grab. I opened the app up on my local machine rather than the simulator, and just used print screen. That still seems to work for Metro Style Apps, so I just copied those into paint and saved from there.

I wish I had more time to clean up some of the Paint UI. I would have liked to have done Data Binding for the Paint Color and Brush size tools, but I ended up running out of time.

Good luck! 

Answer 2

I submitted a casual game "air soccer" port of my "air soccer tour" game - I faced lotttss of issues especially a nasty intermittent crash - FatalExecutionEngineError - looks like I corrupted the CLR stack/heap somehow or its a CLR bug.

details on danglingneuron.wordpress.com

 

Did any of you make it through to the next round??

Answer 3

Did you enter the contest->make it to the next round?!

:-()

Answer 4

I entered an app "Physamajig" which lets you draw out physics simulations in real time.

http://www.andybeaulieu.com/Home/tabid/67/EntryID/223/Default.aspx

But today is the last day of judging (1/15) and I haven't heard anything yet, so I'm guessing I didn't make it to the 2nd round :(

Anyone else get through?

Answer 5

I entered an app "Physamajig" which lets you draw out physics simulations in real time.

http://www.andybeaulieu.com/Home/tabid/67/EntryID/223/Default.aspx

But today is the last day of judging (1/15) and I haven't heard anything yet, so I'm guessing I didn't make it to the 2nd round :(

Anyone else get through?

It doesn't sound like anyone's heard anything yet. Interested t o see what happens. Nervous.

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Patrick B. Godwin | Microsoft Student Insider | Student Developer | www.ximplosionx.com www.twitter.com/ximplosionx www.facebook.com/ximplosionx

Answer 6

I never heard back either--I've been trying to find out how many people entered just to gauge my chances. :)

Honestly my real motivation for entering was early access to the next build... That will be super helpful for seeing what's being worked on (i.e. do we get a FlowDocument or a RichTextBox soon?)

Answer 7

I started creating an app for this contest only 1 week before the deadline and with minimal knowledge of Windows 8 programming.

I created an App called "FlipSaw" which is an innovative version of the jigsaw game which i had made in WPF and wanted to port in Windows 8. Since the platform is a developer preview, I had a tough time getting the code to work. (I got the code working only 4 hours before the deadline and couldn't polish the app much!). 

I submitted the app with only 15 mins to spare. 

I haven't received any mail till now. So I guess it's tough luck for me. 

All the best for the finalists.

Regards,

Ratish