Cheap Ass Gamer app version 2.0

My first app on the Windows Phone Marketplace was the CAG RSS reader. I had little knowledge of mobile apps or Silverlight at the time so almost all of the app was code from MSDN. I was meaning to update the app to not be so plain and simple-featured. Now, over 3 months later, I have the ability to do this.

Cheap Ass Gamer, for those who don’t know, is a video game website that posts deals, publishes reviews, hosts forums and make a fantastic podcast. My updated app will continue to show an RSS feed of their podcasts but also allow you to view the twitter feeds of each podcast host. The podcast links directly to the music player to listen to the show instead of a web link to the file. I hope to have background music integration, so you can continue listening to the show once you switch apps or lock your phone like a regular music player - if I figure out how to :P

Working in Silverlight for Windows Phone has been a mostly new experience. I had understanding of how the phone part works from developing Sweepy Cleaner. XAML is very new to me and a bit difficult to get to grips with. The way it links with the C# code behind the UI is a good idea but strange and a bit weak. For example, sometimes cut & pasting a method to move it that is linked to the XAML events can cause it to lose the link and you’ll get loads of errors. The integration into Visual Studio also isn’t completely there yet, I miss being able to see tooltips over reserved words to see a description of the word and being able to link to definitions; the documentation isn’t all there.

Anyway, I’ll continue developing the app for now. If this is successful (i.e. the code works not commercially viable :P) I’ll probably update the Ashens RSS reader to incorporate twitter too. Look out for the update to the CAG app in the WP7 marketplace soon.