Another update to the Windows 8.1 LCARS Interface app should start rolling out to everyone soon! This update brings one of the most requested features...an Image Viewer! It currently supports selection of multiple files, as well as entire folders. Functionality is very similar to the Document viewer, with a few changes that make sense for the different content.
Also in this update is the ability to add LCARS Interface as the default PDF viewer, so you can launch files straight to the Document Viewer! The same is true for the new Image Viewer as well, which support .jpg, .jpeg, .png, and .bmp for now with possibly more formats coming soon.
We also patched up some code that should help the app use less memory and experience significantly less slowdown after prolonged usage and lots of switching between modules. It seemed to improve performance pretty substantially on our 1st generation Surface RT! We've also made several other adjustments and minor fixes to many places in the app. Getting everything to look good and work correctly across such a wide range of device sizes and resolutions is quite a time consuming task, but we're up for the challenge!
We've also been very busy lately adding to our LCARS framework with the Silverlight and WPF ports of our controls. The process is going well and should expand what we are able to do in the future to give you all the capabilities that Windows Store apps are not able to do. The WPF port will allow us to accommodate the many of you who have asked for very specialized applications that don't make sense in the context of the Windows Store application. This could make for some awesome home automation systems!
Friday, March 7, 2014
Thursday, March 6, 2014
LCARS Simulator for Windows Phone is now free to play!
We've got a special treat for Windows Phone users...you can now download a free trial for LCARS Simulator from the Windows Phone store! As with most free to play games this one is ad supported, but it has no in-app purchases so you won't be spending all your money if you get addicted to it. The trial has no time limit or functionality limitations, so you are free to play as long as you like without buying anything! If you like it and wish to purchase the full version to remove the ads, you can click on "Remove Ads" from the "About" section of the Settings screen, or from the Windows Phone Store directly!
We look forward to getting new feedback on possible improvements to this app. It has been a while since we made significant changes to it, but while we are working on planning the expansion of it, we decided to try and expand the user base so that more people will benefit from the work going into it. Since the Windows Phone and Windows 8 Store apps use the same game core, any changes we make to the game will be for both platforms.
We look forward to getting new feedback on possible improvements to this app. It has been a while since we made significant changes to it, but while we are working on planning the expansion of it, we decided to try and expand the user base so that more people will benefit from the work going into it. Since the Windows Phone and Windows 8 Store apps use the same game core, any changes we make to the game will be for both platforms.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Lots more in the works....
It's been a little quiet on this blog lately! But it's been as busy as ever here working on lots of new content. Our latest update to the LCARS Interface app for Windows 8 seems to have been going over very well with all of you. We've gotten a ton of feedback on the new additions, and quite a few new great reviews as well! We followed that up with an update to the Windows Phone version that brought a few of the same new features.
Speaking of Windows Phone, that's one of the reason it has been so quiet...Windows Phone 8.1 is coming out soon and from the information that's been leaked so far, it seems like it is going to bring some sweeping changes to the platform and bring it even more in line with Windows 8/RT! We've been very busy prepping all of our libraries, LCARS and otherwise, in order to be ready to take full advantage of these changes. The more shared code we are able to use between the Windows 8 and Windows Phone versions of our apps, the faster and more feature-rich updates will happen. It also appears Windows Phone 8.1 will allow setting of a new default SMS app, so that may open up some new potential for the LCARS Personnel app that we currently have which is limited by Microsoft in terms of how useful it can be.
Also now in development....we've also begun porting our Windows8/RT and Windows Phone LCARS controls to the WPF and Silverlight platforms, which means more powerful versions of our LCARS style for the desktop may be possible in the future. This would enable us to accomplish many of the things a lot of you have asked for with regards to deeper system integration that just isn't possible on Windows RT. Of course maintaining desktop software is more complicated with regards to distribution and informing you of when updates are available, but it also doesn't have to go through any approval process so getting fixes out for bugs will be more immediate. We don't have any immediate plans to make a desktop application yet, but we want to make sure that if we do, we aren't starting completely from ground zero. The same goes for Silverlight. It may be possible in the future to build some web-based content that wouldn't require installing anything besides the Silverlight browser plugin, which most of you probably already have. This brings in complication of obtaining web hosting with the required capabilities and setting it up online. We also don't have any immediate plans to do anything with Silverlight, but we're building it the capability to do so in order to spread our popular LCARS application style as far as possible eventually!
There is a lot more in the works as well, but it would take a very long time to talk about all of it! We have a couple new utility apps in progress that may be of some use to you retro gamers out there. Also being re-built from the ground up is the Simulation core that exists in the LCARS Interface app for Windows 8, as well as having its own app for Windows Phone. We are building it more universally so it can work across any platform and with any interface in front of it. That brings about many new possibilities and it will also have more possibilities to increase difficulty eventually. This is still in the early stages though, as it's taking a while to set up the new architecture. Stay tuned though...there are lots of exciting things coming down the pipeline!
Speaking of Windows Phone, that's one of the reason it has been so quiet...Windows Phone 8.1 is coming out soon and from the information that's been leaked so far, it seems like it is going to bring some sweeping changes to the platform and bring it even more in line with Windows 8/RT! We've been very busy prepping all of our libraries, LCARS and otherwise, in order to be ready to take full advantage of these changes. The more shared code we are able to use between the Windows 8 and Windows Phone versions of our apps, the faster and more feature-rich updates will happen. It also appears Windows Phone 8.1 will allow setting of a new default SMS app, so that may open up some new potential for the LCARS Personnel app that we currently have which is limited by Microsoft in terms of how useful it can be.
Also now in development....we've also begun porting our Windows8/RT and Windows Phone LCARS controls to the WPF and Silverlight platforms, which means more powerful versions of our LCARS style for the desktop may be possible in the future. This would enable us to accomplish many of the things a lot of you have asked for with regards to deeper system integration that just isn't possible on Windows RT. Of course maintaining desktop software is more complicated with regards to distribution and informing you of when updates are available, but it also doesn't have to go through any approval process so getting fixes out for bugs will be more immediate. We don't have any immediate plans to make a desktop application yet, but we want to make sure that if we do, we aren't starting completely from ground zero. The same goes for Silverlight. It may be possible in the future to build some web-based content that wouldn't require installing anything besides the Silverlight browser plugin, which most of you probably already have. This brings in complication of obtaining web hosting with the required capabilities and setting it up online. We also don't have any immediate plans to do anything with Silverlight, but we're building it the capability to do so in order to spread our popular LCARS application style as far as possible eventually!
There is a lot more in the works as well, but it would take a very long time to talk about all of it! We have a couple new utility apps in progress that may be of some use to you retro gamers out there. Also being re-built from the ground up is the Simulation core that exists in the LCARS Interface app for Windows 8, as well as having its own app for Windows Phone. We are building it more universally so it can work across any platform and with any interface in front of it. That brings about many new possibilities and it will also have more possibilities to increase difficulty eventually. This is still in the early stages though, as it's taking a while to set up the new architecture. Stay tuned though...there are lots of exciting things coming down the pipeline!
Monday, February 10, 2014
LCARS Interface for Windows 8 and Windows Phone Featured on Nokia Conversations Blog!
Nokia Conversations, the official Nokia blog, has done a feature on our LCARS apps for both Windows 8/RT and Windows Phone! Check out the article at the link below!
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
LCARS Interface for Windows 8.1 (Version 3.0, Release 36) has been Released!
It's finally here! After a month and a half of development, version 3 is now complete and should start rolling out to all of you today.
On the surface it may not look like that much has changed when you first load up the new version. You will notice there is now a PDF reader, which many of you have requested over the past several months! That alone is worth submitting an update for, but there was a whole lot more done than that. Read on for more details on what's new!
On the surface it may not look like that much has changed when you first load up the new version. You will notice there is now a PDF reader, which many of you have requested over the past several months! That alone is worth submitting an update for, but there was a whole lot more done than that. Read on for more details on what's new!
Friday, January 24, 2014
Working Hard on the Next Update!
Well if Microsoft featuring LCARS Interface for Windows 8 in the Red Stripe deals a couple weeks ago was good for anything, it certainly opened up LCARS to a whole new set of users. It has been a bit of a whirlwind working to sort through all of the feedback and minor issues that we have heard about from you all recently! But I'm loving every minute of it, and of getting the next update ready!
If you follow us on Facebook (which I suggest you all do, since we tend to post a lot of updates and sneak peaks on there that we don't post anywhere else usually) you have seen a few screenshots of the next update and some of the new features it will bring. At this point we are looking at Version 3.0 which will come as Release 36 when it is ready. You may notice that you are currently on Release 33. Releases 34 and 35 were used for the price changes during the Red Stripe deal. We are going to keep the release numbers in sync with what Microsoft has to avoid confusion. Release 36 will have enough changes to count for 3 updates though! Read on to see what we've been up to...
If you follow us on Facebook (which I suggest you all do, since we tend to post a lot of updates and sneak peaks on there that we don't post anywhere else usually) you have seen a few screenshots of the next update and some of the new features it will bring. At this point we are looking at Version 3.0 which will come as Release 36 when it is ready. You may notice that you are currently on Release 33. Releases 34 and 35 were used for the price changes during the Red Stripe deal. We are going to keep the release numbers in sync with what Microsoft has to avoid confusion. Release 36 will have enough changes to count for 3 updates though! Read on to see what we've been up to...
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Changing gears for a little bit...
Recently we've spent most of our time working on the brand new "ship" that will exist as a backbone for our next major update to LCARS Interface for Windows 8. Our preliminary work on that has been very promising! We are looking forward to continuing that work soon.
Now that we've had a bit of time to examine the changes for developers with Windows 8.1, we are finally starting to go ahead and make the changes in order to take full advantage of all the new features. The first step was mentioned previously and that was to divide out the Windows Phone 7 code from our portable class libraries that make it possible to share code between the different platforms. Some of the modules taking advantage of this are the Clock, Weather, and Calculator. The Simulator also follows this structure. We have made all of the necessary changes and upgraded our projects to isolate WP7 so that we can continue to support it as best we can, while moving the other platforms forward with all of the API improvements Microsoft has made available.
Today we are turning our focus to re-targeting LCARS Interface for Windows 8 (and its associated framework components) to Windows 8.1, which if we did nothing else than re-compile it and release, it would benefit from many performance enhancements. We have been pretty successful in making this app run lean and mean as it is, so any additional optimizations we get for free are most welcome as well! In our opinion, Microsoft has been doing a fantastic job of listening to developers and they have been making tons of changes to make our lives easier. Some things we had to work around before are now fixed. We may even be able to finally provide a basic web browser for the next version that so many of you have asked for! We will continue looking into this as we have always promised and evaluate what we can do within the new limitations.
We could blog for days upon days describing all of the changes that Windows 8.1 will bring, but safe to say it is going to take a bit of time to optimize everything for a new set of APIs and to add new functionality to existing modules. We know you all have been missing our previous rapid updates, but we are rebuilding the entire foundation of the entertainment side of things, as well as making bug fixes, optimizations, and feature additions to pretty much every module in the app! That is in addition to adding several brand new modules, and topping everything off with a huge helping of animations. As you can imagine, this is no small task, and we need to make sure that every feature still works as intended after the updates.
We have no ETA on when the next update will be yet, but at this point it is possible we will do it in two stages now instead of one. We may make the updates to the productivity side of things first, and then update the entertainment side later on, as that will take the most time. This will allow us to roll in all of the new API calls and take advantage of the new performance improvements for the existing modules more quickly. We will continue to make updates as we narrow down the release cycle.
Now that we've had a bit of time to examine the changes for developers with Windows 8.1, we are finally starting to go ahead and make the changes in order to take full advantage of all the new features. The first step was mentioned previously and that was to divide out the Windows Phone 7 code from our portable class libraries that make it possible to share code between the different platforms. Some of the modules taking advantage of this are the Clock, Weather, and Calculator. The Simulator also follows this structure. We have made all of the necessary changes and upgraded our projects to isolate WP7 so that we can continue to support it as best we can, while moving the other platforms forward with all of the API improvements Microsoft has made available.
Today we are turning our focus to re-targeting LCARS Interface for Windows 8 (and its associated framework components) to Windows 8.1, which if we did nothing else than re-compile it and release, it would benefit from many performance enhancements. We have been pretty successful in making this app run lean and mean as it is, so any additional optimizations we get for free are most welcome as well! In our opinion, Microsoft has been doing a fantastic job of listening to developers and they have been making tons of changes to make our lives easier. Some things we had to work around before are now fixed. We may even be able to finally provide a basic web browser for the next version that so many of you have asked for! We will continue looking into this as we have always promised and evaluate what we can do within the new limitations.
We could blog for days upon days describing all of the changes that Windows 8.1 will bring, but safe to say it is going to take a bit of time to optimize everything for a new set of APIs and to add new functionality to existing modules. We know you all have been missing our previous rapid updates, but we are rebuilding the entire foundation of the entertainment side of things, as well as making bug fixes, optimizations, and feature additions to pretty much every module in the app! That is in addition to adding several brand new modules, and topping everything off with a huge helping of animations. As you can imagine, this is no small task, and we need to make sure that every feature still works as intended after the updates.
We have no ETA on when the next update will be yet, but at this point it is possible we will do it in two stages now instead of one. We may make the updates to the productivity side of things first, and then update the entertainment side later on, as that will take the most time. This will allow us to roll in all of the new API calls and take advantage of the new performance improvements for the existing modules more quickly. We will continue to make updates as we narrow down the release cycle.
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