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Pausing to see if we can't move to Universal style apps in order to have access to all the storage API's without having to put in crazy PCL stuff (as we are now).

The pain point, actually, is that it is hard to download from the internet! The code all has decent stuff to store the file locally - even copy it, but, unfortunately, it is using some code that will save to a file directly.

So the question really becomes: how are we going to do it. It suddenly occurs to me that since we are using CERNSSO, we are going to have to deal with this like men: we are going to have to actually run the async loop that copes data back. This sucks... but until we figure out how to do the log-in via the background downloader I don't see any way around it.

#cerncds

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Getting the file download infrastructure up and going is turning out to be a bit tricky.

I was confused enough about it that I started from the UI and worked down. I now have something that seems workable from the high level POV. What is missing, however, are the low level things:

Actually downloading the file and writing it into local storage

Ability to open a file in local storage

The latter guy I'm having some trouble it. It turns out there should be (??) some code to do - the Launcher seems to exist in both WP and WS apps. However, not a PCL. Next thing to try: what if we use the new Universal App. Does it exist there?

The previous post had a lot about the background downloader. I've not even gotten to that point. I'm too worried about how to interface it with everything else. :-)

OK. So the universal library contains the launcher! This means... Yikes. It also contains all the storage stuff too. Which means we could switch and perhaps eliminate at least one library (our storage DB). Should we do it? Fortunately, source control will let us know how bad this is going to be!

#cerncds #fileio

Understanding the new background downloader. A few things seem "obvious" here... and some things not-so-much:

Nice sample app: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/xaml/JJ152726(v=win.10).aspx

Downloads should probably be handled centrally, not by individual pages.

A page will have to be able to ask to start a download

A page will have to be able to show the feedback for a download.

Lets think about the UI for a minute. There is going to have to be a way to do various things with these downloads, so...

It should be part of the file listing that we already have (currently, it includes the filename, version, date).

Add a progress bar. The progress bar is not there if the file isn't downloaded. Tapping will start the download.

The progress bar is a marching ant until the first data gets downloaded. This is how something can be marked as "queued".

If the file is completely downloaded and ready to open, then the progress bar is green. Tapping that tile will open the file.

If the file is in progress, the progress bar is red, and marching towards the end, reflecting how much has been downloaded.

So, for this to work, we need a central management object that coordinates all downloads

A method that can be used to start a download

A method that returns a VM that is the progress bar to show the user, and it is controlled by the thing itself.

We will have to make sure that when the view is disconnected, this thing properly goes away!

This downloader object:

Upon app start up it will reconnect with all downloads.

It will await on all of them to finish.

It will update progress bars of anyone who cares

It will mark downloaded (??) and remove from the download queue anything done.

#BackgroundDownloader #cerncds

Update 2 RC is installed on my main machine. It looks like this is just a different kind of PCL that we have to deal with - slightly different options. The real question is going to be, of course, can others deal with it (e.g. nuget) or is that going to be a total disaster!?

#cerncds #nuget #universal

I would like all the downloads of PDF's to run in the background. This way once started, they will keep going even if the app is switched away from. If the files are "large" this will be great, as it may take some time for the download to run. However, in order to do that, there are a bunch of requirements! :(

Windows Phone

Can only be started by clicking on a button - cannot start automatically.

There must be a cancel button to kill an ongoing download

There must be a progress indicator that shows how far the download has gotten.

One has to use the BackgroundTransferService object and pass it a BackgroundTransferRequest.

Windows Store

One has to use the BackgroundTransfer API's. Confusingly, it seems to claim these are available for both Windows Store and Windows Phone. Perhaps only for Universal Apps? Yep - this stuff is windows 8.1... If we don't use this, we will probably have to re-work everything, so this may force us to do the upgrade, finally.

Great blog post on using this: http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/buildingapps/archive/2014/04/25/background-transfer-api-in-universal-windows-apps-what-you-need-to-know.aspx

Ok. Time to do the update to VS2013 Update 2 RC!

#cerncds

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And got the Windows Phone UI working for looking at file versions. Next job: actually downloading those files!

#cerncds

Got the file update working. There are definitely ugly UI bugs left

Flash update when the new information comes in - even though it is identical to the old information.

No marching ants to tell the user that those files are being updated, so no feedback!

This is going to require another one of those "ugly" call backs to make sure that clicking on the item actually works. Seems like this should be part of CB's hookup!

The UI is only in the WS app this evening. We'll do the phone app next. And that done, it is time to do the download! Woo!

#cerncds

Ok, the low-level I/O is done:

Query CDS for the HTML that describes what the files are

Parse the HTML for the files, dates, and version numbers. If there are multiple files, they are properly parsed

Everything is async, so that should be "cool" for the whole i/o thing.

The DB now stores files and versions of files - well, not the binary data itself, but the metadata.

Next step is to surface this information to the UI.

The main paper page, especially on the phone, should have only the most recent version of the file.

Older versions should appear on some other page (panorama eventually).

This should be the case even if the user has made modifications to the PDF

If they have made modifications to the PDF then that should be the one displayed and open by default.

So, with this first surfacing of the data, we won't worry about local modifications. That will happen once we get to the point that we can open a file for reading in a PDF reader. Soon!

#cerncds