Tinker - Windows Phone App

Some of you may have seen my posts that I will be working on the Windows Phone Tinker App and not to get you too excited. But…

Cheers,
-Justin

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@justinmy,

Can you make it so user can hide pins not used and change lable of pins as needed and keep assigned function of pins until changed by user, for eample, DigitalWrite D3 stays DigitalWrite until changed by user.

Would that be awesome - I think so, Possible ?

I am still trying to get my hands on either an iPhone or Android app to see how it fully functions. I want them to be similar.

But short answer would be yes. I see no reason why in config you couldn’t choose to hide pins (labeling might be hard since there isn’t a lot of room) and setting them to a default action. I can also see saving/loading configs as another feature.

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+10 points! :DDDDDDD

@justinmy

Oh, that would be the coolest thing since the Spark Core :slight_smile:

I have tried many times but, can not get a proper configuration of eclips to compile the firmware. In a few months I will be in a different production environment and will have a lab set up to work exclusively on Spark Core Projects.

Please keep us posted of your progress and thanks for sharing your insight and the possibilities !

Thanks,

Bobby

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Spark Underground Bob-the-builder lab? :smiley:

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@justinmy, I have been working on an extended version of Android Tinker App which also offers @spydrop 's pin hide function (keeping pin mode persistent across sessions is there in standard Tinker App already).

If you like I can send you a link to my ExtTinkerApp.apk which you could fiddle with, if you could get hands on a Android phone.
Otherwise I could post you some screenshots and/or a video of how it looks like now (the pics and video in the thread above don’t show most recent version).
If you’d also like to add the extended feature to tinker with the RGB-LED, you could use my ExtTinker firmware (see link above)

If you could include the RGB-LED control, there would be two ExtTinker versions available and only iOS missing out (since it’s not open sourced, yet :blush: ). That might then also be an incentive for :spark: Spark to accept my pull request for ExtTinkerApp and ExtTinker firmware, too :wink:

BTW: What dev env are you using for your work (Visual Studio Express?)

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@ScruffR, If screenshots or a video are easy, that would be the fastest for me. Both of your version and the current one (if that’s not too much to ask).

I actually have a totally different idea for the default tinker firmware. I want the one on the cores to stay as it is and have “TinkerPlus” as the first sample app in the web build IDE. That way they have something to flash right away. Helps the learning curve. The TinkerPlus app would respond to a version request that would let the apps (phone, pc, web) know what features to allow (and handle the current one of returning function not defined).

There is so much I’ve started to draft out for TinkerPlus. Servo, working with a separate RGB LED, getting the time, polling a pin, etc.

If we can reach a general consensus for TinkerPlus it would be awesome.

I have VS Ultimate 8]

@justinmy, I’ve just PMed you the screenshot links.

My ExtTinker firmware would still be usable with the original TinkerApp since it only adds features and keeps the old functionality in tact.
But your approach to provide one or some “nodge up sample(s)” for the user to flash, that’d be a more selective way.

Both ways would require :spark: Spark to accept and include ExtTinker or TinkerPlus as a sample sketch on their Sparkulator (aka Web IDE).

For a consensus between TinkerPlus and ExtTinker, I’d love to close ranks :wink:

Have you had a look at ExtTinker firmware?
Since you have a seperate RGB-LED in mind and ExtTinker can already control the on-board one, that might be reusable for you.

Is there any chance for others to get hands on your WP8 Tinker App?
I’d like to see if it is compatible with VS 2013 Express and/or VS 2010 Enterprise.

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+100 points for this thread!

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@kennethlimcp, how many points do we need to get spark to put our ExtTinker/TinkerPlus as an app in the example code in the web ide? Where up to 110 points :wink:

@ScruffR, I’m getting an android device this weekend (don’t tell my friends) to start playing with both the generic and you app.

I’m still building but hope to have a sample out soon. I’ll get Express installed on another machine to make sure it compiles (don’t see why it wouldn’t).

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Very interested in this project. If you need help with the development I’d be more than happy to give a hand.

Fun idea! :slight_smile: It would probably only take some brief documentation to match something like the examples (now very out of date) here: http://docs.spark.io/examples/ . What do you think @jgoggins ?

Thanks,
David

I was going to write my own Windows Phone App (I’ve got a Lumia 520) so was very happy to stumble across this thread.

Has there been any more progress? Do you need any help?

Cheers
Greg

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I’m getting ready to submit the app to the store for beta testing. Once I do I’ll ping people for info. I’m excited to get this out there!

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great job!!! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

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Woo! A bunch of people looking forward to the Windows Phone app, I hope you decide to open source it!

(Also ping for @dwashin, because I know he wants a Windows Phone app too :slight_smile: )

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Will you make the source code available? I’m trying to make my own WP - Spark app but I’m getting nowere.

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David from Microsoft here. This is great news. Windows Phone is largely left out of the IoT app discussion. Starting with a great Tinker app, and some awesome follow on devices with Windows Phone apps I think there is an open market for devs/hackers to tap into. Check my trending reddit post from the fall for some evidence of demand.

Does it have feature parity with the iOS app? Was it able to do the wifi config? Currently that’s a big gap for WP users. We have to use USB every time we switch networks.

I’d love to see opensource/pull-request. Ideally, @spark submits this to the app store as an official app. This way new hackers of all phoneOS religions can get started from spark.io.

@justinmy Let me know if you want to chat further. I’d love to help both technically and to market this when it launches. I’d also love to hear any WP specific gotchas you hit.

Cheers,
David Washington
Microsoft

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So to answer a few questions in general:

  • Yes I will open source most of it.
  • The first version will not have the wifi config (this will be the part I can’t open source), but otherwise should be identical.
  • Last I talked with @spark they were happy to show it on the resources page, if they change their mind, they know where to find me 8]

@dwcares, I would love to touch base sometime. Are you in Seattle, Redmond or neither?

Right now I’m off to the Microsoft store since I accidentally threw my 920 down a flight of concrete stairs this weekend…

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