As discussed in this other topic, I'm working on an official Windows 8 client for BetaArchive.

It is open-source, and you can obtain the latest code from here.

Completed functionality:

• Forum Listings
• Latest Topic
• Anonymous-level access to forum.
• Ability to use Windows 8's Share functionality to share a topic.

Priority TODO:

• Settings Panel
• URL and IMG BBCode parsing
• Fix pagination (Code is there, just missing the UI)
• Login Authentication
• UI reworked to conform to Metro guidelines for Windows 8 (right now they're a bit of a mash between WP7 controls upscaled and Win8 styles imported)

I'll edit this post as needed.

Sounds cool. Can't wait to try it out.

This looks awesome man!! Can't wait to try it!

Looks good so far, I'm definitely going to try this. What stage is it in?

Early development.

It is an open-source project, and I don't plan on having concrete milestones. It'll be developed as and when people can contribute to it.

You can already try it out if you're vaguely familiar with Visual Studio. You will need the latest Visual Studio 11 Beta.

Simply obtain a copy of the source from the github link in the first post. The easiest way to do this is by downloading a ZIP of the latest commit, though you can also use the git system to keep it synced and up to date. Simply then double click the sln to open the solution in Visual Studio, and deploy it by going to Build > Deploy Solution. You can also debug/run/Create an Application Package.

If you haven't already developed apps for Windows 8, you'll be prompted at some stage to sign in with a Microsoft account and authorise your install as a developer machine. This will allow you to sideload Metro applications on your PC.

Because the requirement for a developer-authorised install of Windows 8, which can currently only be done with Visual Studio, I'm not planning to distribute binaries or AppX packages at the moment.

Hey, guys. I built AppX versions of hounsell's BetaArchive client for both x86 and x64 architectures. Anybody interested? I didn't change any of the code, I just packaged them in Visual Studio 11 Beta. If hounsell's okay with it, I could also try to get them submitted to the Windows Store as a free app so future users have easy access. It's just a reader at this point, though. No posting. Still handy, though, with a very slick and simple interface. I tested browsing subforums and individual topics. There is a SMALL bug in that it doesn't seem to want to fetch listings for the "New Beta Leaks/Releases" subforum, but that might just be my computer acting up.

EDIT: I can also produce debug versions for anyone who wants them.

If anyone should submit it to the App store, it should be hounsell. And we should submit it when it's working, not when it's half-working and needing metroification still. (As stated by hounsell himself)

Also, only selected developers can submit to the Windows Store right now, so unless you happen to know a guy, it's not going to happen yet.

The New Beta Leaks/Releases forum doesn't show up because the login system hasn't been implemented yet, so you're only browsing the forum with anonymous access. Strictly speaking, it should throw an error, but i'm a little lazy. However, before I can go much further, I will need to log in, hence it's on my priority to-do list.

Since hounsell ditched the WP7 client, I might as well start working on it. Can't guarantee a fully working one soon but I'll give it a shot.

Thanks Pwned
Now just to find my icon and tile.

Actually, I had an idea for a BetaArchive FTP client:

Possibly, while still using Metro, we could use the same code that would otherwise be used for such FTP clients as FileZilla and the now long outdated WS_FTP, only it would be specially configured by mrpijey (much thanks for your great help!) so that it would *only* connect to the BetaArchive FTP server.

It's also quite possible to adapt it to the FTP servers used by The Beta Group and AbandoNet in the same way (note that those are also run by mrpijey).

I don't see why when you can use the FTP command anyway. Adding more stuff to it will bloat it down.

Ya know the only purpose of an FTP client is just to connect and download stuff you don't have to make it pretty (metro).

Why fix something that is not broken?

I wish you luck however with the Beta Archive Client though sounds like a good idea

Actually, what I think would be really interesting would be to see the BetaArchive FTP connectivity (mentioned in my earlier posts) used as part of this BetaArchive Client, and not as a seperate program. Also, it would make it much more convenient to download files from the BetaArchive FTP server for those who are accessing BetaArchive from the BetaArchive Client anyway, since it would be wholely Metro-based.

I'll have to talk to Andy and mrpijey about the whole idea, though (unless someone else is willing to do it).

You are aware that neither Andy nor mrpijey are involved in developing this client? The only input Andy has had is letting it be an official BA client. The same would go for the FTP, they're both busy enough people without adding to their workload by introducing software development.

It's also not a simple matter of stealing/borrowing code from say, Filezilla. That code is for Win32, not Metro. You can't use Win32 APIs from a Metro environment, only the C runtime and WinRT for C++, .NET For Metro for C#, VB and WinJS (a JS WinRT Wrapper) for HTML/JS Metro development. I checked and .NET for Metro has no native FTP support, so adding FTP support would require us to develop our own FTP Library. While the FTP Protocol is hardly the most complex in the world, being just a set of text commands and then binary for the file transfer, it's still a pretty heavy undertaking.

As such, it's certainly not something I'm going to give priority to. If it so happens that a decent amount of people decide to work on the client, or there's someone with more expertise in the FTP protocol who wants to give it a go, then I'm not about to object, but I wouldn't want to divert resources from the main client for something there's plenty of desktop apps that do just fine.

That said, I'll pencil in a section for managing the FTP Servers page that will allow you to update the IP lock and reset the password. That's easy enough and will compliment the existing "services" section I have already pencilled in.

Sounds good i will try this out

Is it possible for Metro apps to execute Win32 programs? If so, then theoretically, it would be possible to write a Win32-based FTP command (in the form of an executable file running in the background), that the Metro app would execute, and read information from (using temporary .INI or .DAT files created by the Win32 command), so as to be able to display file listings and information within the Metro environment.

Then, once a file is selected for download, it will execute the proper Win32 executable and proper switches required to download the file, and the Win32 executable will write to the .INI or .DAT file to report the progress (from where the Metro app will then pull the progress information to display it onscreen), resulting in a more or less Metro-based FTP client (that is, if it's possible for Metro apps to call Windows to load Win32 executables, which I'm still not sure about).

Even if we did have to write an entirely new series of FTP code, it's also possible that we could distribute it as a seperate FTP client, while still using its code for the FTP portion of the BetaArchive Client.

inb4 xchat-wdk is given a metro interface.

No, that'd defeat the point of having a new Metro environment. Each Metro application is sandboxed - it has only a limited number of ways to communicate with the rest of the OS. It can only start other applications through the "contracts", such as sharing or search. These therefore have to be Metro applications. It can also only access files in two ways iirc: Isolated Storage (as in WP7 and Silverlight) or through an Open File Dialog (well, "File Picker"), or through another Metro application's storage contract (mainly for cloud storage - so the skydrive app will allow all metro apps to save to skydrive).

And of course. I'd just throw the FTP code in a library that anyone could use.

Just to keep everyone updated, I'm not going to be able to work on the application til the weekend since I'm upgrading my Home server ;d

Sounds Cool.Can't wait to try.

Not sure if anyone is still working on this but I have some newer designs based on the current layout:

Coming up, some notifications, app tile, and portrait/snap views

Love them, I'll happily incorporate them when I next get an opportunity to work on it (my files are in disarray as I'm slowly rebuilding my home server - should have been done with data transferred in a week or so. Looks like it'll be closer to a month now )

Looks very good, i wait to try this.

That looks amazing! What did you make this in and how long did this take you hounsell?