MyFinances for Windows8: Day 1

6 March, 2012

Only 24 hours into building something with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and the JabbR room has been alive and kicking.

Progress? Already?!

The project structure has been created, and a simple Expenses page has been created and styled to demonstrate navigation between pages and binding data to the UI. As this application is built using WinJS, we're seeing some people who are new to it.

While the application is being built, we've identified a number of features we can prototype in parallel to demonstrate various APIs and scenarios which we can integrate into the main application. Chris Sainty has already started work on a synchronization example so that we can share data between devices.

Mockup - Dashboard and Notifications

As I started mocking up the application, I realised I hadn't thought about the dashboard and what the application might display to the user on startup.

So here's a walkthrough of how I envision it working - have input? Leave a comment.

On startup, the application will display to the user any new notifications since they last opened the app. This time, the user is greeted with a couple of items to view, and those are emphasized by the application.

To view the item, the user taps or clicks on the item and the details slide down underneath.

The user can then click Close to dismiss the item, or tap away to hide it.

Once all the notifications are cleared, the bar disappears and the application has access to the default dashboard.

What's next?

I suspect the next couple of days will involve discussion, experimenting with WinJS and prototyping features. If you want to follow the discussion and get involved then check out the chatroom!