VLC team member today updated about their progress in Windows Store app development. First of all, they have now redesigned the app to be a universal Windows app. They are planning to drop the support for Windows 8 users, they need to upgrade to Windows 8.1 to continue receiving updates. They are designing the app that adapts itself depending on the device you’re using, while keeping the same user experience. Instead of fixing bugs in the existing codebase, they rebuilt it again from the scratch to have improved performance.
Should I rebuild the app from scratch, again? Or should I try to fix bugs one by one and improve the current design?
– The first possibility is the faster but also the most dangerous one. So I decided to take my time, and build a great universal app based on the work we have done so far. I cleaned the code, which is now shared between Windows Phone and Windows at a 90 percent level, and have the exact same features, except DLNA support on WP (that might change).
The XAML code is nearly the same. I worked really hard to make a design that works well on phones, phablets, tablets, laptops and desktops thanks to the upcoming windowed mode Windows Threshold is rumored to bring (I tested with Stardock Modern Mix).
Performance-wise, the app is a lot faster than before, more responsive on tablet, and I am trying to have the best responsiveness possible on low-end phones like the Lumia 520 which has a big marketshare in the WP-world.
The Windows 8.1 version is nearly ready to ship and will be released very soon. But the bad news is that they are still facing problems with the ARM compiler which they need to fix before releasing their app for Windows Phone and Windows RT devices.