extracting the hardcoded info

PAX East schedule is out! I need to get cracking on this. I also got another response to my app survey today, where the only feature requested is 'update for pax east'. 

So, last week I implemented the ability to download a hardcoded file from my server. Now I need to adapt that so that I can download whatever files are available, and that I only do this if they are updated from my version.  I want to add this option in an app bar, but I need the collapsed app bar which is only available in mango, and I'm hoping to get one last usable version for pax east out in pre-mango format. So I've added this button in the about page (terrible design, I know). I might also want to add a little notification to the front menu letting the user know if a new version is available?

I should add a 'what's new' popup on first run, like 4th and Mayor.

I wired up a button in the about screen to look for a new schedule on my server, and put a really lame 'version info' file on the server, looks like this

3.1.2012
"East/2012"

So this is - date = last time the server schedule was updated, and location= folder location to look in on the server. In that folder will be a zip file of all the xml files. Each zip needs to be a complete set - I'm not going to try and manage just sending the new events or anything like that. (I'm mostly being inspired here by this article on downloading and reading from a zip - http://www.galasoft.ch/mydotnet/articles/article-2008032301.html) 

I actually format the event schedule  into xml by hand. I copy the plain text from the official website, then

1. Remove special characters - /&" are the main ones. Also odd quote chars like ’ and — and …
2. Manually insert an 'Event' heading for each event
3. arbitrarily decide on the 'type' of the event, basically I put as 'show' anything that doesn't sound like it'll have audience participation/questions. 

Etc etc

I've hardcoded lots of things that need changing. I haven't gotten a full plan for how to best handle this instead.

1. Panorama title says' PAX Prime 2011' - updated

2. Maps are all of Seattle - I have the bcec and boston maps, but will the pax specific ones change? I should probably wait here...nah, I'll almost definitely need to send out another update later. For now let's put in last year's maps.

3. Useful links are seattle based - updated