I’m pleased to announce the release of my first Adobe AIR application. This is a simple little desktop (not browser) app which checks your status on Weewar to see if you have any games waiting for your attention.
Revision 2.2 feature list:
- Checks your status using the Weewar API
- User settable interval between checks
- You can force an update by clicking on the “x games waiting” message.
- Semitransparent, draggable window
- Built with HTML, not Flash.
- (New in version 1.1) If you have waiting games and you click on the message, you’ll open a new browser window and go to your headquarters.
- (New in version 1.2) Works on Windows.
- (New in version 1.3) Turns red when you have games waiting. Resizes to fit contents.
- (New in version 1.4) Lists the games waiting for your attention
- (New in version 1.5) Added the option to have the window always stay on top
- (New in version 1.5) Changed the last checked display to show “xx minutes ago”
- (New in version 1.7) Compatible with AIR Beta 2
- (New in version 1.7) The window floats to the top automatically if you have waiting games. That way it doesn’t get buried but you don’t have to have it always floating on top of the other windows.
- (New in version 2.0) Updated for Adobe Air 1.1
- (New in version 2.2) You can now click on the “checked x minutes ago” status line to do an immediate status check.
Installation
- Install the AIR Runtime. It is very small and fast.
- Download Weewarify 2.2
- Install the app by double-clicking on the downloaded installer.
- The first time you run it, it should detect that you haven’t configured, and show you the configuration window. Put in your username and your “token” from your Weewar account page.
- Click the icon on the top right to save and flip back to the status page.
- That’s it, the program will now check Weewar every few minutes for you.
- Important! If you let the installer run the app after install (which is the default), it doesn’t work. I have no idea why. Just quit and restart it. It will work when launched normally.
- WARNING: Doesn’t work on Windows at the moment. I’ll fix very soon.
Open Source
Feel free to contribute, browse the source, report bugs, or request enhancements at Weewarify’s home on Launchpad.
Technorati Tags: air, adobe-air, weewar
13 responses so far ↓
1 Chris_S // Aug 18, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Great job!
I do have a question though. You mention the fact it’s core is html and not Flash as being a feature. Was this previously a Flash device or Flash wrapped with an SWF2EXE tool?
I ask because once it gets wrapped with AIR, all possible negative aspects of Flash (poor SEO, user must have correct flashplayer installed, file sizes larger than html delivered pages, etc) that exist if delivered via the web go out the window as a desktop application. SEO doesn’t matter, file size is moot because the device is now local after initial install, Flashplayer is embedded so it doesn’t matter if the end user even has a flashplayer installed locally and so on. While it’s interesting that you’ve chosen html as your core, and of course is your choice to make, I’m just a little confised at the wording of it listed as a feature like it is because it tends to make one assume it would be less if it were made with Flash or that choosing html over Flash made it better somehow . Like I said, just curious
Chris
2 Bruce // Aug 18, 2007 at 1:58 pm
It wasn’t previously a flash app.
I guess the “feature” is more of a geeky item of interest about the app. I had to learn a lot of barely-or-not documented stuff to get it to work properly with HTML, so I felt that it was a challenge.
BTW, It couldn’t be Flash, because the closest I’ve ever written is Laszlo, and although that app was a success, and I have Flash CS3, I haven’t ever written a straight Flash app.
3 Chris_S // Aug 18, 2007 at 2:21 pm
I appreciate the response Bruce, I really do like the app
html/js is a tough call with AIR for a lot of devs, unless they are open source devs right out of the gate. Notice almost all of the publicly available apps that are getting heavy press that aren’t distributed by Adobe themselves as part of evangelism (Fresh, etc) and will be proprietary code to the devleoper but shared as a device with the end user (Pownce, Saffron, Buzzword, etc) are purposely choosing Flex/Flash as their core. Personally I believe this is because while it’s going through its dvelopment and testing phase, it’s easier to obfuscate the source code with those cores than we can with html/js . Your app, while it must have been hard work for you and many hours to tweak the way you wanted, is basically out there as source now (I’m viewing it in Aptana as I write and can freely manipulate it) and while that may not matter nor may not be your intention to keep it proprietary to you while you develop it…it’s a fact that is forced and not really chosen when you choose that core.
Adobe doesn’t really address the casual coder or hobbiest in public spaces. It mainly targets corporate or enterprise use IMO and as such I am curious how many of the big boys can effectively rely on html/js with AIR for any device while not ending up creating a shortcut to another dev house or brand by distribuiting such an unobfuscated device that may have them end up competing against their own code (but altered and repurposed for someone else’s benefit) since it’s so open by it’s nature and it’s installed footprint.
It’s going to be interesting to watch what develops with this platform as it relates to enterprise use.
4 Bruce // Aug 18, 2007 at 3:22 pm
I hear what you are saying Chris, and you are completely correct. Happily, I don’t mind people using some of the clever tricks I implemented to make this work. Basically it is an advertisement for my consulting practice, not something intended to make me money directly.
However, it is unfortunate that I can’t choose to keep the code private. A couple of my recently brainstormed ideas for AIR would definitely need to be closed-source. That means, for now, that I have to use Flash if I want to keep control of my code.
That is not a big deal, despite my lack of experience. Actionscript is not difficult, and I’ve been looking for an excuse to try some Flash. The problem is just that I wish I could use my preferred platform, HTML/Javascript for the layout.
FWIW, it wasn’t hard to write this, in fact it was very easy. The challenge was that a couple of the features are poorly documented, which I intend to remedy on this site over the next days/weeks.
For example, try finding how to make a chrome-less, transparent window draggable from Javascript. Several people were asking about that on the Adobe forums, to no avail. I had to reverse engineer something another programmer did to figure out the secret.
Similarly, how to use Local Shared Objects for data storage from Javascript. It is almost trivial to do, but not documented as possible. In fact several sites (talking about HMTL) indicate that it is only possible with special .swfs to enable it. Not true at all.
5 Ryan Stewart // Aug 20, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Cool! You should make sure to add this to the AIRApps Wiki - http://airapps.pbwiki.com/FrontPage
=Ryan
rstewart@adobe.com
6 alex // Sep 1, 2007 at 8:47 am
just added your app to this new Weewar section: http://weewar.com/tools
7 alex // Sep 13, 2007 at 11:46 am
Hi Bruce, would you mind adding weewarify to: http://weewar.info/show/Tools+and+Services ?
Thanks
8 Zane // Oct 13, 2007 at 1:52 am
I just installed this neat little app but after putting in my info it says no games. I know my account works with WeeWar Dashboard but it does not work with this AIR app. I even upgraded my AIR install to the new beta 2 just to see if that made it start working but still no go.
9 Bruce // Oct 13, 2007 at 9:05 am
Zane, that’s odd. I have hundreds of successful users. Are you saying that WeeWar Dashboard shows a game, while simultaneously Weewarify does not?
Did you put in your API key, not your password?
10 psilos // Jan 22, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Hello,
Is this code still available?
I am starting to experiment with js on AIR and it would be of great help, if you can upload the code again.
Unless I am doing something wrong, this link: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~bkroeze/weewarify/main
doesn’t have any code.
Thanks!
11 Robin Monks // May 22, 2008 at 4:18 am
Can you please update this for the latest version of AIR?
Thanks!!!
Robin
12 Bruce // May 26, 2008 at 10:49 am
Robin, I’ve updated it as of May 25, 2008.
13 Bruce // May 26, 2008 at 10:54 am
Psilos, yes the code is at that url. Perhaps you need to install Bazaar and check it out? After that, just pull it all with “http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~bkroeze/weewarify/main”
Otherwise, you can click on the “files” menu item and browse the files right on the website.
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