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The Dark Furie

Projects In The Works

Thursday, 2. July 2009, 21:56:10

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Yahoo! I've finally found a mobile friendly site to host my voice posts and game collection files, as a way to get around the download warning here which keeps stopping or interfering with downloads. I'll be uploading my best games (broadening the reach of my mailing list) and posting reviews plus download links here at some point, so if you're interested in free mobile games, make sure you subscribe. As always, these are for testing purposes only and I hope that my subscribers will actually buy the games that they like.

I've almost finished making a mobile widget for this page. As I've been learning and working with Web Runtime for a week so far and I'm currently programming this on a phone that doesn't support widgets I'm looking for testers. Anyone with Web Runtime on their phones, please comment, leaving your phone model, if you're willing to test a beta version for me. I need you to take a screenshot of the app and let me know if it's working properly if you're willing. Once the test is through I'll get around to porting it to the different widget systems and creating properly sized icons for them instead of my stand in, though this will require me to use a PC.

Third project in the works is a CSS one for here, but you wont see anything from that for quite a while as I've got so many other things going on. It's something I've been wanting to do for quite a while, but I needed to wait until my skills were up to scratch, and I think I learned enough to put the basics together now. If it works out though, I'll be inviting a few people to help me refine it and a few theme designers should be put back in business here.

So yeah, I'm a busy bee lately.
:D

New Testament - The Gospel Of PrologueNuts

Comments

gdare 3. July 2009, 04:59

"I've finally found a mobile friendly site to host my voice posts and game collection files"
Can you share address?

Furie 3. July 2009, 09:19

I'll mail it to you later when I'm awake.

qlue 3. July 2009, 17:17

Sounds exciting. I don't even know what web runtime is so I guess that's me out! p:.
Although if you need me to test something on my phone, let me know. I'll always be willing to try it out. :yes:.

Furie 3. July 2009, 17:59

Web Runtime (WRT) is a widget platform that's been very successfully ported to S60 mobiles. As widgets are designed using web technologies and each doesn't have to be signed you can easily create some great things with it. Personally I'm just putting together an RSS feed reader for this page, but there's plenty of other uses for widgets such as posting to Twitter or Facebook, retrieving local weather, or even downloading other widgets.
The platform's growing as the runtime gets access to more phone features.

Darko, check out http://snapdrive.net. 5GB storage space, a premium option for more space, direct linking to files and a mobile site at http://snapit.mobi that's got enough features to keep me happy.

gdare 3. July 2009, 18:26

Thanks, I will check on it now :D

selurus 3. July 2009, 19:40

I've got a Nokia N73 and I guess I should be able to run widgets. Dont know much about Web Runtime though, do let me know if I can help.

Furie 3. July 2009, 20:03

The N73 doesn't have WRT as standard as it's a very recent development, though I haven't checked the latest firmware for it. What version do you have?

selurus 4. July 2009, 04:18

I've got the Firmware version 4.08 12.4.2.1
I dont think its the latest firmware version.
Wouldn't the widget work if I install the Opera Widget Manager?

Furie 4. July 2009, 10:27

Hmmm, you know I haven't got a clue. Never thought about that. I'll look into it.

selurus 4. July 2009, 17:01

I've installed the Opera Widget Manager from the sdk and I'm able to run widgets on my mobile now, only problem being I keep getting memory full error message. :irked:
Wish Nokia had put more ram on this phone.

qlue 4. July 2009, 18:13

Works fine for me. :up:.
But I agree, there appears to be very high ram usage with it. :left:.
A smartphone really offer needs 120Mb ram or better. awww.
*edited* - sorry for the T9 typo :irked:

Furie 4. July 2009, 18:58

I've got 20 on this one, 256 on the one I'm getting from Samsung. :yes:

qlue 4. July 2009, 23:32

I've been looking over the whole widgets angle at widgets.opera
does anyone know where I can find a good 'quick-start' guide to writing my own?

Moesring 4. July 2009, 23:39

[Edit: You are talking about Opera browser widgets, right? :confused: If yes, carry on.]
You might want to look at this article.
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/creating-your-first-opera-widget/

I haven't read it in detail but it appears to be very similar to an article I read a while back with a different title. Unfortunately, the one I read is no longer accessible now. awww

Furie 5. July 2009, 00:34

If he is talking browser widgets he's on the wrong post. This is about mobile widgets. p: Get thee back to PC land, heathen! :knight: But remain on call for the end of the last project I've got in the works. :up:

qlue 5. July 2009, 01:27

Thanks Moe. p:.
The demo widget 'hello world' runs on my phone. (with a little help) :devil:.
This gives me the enough to start with. It's going to take me some time to do something with this and I've still got a website to rebuild. :faint:.
But widgets give me the possibility of writing hybrid applications that use a widget as a client to interact with my website. p:.
I've really got to start learning javascript. awww.
And I'll also need to learn SQL :faint:.
Is four days enough to do all that? :insane:.

qlue 5. July 2009, 01:31

@Mik. I'm using the Opera S60 widget manager here. I haven't gotten around to finding out what the mobile widgets are, or how they work. I suspect that I would need a new phone for that though as this phone would probably never support that. awww.

qlue 5. July 2009, 01:40

Mik, is this what you're busy with? :left:.
It looks very similar to Opera widgets. I wonder if they're going to be interoperable? :sherlock:.

Furie 5. July 2009, 10:33

Yep. The difference between the systems is... :lol: You're gonna love this... the file extension. When a widget is created it's packaged as a ZIP file. After that you change the file extension to .wgz for WRT, .wgt for Samsung's Touchwiz, etc. If you find out what extension Opera's widgets need, let me know.

Moesring 5. July 2009, 11:54

:sst: Opera's widgets are .wgt :yes:

Furie 5. July 2009, 12:17

So I've made three widgets then? :yes: Now, how to get a widget on to a phone running Opera Widget Manager without having to submit it through Opera?

Furie 5. July 2009, 12:32

Just mailed out the tester version of the widget guys. If OWM counts as a runtime environment it should install the widget just by running the file, and show up in the manager. Let me know if you have any problems.

Oh, it's a 13KB attachment on the e-mail. Images used are temporary placeholders.

qlue 5. July 2009, 16:37

Ok, I pm'd you but I'll add it here too.
Opera widgets require a config.xml file. This is the main meta file of an opera widget and it won't install without it. awww.

Furie 5. July 2009, 16:41

Oh well, screw them for not playing by what the standard is when they're so proud of following standards.

Moesring 5. July 2009, 19:08

I don't see it as not following standards. My view is that Opera widgets are essentially proprietary.

As I see it, Opera widgets - as opposed to "normal widgets" - are intended to be used exclusively with Opera's software. Therefore, Opera Software ASA can make any decisions they like regarding these widgets.

Out of curiosity, which standards are you referring to?

I did a quick Google search and some of the mobile widget standards that I seemed to find claim to be derived from several related draft W3C standards. They are all about a month old (unlike Opera widgets which have been around years, I believe) and all still drafts - and thus W3C don't officially encourage anyone to adopt them yet due to the theoretical possibility that it may be significantly changed.

Interestingly, the same employee of Opera Software is listed as an editor for nearly all of the drafts - alongside representatives from Nokia and Vodafone.

If I've found the right documents - and thus I'm on the right page so far - then I imagine that Opera will adopt that standard in time when it is more developed. They contributed to it, after all. :yes:

Maybe it is already supported by cutting-edge development versions of Opera that are not yet available to the general public. :shrug:
:sst: I'm using the development Opera Unite version - even though I don't use the Unite component of it :rolleyes: - so maybe your widget(s) would work for my copy of Opera. :shrug again:

qlue 5. July 2009, 19:17

Well, the draft proposal that Opera Software sent to w3c is one that includes the config.xml file. So the question of what is a standard is a good one.
Mik, if the config.xml file was added, would the widget still run on the other widget platforms you writing for? :sherlock:.

Furie 5. July 2009, 23:06

28th May 2009 by any chance? WRT was the first mobile widgets platform and the standard was originally built around that. Looks like they changed that. Mobile widget runtimes have been in public use for almost two years now and have evolved to a stage where they'll have to take some large steps backwards in order to meet those standards. :irked: Which means quite a few good widgets wont work anymore. A redesign would explain why WRT hasn't had anything added to it for a while though and Nokia's sudden freeing of runtimes from the platform may signify them getting ready for changes.

Having said that, Apple is designing it's own version that doesn't conform with standards and says it wont comply with them. :rolleyes: Not that that should surprise anyone.

Looks like I'm going to have to test this myself, release it, and then start relearning how to do what I did in a more complex way. Typical. :coffee:

Moesring 5. July 2009, 23:59

Let's not forget that what I read might not be true - and thus everything I've written isn't necessarily accurate or indeed relevant. :no:

After all, I don't know the first thing about this area - I just typed things into Google and read pages that appeared to be credible. If anyone is likely to be blinded by jargon and buzzwords around here, it is definitely me. :o:

Yes, one of the documents I found is dated 28 May 2009. I'm guessing that wasn't a lucky guess. :D

:sst: If it rings any bells, the other documents in the series I found were last updated 23 April 2009, 18 June 2009 and 25 June 2009.

In the introductory paragraph for the 28 May document, it says that the draft has been drawn up after two years of researching the subject and consulting various organisations. A reference to WRT perhaps?

Furie 6. July 2009, 00:36

See if this sounds familiar somehow to you. The widget framework I was using had me creating an info.plist file and a myname.htm file to handle most things, as no javascript was needed.

Cois 6. July 2009, 10:25

I'll get back to this one.. :ko:

theoddbod 6. August 2009, 14:13

So what have you created to add to the Omnia's widget selection? :D

Furie 6. August 2009, 14:46

I've got a fully mobilised version of this page in web runtime format, complete with images, links and video transcoding. :yes:.

Just putting the finishing touches to the Touchwiz version of it, which runs config.xml files like the Opera ones. Took me a while to get the knowledge together and it still needs testing.

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