Massive Assault Official Forum
   
It is currently Fri Mar 29, 2024 5:11 am

All times are UTC - 5 hours




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 3 posts ] 
Author Message
 Post subject: Taskbar program I've started for MA/N. Need suggestions!
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2004 2:48 pm 
Offline
Tough Nut

Joined: Tue Apr 13, 2004 4:26 pm
Posts: 31
Karma: 0
I notice a lot of people I send to the Massive Assault series dont like the fact they need Massive Assault open, or have Outlook constantly open, to see if there are new turns. So I'm working on a little community program to help keep track of new turns/challenges automatically in the "background" during computer use.

I want a program to stay unabtrusive and check with Massive Assaults site for events happening related to your MAN account, such as new turns. So far I've written a program that when loaded puts itself in the start menu tray (Windows obviously). Each set interval of time it will check for new turns and challenges and very similar to MSN Messenger, will scroll a little message with a short description of data it found, sort of a quick alert of new information for your account. The icon changes from its default (nothing found), to an icon that represents the data it found. That way you can tell visually if you want to see the info it received.
Im going to try to work with the MA/N team for them to make a script that outputs the data in a parsable format such as XML, so my program and the MAN site are integrated with each other.

Things I'd like to know:
#1 What data should this "MassTray" look for?
#2 When you double click the icon and it displays the newly found information, any ideas on how it should present this information? I'm talking mostly GUI type stuff, how should it look?
#3 Any special features you can think of that would be good for this tool?
#4 What should this tool be called? :)

From talks with PR and such, this tool will be a reality, so I want it to be as useful for the Massive Assault lovers as possible.

-Fraggler


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2004 2:57 pm 
Offline
Tough Nut

Joined: Tue Apr 13, 2004 4:26 pm
Posts: 31
Karma: 0
One feature I want to include is retrieving your, at least, Glicko rating, and possibly everyone elses in the showing of retrieved info.
Maybe the writer of the Glicko rating for MAN could get together with me and get it implemented in the near future.

I'm thinking as far as what to display when the icon is double clicked, that it should show all the information available on the users account. Though the icon/alert will only show when that information changes relating to your account. For instance you'll get an alert if your glicko changes, but not if someone elses glicko in that list did. Also depending on how much the glicko changes, it could be annoying to get that constant alert, so there should be a setting for alerts to turn some on and other off. Though, of course, this doesnt relate only to Glicko, the same could be said as for you getting a turn it would alert, but other people getting a turn wouldnt give you an alert. The Glicko example is a better example though, at least programming-wise.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2004 3:51 pm 
Offline
Sea Wolf
User avatar

Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2003 3:06 am
Posts: 1338
Karma: 1

Location: USA
Fraggler wrote:
One feature I want to include is retrieving your, at least, Glicko rating, and possibly everyone elses in the showing of retrieved info.
Maybe the writer of the Glicko rating for MAN could get together with me and get it implemented in the near future.


I'd be glad to help in any way I can, I think this sounds like a great project. The Glicko ratings do pull from the game database, but to get them in the proper form it takes work. We can go over that. I didn't write the Glicko code, but I'll help if I can.

As far as the tray program and UI issues, that's my job! I'm a user interface programmer, so I'd be glad to help there too. You can contact me using any one of the options in my profile ;) If nothing else you can email or pm me.

_________________
Founder of The New World Order, and moderator for the Andromeda Clan War.

NWO website:
http://www.freewebs.com/massiveassault-nwo/index.htm

Clan War website:
http://www.massiveassault.com/clans/nwo/ClanWar


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 3 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 15 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group
Karma functions powered by Karma MOD © 2007, 2009 m157y