Archive for 2008
Scoop is a Google Reader AIR Application with offline/online Google Reader synchronization built in. It keeps track of multiple Google Reader accounts simultaneously.
Scoop is an AIR Application I developed with Adobe Flex Builder.
For anyone not familiar with RSS Feed Reader’s in summary they allow you to subscribe to multiple RSS news/blog feeds which you’ll find on tonnes and tonnes of websites and blogs in cyberspace. So, every time one of these websites posts a new story on their site the story or summary gets added to their site/page RSS feed – text, images and other media can also come through the feed.
You’ll see links to these RSS feeds on almost all the blog front pages out there and also on many information sites, whatever your interest – News sites, Sports sites, Celebrity Gossip sites etc etc
There’s a great browser based application called Google Reader which enables any google account holder (if you don’t have one already sign up for free here) to easily add any RSS feed to their Google Reader account and keeps track of all your subscribed feeds enabling you to quickly scan the latest scoops of your favorite sites every time you log into Google Reader.
My first freeware application – Scoop – got added to the Adobe AIR Marketplace 5 days ago. I just checked the latest download/install figures from Adobe and there have been almost 1,500 installations of the software made since it got launched on the Adobe site just 5 days ago!
I’ve had a tonne of feedback for this Google Reader online/offline desktop app in the last week – some good and some constructive but what certainly seems clear is that a lot of people see the benefits of using an app like this that can make offline google reading / tagging/ starring possible 
I’m planning to implement a whole bunch of requested features over the next few weeks/months depending on how much free time I get
Just a quick tip for any AIR developer’s searching for why there’s no addChild method in the NativeWindow class – I wasted a fair while on this over the weekend. I was adding Flex components to the stage property of NativeWindow and trying various other work arounds. Although you don’t get errors for doing this the Flex components never appear when you test your app!
If you want to add Flex components to a new NativeWindow in AIR then this is what Window class is for. So don’t waste time creating a new NativeWindow and activating it, just create/subclass the Window class not NativeWindow and you’ll find all the stanard Flex component properties and methods
Duh!
Have been pretty busy with work recently and haven’t had much spare time to work on my latest personal project but the first public beta of Scoop is finally here.
Scoop is an RSS Feed Reader Adobe Air Application with offline/online Google Reader syncronization built in. It keeps track of multiple Google Reader accounts simultaneously. Read, tag and star your scoops/posts on the train or wherever you like and Scoop will syncronize your changes with Google when you’re back online.
Current features included in this first Beta:
- Offline mode – all new posts/feeds get stored locally + offline changes you make get syncronized with Google when you’re back online
- Instant notifications of new scoops/posts from your favorite blogs and websites.
- Popular Google Read keyboard short cuts like J/K for moving forwards and backwards through your reading lists.
- Auto-update feature – the application will alert you when a new version of Scoop becomes available.
The Daily Telegraph have just launched a new Crosswords and Sudoko site called CluedUp – I built the Flex Crosswords Application. Behind the scenes it’s one of my best structured projects to date and uses the following technologies/approaches:
- Adobe Flex 3
- PureMVC MutliCore (Pipes)
- AMFPHP Remoting (for loading, saving and submitting user crossword data)
This is just phase 1 of the project. Future releases will include Sudoko, Codewords, possibly the ability to download an Adobe AIR desktop version of the system, Multiplayer – how cool would it be to be able to complete a crossword puzzle with your friend via a multiplayer version of the game?!
I think you have to register a trial account to play the game so here are a few screengrabs…
When the user initially selects a crossword the board/clues are blurred until they begin
The custom crossword board component subclasses the Flex DataGrid component
When you exit a crossword the application checks whether you have unsaved changes