making apps, making webs.

So, I've got my app working on Android.  It's not even all that slow.  Ok, it is a little slow.  However the new webkit upgrade in Android 4.0 should get it going fast.  Note that Android 4.0 has approximately 0% of the android users on it at the moment - since they haven't really released it yet. I had to get touch events working with gamejs, which wasn't all that hard.  I had a little chat on the mailing list, about it, then implemented it not long after.  I will send a pull request soon to that project soon. I'd like to do a phonegap implementation of sound for shitsound too, but haven't got around to that.  This should get around the html5 Audio issues on the android browsers.  But the game is pretty much ready. So now that it's ready, I went to sign up to the Android market place so that I could try and release the application.  I went through the signup process, and paid my $25USD.  I even got sent a receipt.  But then ...

One thing I forgot to mention was that my flash sound for chrome did not work after uploading to the chrome web store.  I made the change at the last minute to use flash for sound, because chrome sound was bad for me.  Of course, a change made at the last minute will be a bug!  Luckily the bug was reported to me, and I fixed it quickly.  This made me glad that the chrome webstore allowed very fast updating.  I can deploy updates there as quickly as uploading to a website.  It also made me remember the importance of testing from the users perspective.  Always check you changes on the live version that people use, rather than just on development servers or simulators.  You need to get into the users shoes and experience it the same way they do. I did a quick port to android, and tested it on my Advent Vega tablet with android 2.2.  Surprisingly the game ran fairly well.  There were a couple of modern javascript features I was using that...

So, I've been going around in circles the last few days with the validation our app on the intel appup store. The support people escalated my request, and it looks like they have fixed a problem with the validation program.  It looks like their automated validation program had a bug. In the mean time I've gone through the beta testing process.  This is where you can send your app to some beta testers and ask them to test for you.  If they already have the intel appup installed on their computer, your app appears in their "My Apps" section.  Then you can click on it, to try and download+install. Just like the Mac OSX Application stores, if the download fails halfway through the system fails.  This is 2011 mind you, so you'd hope that people had figured out that internet downloads could possibly fail, and might need resuming.  Especially on mobile netbooks which are using unreliable 3g wireless internet connections. As far as I can tell, there is no ...

Well, I clicked the publish button, and it seems the ' Halloween Juggling Pumpkin ' app has been published to the chrome web store.  I'm quite happy that it is up! Here is a screen shot of the menu screen. Well, that wasn't too hard to do after all. Here is a screenshot of some game play. Here is the lovely store URL it gave me for the store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ndnpdjgfifincamlnbidkagoljbiagcb This was way less work compared to the intel appup store, which I'm still having issues publishing it. To be fair, their store is still in beta for html5 apps.

Chrome Audio is worse than firefox, safari, and internet explorer Audio. There are cracks, pops, and sounds cut short.  It seems there's also not many sounds that can be played at once. Luckily I can use jquery.shitsound and soundmanager2 to prefer using flash audio over a javascript bridge.  This has a slight delay compared to firefox/safari html5 Audio, but is better than the built in chrome Audio.

We’ve started to look into distributing our app via the chrome web store. I’ve signed up for a developer account, and started reading the documentation on how to publish apps.  So far it has been easy.  All of their forms have worked, and so far the documentation is easy.  This time I’m trying to do as much of the administration up front.  Things like validating my account and setting up payments.  Only after that works will I actually attempt to publish my app. Let’s hope it’s easier than the intel appup program, which I’m still not able to publish my app through.