making apps, making webs.

Today we are very excited to announce the launch of PyGameZine! There is more information about it on the http://www.pygame.org/ website .

Our Vintage in Paris app has been published on the Nokia app store ! The process was pretty simple, since it was a very technically basic but content heavy app. The main difficulty in this app was walking around the streets of Paris taking pictures, and researching really good places to find Vintage. Why a Vintage in Paris app? Finding cool second hand and retro clothes is a hobby of mine, and my partners.   It's always fun finding interesting old styles, rummaging through clothes racks.  Especially in other countries, and especially when you find a bargain. There's something special about wandering down some back alley, and finding an old shop stuffed to the rafters with old stuff.  It's like taking a journey back in time to some fantastical version of Paris you may have in your head.  If you like Art Deco stuff, then Paris is the place to get it. What was the signup to the Nokia store like? I have been signed up as a Nokia de...

So it looks like the little Halloween game we made has been published on the intel appup store. It is listed here: http://www.appup.com/applications/applications-Halloween+Pumpkin+Juggling

So, I registered for the Samsung app store 'thingy' the other day. Samsung have a number of platforms themselves, not just one platform.  Including Bada, Android, Tizen, and windows mobile 7.  They have tablets, TVs, laptops, mobile phones... and probably other things too (maybe internet fridges?). It seems most of the platforms support web apps of some sort.  Either through wrapping with phonegap (Bada, Android, win7) or just accepting an archive of the files. Once joined you can distribute free apps through there.  Which is quite lovely really.  They have their own advertising program, and I'm not sure if you're allowed to do In App purchases with them. It seems for TV, you can only distribute to the US.  Not to other places around the world.  No idea when or if that is going to be possible.  Yes, their SDK does include support for 3D content.  After speaking briefly with someone(I didn't get their name) at a JavaScript meetup I fo...

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 ...