[Release] Unofficial Tray Notification Program for FS

[mosimo]

That generic icon is actually the tray notification that is currently in FS. I never noticed it, thats why I made my own thing. I'm not 100% sure how the settings are saved, but as far as I know, if you run it from different locations it will have different settings.

The logging version isnt' really needed, that was more for people where stuff wasn't wroking so I could see how far the program was getting before crashing. Normally I make programs for myself and I stop when they work, not used to all this with other poeple needing to get stuff working

[makr]

Oh, I didn't see that you had already mentioned the built-in notifications in the first post.
Anyway, thank you for making this useful little program! I've had a lot of fun betatesting it, too!

[SohumB]

Question: would it be kosher to try and poke at the server/client protocol to develop a version of this that doesn't require the game itself to be running?

[mosimo]

The thought has crossed my mind, I could use the checking I use now when showing/launching FS to see if it's loaded, login, get sidebar feed, logout, repeat every 5 mins. But I don't want to hammer the server or possibly cause something to go wrong.

The other thought I had was making a version that checked your E-Mail address for the new turn / game notification E-Mail which you get when you're logged out.

It's still an idea at this point. But tbh it's one thats not likely to get put in.

-btw, thanks Omroth for making this stickying

[SohumB]

I was mostly asking Omroth that - whether he'd be okay with someone poking at the protocol for those messages (and possibly help via giving the details ), but thanks!

The email idea seems nifty... but I'd want a way to be able to delete/archive the email once done. So, IMAP? I don't know that much about email...

mosimo, would you be ok throwing up the .NET code somewhere? Just so I don't have to reinvent the wheel for the actual notification behaviour :p

[Omroth]

For now, I'd like to ask people to not write programs which explicitly "log in" to the Grand Server outside of FS. It wouldn't be very difficult to do (Sid has already done it in fact, albeit for an earlier version), but I'd rather export data to an http object that people can query, and I'm currently investigating the best way of doing that.

I think I might add some "public" queries where you can ask the Grand Server, for instance, whether user x has any new turns pending, without having to be explicity logged in. I'd welcome any specific API requests on the subjct.

All I really want is for the server to be running at an acceptable speed all the time, so I just want to minimise anything which could jeapordise that. Having said that, the problem right now is my ISP not giving me a new server...

[mosimo]

Yea, I didn't want anything to mess up the server thats why I was happy when you added the log file for tray notifications For now I'm not gona implement any e-mail checking stuff either.

But once we do have some web query stuff available I will use that. I have replied in the other topic about web query + api stuff already.

[DrazharLn]

Out of interest, why have you released this closed source?

I just wonder as a fellow programmer.

Haven't tested yet (I'm just going to bed) but this looks like just the thing I was looking for.

[mosimo]

Sorry guys, I know it's only a small program but I'd rather not release the source.

[DrazharLn]

I'm not that interested in seeing the source, I haven't even tried C# yet (if I ever will) and I respect your decision to release closed source.

I was just wondering at your rationale for it. Why do you choose to hide the source?

[mosimo]

If I was actually happy with how my source looked then I might. But I'm a messy programmer who doesn't really comment stuff, I just know how I work. I have offered to show one of the devs the source if needed. But I'd just rather not see the actually stuff in public. I've not added anything malicious in or ripped anyone else's stuff, thats not what I'm worried about. It's just I'd like people to see the nicer looking finished thing

[DrazharLn]

Ah, fair enough. downloading now, btw

[SohumB]

Fair enough, Omroth, and thanks for clarifying!

I know the feeling, mosimo, but then if I wanted to integrate email-checking, something you've said you probably won't do, then I'll have to code up the parts involving sticking things in the notification tray and timer-related checks and all that good stuff - from scratch, too, because I don't know that much about how C# does those things. And then there'll be two apps doing roughly the same thing and ... for tiny things like this, I don't think all these problems are warranted.

[Cronstintein]

The thread's stickied so I don't think I have to worry about resurrection problems by posting here...
Just wanted to say I'm really glad this app got made
Now I just need the music on FS to mute when I minimize it, no offense sound guy!

[YouGo]

Yea, I know what you mean, one thing you can do is to just sit wait in a game while minimized, and if you don't have any games in your active list you can pick a random game from the main menu lobby and go there to not hear the (awful...;p) music.