Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Ricci Adams · May 31, 2002, 07:31 PM

I will like to invite everyone to try the first public beta of my new application: <a href="http://www.ricciadams.com/programs/updateradar" target="_blank">UpdateRadar</a>.

UpdateRadar will grab the latest "headlines" from versiontracker.com and notify you if any of the programs match those in your "Program List".

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I have included a screenshot of the program running.
<img src="http://www.ctitech.com/users/ricci/ur.jpg" alt=" - " />

If you have any suggestions or comments, please either send me an e-mail or reply to this topic thread. Thanks!

[ 06-07-2002, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: Ricci Adams ]

AKcrab · May 31, 2002, 07:42 PM

That looks cool! I'll give it a shot.
What am I going to do if I don't visit versiontracker 50 times a day?
Does it only do one day at a time? What if a program gets posted at 11pm, and is only on the "current" list for an hour or two?
The versiontracker folks are going to be miffed!

Ricci Adams · May 31, 2002, 07:46 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by AKcrab:
That looks cool! I'll give it a shot.
What am I going to do if I don't visit versiontracker 50 times a day?
Does it only do one day at a time? What if a program gets posted at 11pm, and is only on the "current" list for an hour or two?
The versiontracker folks are going to be miffed!<hr /></blockquote>Oops, I should have explained this in the README.

Whenever UpdateRadar starts up, it will check all of the programs in your list for updated versions. Then, every 15 minutes later, it will grab the "Programs of the day" page from versiontracker and check to see if any of your programs is listed (if so, it then updates those programs).

So basically, you will always receive notification within 15 minutes of a software update. Please note that in the final version this "check time" will be changeable from 5 minutes to 1 hour.

ambush · May 31, 2002, 08:19 PM

Another nice, clean, easy to use, beautiful, useful cocoa app.

Suggestion : Add a Liste of popular Software IDs like fire, OmniWeb, etc

Synotic · May 31, 2002, 10:40 PM

The idea is very cool, even I contemplated creating a program like this.. however.. you have to get the names of all your apps and find the ID of all of them manually?? Cocoa can return a list of all installed applications and then you should feed all of this to versiontracker. It should do the parsing for you.. so you shouldn't have to filter out version numbers from the name or anything. Then return the list. The user can then delete apps that are not actually installed. Until then.. :shrug:

Ricci Adams · Jun 1, 2002, 12:49 PM

ambush, thank you for the "popular programs" idea. I will try to implement that in version 1.0. Do you have any suggestions for programs that should be on this list? Adobe and Macromedia? Common OSX Utilities?

Ricci Adams · Jun 3, 2002, 04:52 PM

The "popular program list" has been implemented for the upcoming 1.0 release (which should be later this week). Does anybody else have any suggestions that they want to see in 1.0?

To answer some of the questions that I have received via e-mail, UpdateRadar will be a shareware program that will cost $9. The unregistered version will be limited to only having 5 programs in the list.

[ 06-03-2002, 04:53 PM: Message edited by: Ricci Adams ]

Mediaman_12 · Jun 4, 2002, 06:48 PM

AAAGGGG!
Not another realy realy cool program that I have to run in the background (I already have DesktopCalendar, Uptime, Suitcase, Mail & Sputnix, and in the menu bar I have Net Monitor, Spy, That weather thing & Fuzzy Clock) My poor 350 mhz G4 is going to be maxed out just sitting there showing the desktop

KaptainKaya · Jun 4, 2002, 07:57 PM

You'll have my $9 as soon you announce it...I wouldn't mind shelling that out

Brazuca · Jun 4, 2002, 08:26 PM

Very cool idea. How about making it a Watson plugin? I really would love to have Watson keep track of this and would even pay to have your plugin. I just don't want another app to handle.

KaptainKaya · Jun 4, 2002, 08:51 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Brazuca:
Very cool idea. How about making it a Watson plugin? I really would love to have Watson keep track of this and would even pay to have your plugin. I just don't want another app to handle.<hr /></blockquote>Watson already has a VersionTracker plugin, but hey, if he can make it better it would work

Brazuca · Jun 5, 2002, 01:16 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by KaptainKaya:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Brazuca:
Very cool idea. How about making it a Watson plugin? I really would love to have Watson keep track of this and would even pay to have your plugin. I just don't want another app to handle.<hr /></blockquote>Watson already has a VersionTracker plugin, but hey, if he can make it better it would work

<hr /></blockquote>I know it does, but it doesn't tell you which of your apps gets updated. That is a killer feature.

Michaelm8000 · Jun 5, 2002, 01:33 AM

It would be cool if you had a feature that scanned your apps folder and then scanned version tacker for ID #'s and then put your apps in the list automaticly. I do not know if this is possible though. Cool app though.

bluehz · Jun 5, 2002, 07:59 AM

This look like it might be really nice. I was thinking that maybe the way to do the ID's would be to parse the ID's into one major list that is accessible online then have the Update Radar app access that list of ID's. Then the user could just pick and choose which apps they want to monitor. Probably tick of VT - but doing it via that method would provide a timely updated list for all to use.

Another necessary feature that would cause me to use this software would be a direct download link. As it stands now - all I can do is go to the same "info/download" page I get if I go to VT. I want to AVOID all the crap that VT has implemented recently requiring additional windows, etc. just to access the download link.

[ 06-05-2002, 08:03 AM: Message edited by: bluehz ]

Ricci Adams · Jun 6, 2002, 02:40 AM

Its here! The official 1.0 release of UpdateRadar!

Please visit <a href="http://www.ricciadams.com/programs/updateradar/" target="_blank">the official UpdateRadar web page</a> to download your trial copy and/or purchase a serial number.

I would like to thank everybody who has e-mailed me with suggestions! Please feel free to keep suggesting new features!

Ricci Adams · Jun 6, 2002, 08:24 PM

I have released a bug fix. The new version is 1.0.1.

The following bugs have been fixed:
1) UpdateRadar would crash if you tried to enter a program which had a date in the title, such as "FooApplication 2002".
2) The program list no longer allow duplicates.
3) The program list is saved every time that you add an application. Previously, it was only saved when you quit UpdateRadar.