So I’ve had the chance to exchange a few words with EA/DICE, more specifically Elton Muuga (most of you probably know him as @elxx though), and now I know a bit more about why they decided to get Google to disable the app on Google Play. The initial “copyright claim” out of the blue wasn’t really the issue, as we all noticed that there were multiple Battlefield-related apps left on Google Play (among other app stores) , both commercial and non-commercial. “Then what the f*** is the problem?” you say, and all I can tell you at the moment is that EA/DICE isn’t that happy that BF3 Battlelog (unofficial), and other similar apps, encourage the user to input their Origin credentials.

Now, while BF3 Battlelog (unofficial) never has, and never will misuse your username and password combinations, it seems as other apps have done this and it’s caused EA/DICE to get a… let’s just say, a lot of e-mails regarding hacked accounts due to various apps claiming to be legit but evidently aren’t. That said, we haven’t really come up with a solution for it at the moment, other than I could put the app back up without the login functionality, but then it just wouldn’t be the same wouldn’t it? I’ve decided to keep pushing forward and trying to find a solution that both EA/DICE and us developers can accept, but until someone comes up with a good idea on that end, the app won’t be reinstated on Google Play.

Don’t worry though, I’m pretty sure it’ll be back in a jiffy, so sit tight and if you want – opt in to the (always active) beta via the following forumthread: CLICK ME

Thank you for your patience, and I’ll hope to see you guys (and girls) on the Battlefield!

Hello world!

I thought I’d let you know that the app is currently unavailable on Google Play – I’m currently investigating the cause of it with help from DICE.

Also, I just came home from UFC on Fuel 2 – more known as UFC Sweden – great fights, great fun and a really nice meeting the people that make the UFC awesome.

I’ll keep you updated regarding the app!

Edit:

Here’s a link to the current Market version on github

Here’s a link to the latest beta on github

Hello world!

As I’m making progress on my journey, towards the newer parts of the Android API, I’m starting to notice that the further I get from the earlier versions, the less documentation and information I find. I actually spent an hour or two looking into why my last three Fragments wouldn’t go through the onCreateView(LayoutInflater, ViewGroup, Bundle) from the start, and the answer is actually quite reasonable…

Read more »

Hello world!

A new version of BF3 Battlelog has just been uploaded onto Android Market, hopefully it’ll solve all the issues you guys have encountered during the last couple of weeks. It’s been somewhat of a bumpy ride since 1.0.7/8 as the service seems to have been a bit naughty towards a lot of people, but it should be working fine from now on… if it for some reason doesn’t, make sure you let me know so that I can find a solution for it.

With that said, here’s what the new version includes:

Major fixes

* Forums are now working as intended

* Service should not be crashing anymore

Casual updates

* Audible notifications

* Chat sounds

* Language selection

* More options in the Settings

Misc changes

* Updated the credits

* Updated the language files

* Made the widget an actual 4×2 instead of the 4×3 (although listed as 4×2)

Last but not least…

Hope this version treats you guys better, so that I can finally start working on other projects (that I accidently lost files from?!?) and also BF3 Battlelog version 2.0. I’m also considering to adapt the “version naming convention” of Android/Ubuntu… which in other words means that I’d like to call my versions for something a bit more interesting and exciting than their version number – in this case 1.0.9.  If someone’s actually reading this, please feel free to drop a suggestion or two in the comments.

I’d like to thank everyone that’s helped me get this release out- you guys are the greatest. Don’t forget to tell all your friends about the app, join in on the action at the forums and… hopefully we’ll get a positive response from EA/DICE somewhere down the road.

I’ll see you guys on Twitter in the morning!

Hello world!

Just a quick post to let you know that I’ve addressed the initial issues (hopefully there aren’t any other ones) with the 1.0.7 release, and as a result of that I just uploaded version 1.0.8 to Android Market. You should be prompted to update in a few hours as the information travels across all of Google’s servers.

I’ve also added the ability to switch soldier in the unlocks/assignment views, as well as switching “locale” in the forums (so if you’re German, you’ll be able to select that forum from now on). Hope this solves the problems you guys (and girls) out there have experienced, I know I can’t reproduce them on my end anymore.

Whoa. It’s been a while since the last major update came out. I think it’s been a few months, as I don’t quite feel like calling version 1.0.6 a “major” update – it was more of a hotfix for the Unlocks-page breaking (underlying data changes are bad for the spirit, heh).

You’re probably thinking “what took you so long???”, and the answer is pretty much… life. How big of a cliché ain’t that if you ask me? I’ve been having loads of things to do at school, as well as trying to maintain a social life and also get this app out on the Market. Being the sole developer of such a big project is really rough at times, but in the end it’s really worth it. Don’t ask me why, as I don’t quite know the answer to that question, but I believe it has something to do with “expressing yourself” as an artist, in this context a developer ha.

Enough of the chitchat, let’s look into what the new version has to offer:

About-slider

First thing’s first – not much has changed on the landing page for the app, however I’ve included a “slider” that you can drag up to view information about the app. It lets you know how to contact me, and who to thank for your language being translation among other things. There’s also an option to donate money to my “Let’s buy me a computer that is somewhat on par with the modern technology”-fund, but you can read more about that in-app.

Localization

Did I mention that the app now comes in different languages? Although most languages are incomplete right now, I’d really appreciate if you guys could help me out with the translation (and gain a spot in the Credits-tab!) – I believe a “help me, help you” is in order here. Here’s a link to the page for the translations, give it your best shot!
GetLocalized.com: BF3 Battlelog

Platoons

Yes, your wish has come true – platoons are now in the app. You’re able to interact with them in pretty much every way possible from the website (apart from the *settings*, they’re left out for now but will hopefully be included in a future release). The inital loading time is bound to be *bigger* than the following ones, as there are images to be cached and whatnots. I think you’ll manage.

Assignments

Yes, I’ve also taken the time to include the assignments into the app. It works as you’d expect it to, “no more, no less” as they say.

Forum support

Hopefully the Battlelog-forum will be more populated now that it’s easier to access from the handheld devices – I find it simple to use in the app, and it’s actually quite powerful if you ask me. Obviously I would’ve done a few things differently if it was my underlying data that I was working with,  but given the circumstances it turned out great.

Notifications

No more wondering if someone’s interacted with you on Battlelog – let the background service determine that for you. You can set the refresh intervals in the settings (hit the MENU-button while in the… err, menu) and just sit back and relax.

Unlocks

Unlocks are now tabbed, as you all wanted it to be. Also, they’ve managed to de-”nerf” the unlock data so that we actually have those fancy colors to the left of each unlock again. The colors correspond to the colors on the website (regarding the kits) and aim to provide you with quick visual feedback regarding which kit an item belongs to.

Misc: Forum for the app

I’ve also (as you can read in previous posts) created a forum that all you guys can use to talk about the app. You can find it here: http://www.ninetwozero.com/forum

The end

Last but not least, I’d like give you a link to the app, and thank every single one of you that’s helped out with getting 1.0.7 out on Android Market; beta testers, translators, and all you other awesome human-beings. I’ll be taking  a week off from this app to gather new ideas and such, but until then – enjoy the new release everybody!

Hello world!

If you’ve missed the multiple tweets on the subject, here’s a recap on what you’ve missed:

* I won’t release a Market version until the app-stopping bugs are squashed (sorry).
* I have however started to put out test-releases for you people to play around with, while waiting for the work to be done.

What does this mean? Well, basically it means that you can help me help you (and your fellow soldiers)… and with that said, this is what you should do straight away:

* Head over to the forum
* Register an account
* Grab the beta-ish
* Join the community!

Currently we’re like five members over there, so my guess is that “the more the merrier” still applies!

Thanks in advance ‘folks!

Hello world!

I’d just like to wish you all a Merry Christmas, full of joy and good food. Personally I prefer the mini-sausages (also known as “prinskorv”) that end up on the table, and snack-wise it’s the phenomenon called “knäck” (solid fudge-ish)  that I roll with.

Regarding BF3 Battlelog, I’m experimenting a bit with local caching so that you guys won’t have to wait for everything to load *every single time*. The first time you visit a users’ presentation, you’ll obviously have to wait for it to download, but the visits after that should be showing the most recent cache.

Sounds good? I sure hope so!

I’ve been a bit busy lately, not just with school and programming apps – I’ve also been working on a secret project… well, ok, it’s not that secret anymore as it’s literally right in-front of you now.

Kostradgivarna.se is a newly launched website within the “feel good”-sector and aims to show you how you can achieve great health by eating correctly. As we all know there are quite a few diets out there ranging from LCHF (low carb high fat) to the Cambridge Diet and VLCD (very low calorie  diet). All in all, you can pretty much just pick out one that seems fair to you and go with it. The people over at Kostradgivarna.se specialize in these kind of things, some in LCHF that I mentioned earlier, so give them a visit if you feel like trying something new.

The work I’ve done for the blog is to set-up WordPress, create a plugin to handle content and a also a little bit of things both here and there on the website. I recommend that you people out there give it a visit, if not only to try to learn Swedish (as most of you reading this probably don’t know the language at all).

I’ve been working on an easy way for the translators to translate the strings.xml for my current, as well as upcoming, projects. It worked perfectly on my localhost, but when I uploaded it onto this server… well, let’s just say that it didn’t quite work as planned.

Consider the following code.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

At first I didn’t get an error message at all, but when I finally managed to get it to actually speak to me, here’s what it said:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /translate/download.php on line 1

Makes sense? No, not at all at first glance, however if you consider the fact that shorttags might be allowed on a host, the actual code would be parsed in the following way:

<?php xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

As you can see, the code above would indeed be invalid when it comes to php, and there are two solutions (that I know of) available. One would be to switch off the shorttags-option, so that only will be considered a valid php-tag (and it should only be that way too in my opinion). The second one would instead have you output the xml-header programmatically:

<?php echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>'; ?>

Hope this helps someone else out, as it did trouble me a bit until I managed to get ahold of an error message.