BZFlag Widget

Tropican8 · Post by **Tropican8** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 1:35 am

It seems that Your Own Ignorance has made a BZFlag Widget for Konfabulator. Konfabulator is a javascript-powered Widget engine for Mac and Windows. It was around prior to OS X's Dashboard, but shares the same concept. Recently Konfabulator was bought over by Yahoo! and released as Freeware (it was shareware). I went through every single Widget in their repository (something like 1000) and found a lot of cool stuff. I was most surprised to see that there was not only a BZFlag Widget, but one that can pull data from the listserver without starting up the client or a webbrowser. Its available here:

http://widgetgallery.com/view.php?widget=36506

Here's a screenshot:

http://tinypic.com/b9hqbn.png

I have not really tested it that much, so I don't know if it works. Nevertheless it is pretty neat.

RPG · Post by **RPG** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 1:42 am

Its easy to pull data from the list server without launching a client. I had a PHP script that did it, but I couldn't post it on my web server, because they block all non-HTTP ports (and it communicated with the BZFS server over it's port to retrive the data).

Tropican8 · Post by **Tropican8** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 1:47 am

I never said this was a complex widget RPG, you asked me share it with the community. As I said above, there is no commonly known way to use php without active desktop on windows, a webbrowser, or a full app. (Can you post a way if there is one, that would be pretty cool) A large amount of people already use Konfabulator. I know you are just unhappy because you didn't figure it out from the other thread and get the gold star lol.

your own ignorance · Post by **your own ignorance** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 4:27 pm

Thnaks for bringing this over, Tropican8. I hadn't thought to post about it over here. I've been thinking about a widget that pops up an alert on your desktop when your friends (or enemies!) log on to BZFlag. Would folks here be interested?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 5:17 pm

Yes, I sure would. I'm diggin' your current widget and would love something that flashes at you to tell you where and when someone from your list of friends logs on...

The Knights Who Say Ni · Tue Nov 22, 2005 7:46 pm

how do you run / install a widget if its possible on windows?

your own ignorance · Post by **your own ignorance** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:49 pm

It is indeed possible.
1) Go to http://www.konfabulator.com and get the app for Win or Mac
2) It comes with a handful of useful widgets, but there are scads more at http://www.widgetgallery.com
3) The great news is that they are really easy to make, too.

guitarman · Post by **guitarman** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:48 pm

that is a super-cool-awsome-fabulous-insane-smart-excellent-amazing idea for a widget!!!!!

. it would be cool, you could add people onto the list and stuff. if u make it ill pick that one up for sure!!

The Red Baron · Post by **The Red Baron** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 11:34 pm

your own ignorance wrote:Thnaks for bringing this over, Tropican8. I hadn't thought to post about it over here. I've been thinking about a widget that pops up an alert on your desktop when your friends (or enemies!) log on to BZFlag. Would folks here be interested?

Oh yes, That piques my interest!

Winny · Post by **Winny** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 12:11 am

I like the friends Idea that would be soooooooooo cool!

edit: I get errors when tryong to run it

Ice Wewe · Post by **Ice Wewe** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 2:41 am

Ice Wewe will put this in his "must see, check out, and become learned in" box. Very cool. Thanks to whoever wrote it.

Tropican8 · Post by **Tropican8** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 6:26 am

Wow, a 'friend list' bzflag widget. Yes, yes, yes, there is interest. Ignorance in making this you would be helping the BZFlag community develop in a huge way. This would help on 'chat' servers like meteorites where people often come to talk to specific people, on league servers to schedule matches, and for people who just want to play with specific people. (or it can be used to avoid certain people for that matter. Like how owners really, really don't want to join a server where the guy they just revoked adminship to is on)

Question. I've seen others apps being used inside widgets. (See the Zipper widget that uses 7-zip) Would it be possible to package bzadmin into this new widget you are making? Here's an exact feature I'm thinking of that could be implemented in this 'friend list' widget:

1. Someone runs a 0-shot server with a high player limit. (Nothing to do with the widget but necessary for this to work)

2. When the widget starts it asks you for your callsign and password, and then asks if you want to launch bzadmin and log onto this 'widget server'.

3. The widget automatically uses the -stout switch in bzadmin and displays the information from there in its own interface. (I guess this isn't a necessary step but it would be real slick)

4. For those of you who haven't already figured out what this would do, people using the widget are now recursively added to it as actual players and therefore will appear as 'online' in a person's 'friend list'. Then they can go to the observer server, /msg the player, and start playing.

In a league situation it would eliminate the problem of a group of people all using the widget to find each other. (None would actually appear as online despite them all looking for one another with the widget and not the bzflag client).

It also would keep me from getting IMs that look like this:

D00D LEt'$ Pl4y 8Zfl49 4nD 9o +0 5ilVErcA+!

Now I don't know if the above is possible/makes sense as it is like 2:00am here right now.

Legolas_ · Post by **Legolas_** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 2:53 pm

i like this idea however,
I am on a mac osX with dashboard can someone make the widget for it?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 4:59 pm

Why won't the current one work for you, legolas?

imzbest :) · Post by **imzbest :)** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 4:59 pm

becuase i dont have knofabulator

A Meteorite · Post by **A Meteorite** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:11 pm

goliath0807 wrote:becuase i dont have knofabulator

You should get it, it is for Mac and Windows.

P.S.: I guess you and Legolas_ are the same person because you both answered/responded...

RPG · Post by **RPG** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:14 pm

I downloaded knofabulator a few months ago, and ever since, it's been doing strange things to my desktop. I uninstalled it, and every time I shut down the computer, I get a message telling me that the "Proxy Desktop" service cannot be ended, and I have to force-end it myself.

I've reinstalled Windows.

I don't recommend installing knofabulator.

Legolas_ · Post by **Legolas_** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:22 pm

A Meteorite wrote:
goliath0807 wrote:becuase i dont have knofabulator
You should get it, it is for Mac and Windows.

P.S.: I guess you and Legolas_ are the same person because you both answered/responded...

well. we are actually brothers but i accidentaly logged in to his account

konfabulator sucks, Period.

If someone can make it for macosX i will be greatful

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:52 pm

Legolas, I think you must be confused, dashboard, konfabulator and widgets ONLY work on Mac OS X. I see no reason why you need Konfabulator to use the widget if you have Dashboard with Tiger. If you don't have Dashboard with Tiger, you need Konfabulator.
If you refuse to use both then you CANNOT use widgets. Period.

A Meteorite · Post by **A Meteorite** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 6:33 pm

Legolas_ wrote:
A Meteorite wrote:
goliath0807 wrote:becuase i dont have knofabulator
You should get it, it is for Mac and Windows.

P.S.: I guess you and Legolas_ are the same person because you both answered/responded...
well. we are actually brothers but i accidentaly logged in to his account

konfabulator sucks, Period.

If someone can make it for macosX i will be greatful

I would not necessarily say "Konfabulator sucks." It is a nice product, but you are entitled to your opinion. FYI, since Yahoo bought them it is free, no more shareware.

If someone makes a Dashboard version (not a Konfabulator widget) it would requre a total re-write of the widget. Dashboard widgets and Konfabulator widgets work differently and one can not use the other's widgets. Not only that it would be Mac OS X only, leaving Windows users out in the cold.

CannonBallGuy wrote:Legolas, I think you must be confused, dashboard, konfabulator and widgets ONLY work on Mac OS X. I see no reason why you need Konfabulator to use the widget if you have Dashboard with Tiger. If you don't have Dashboard with Tiger, you need Konfabulator.
If you refuse to use both then you CANNOT use widgets. Period.

CBG, there are widgets for Konfabulator and Dashboard. Only Dashboard widgets will work with Dashboard, and vice-versa! They work in two different ways.

Konfabulator is not Mac OS X only. It is cross-platform and works on Windows too (but sometimes there are Mac OS X/Windows only widgets for Konfabulator)

Just had to clear that up.

The Knights Who Say Ni · Thu Nov 24, 2005 7:27 pm

RPG wrote:I downloaded knofabulator a few months ago, and ever since, it's been doing strange things to my desktop. I uninstalled it, and every time I shut down the computer, I get a message telling me that the "Proxy Desktop" service cannot be ended, and I have to force-end it myself.

I've reinstalled Windows.

I don't recommend installing knofabulator.

it probably put a run once key in your registry all you had to do is remove it

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 9:11 pm

Ok, sorry about that, but I don't recall any separate categories for the widgets on the site I went to and all the ones I downloaded work on Konfab..
Odd.

Legolas_ · Post by **Legolas_** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 10:03 pm

well go to apple.com/macosX and read about it.

u will see the difference.

btw i take back what i said about konfabulator sucking, it just doesnt work correctly

The Knights Who Say Ni · Thu Nov 24, 2005 10:09 pm

Legolas_ wrote: btw i take back what i said about konfabulator sucking, it just doesnt work correctly

dont they both really mean the same thing?

Tropican8 · Post by **Tropican8** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:08 am

Konfabulator works very well. It is stable on my machine, and is one of my favorite apps. If one person (yes even RPG) has a bug with it, that does not mean everyone will sufer from that same bug upon install and that the product 'sucks'. There are many bugs with Firefox, but I'm not going to say the brower sucks and switch to IE because it came with my OS.

RPG I don't have the proxy desktop service on my machine, so I don't know if konfabulator conflicts with it. Do you use the service? Try disabling it if not.

Official forums for BZFlag.org

BZFlag Widget

BZFlag Widget

Thanks

Re: Thanks