A Nerdfighter app?

[Captain Jacqui Sparrow]

There's an app for everything nowadays. I mean, I even have a virtual toaster on my iPod. But we don't have a Nerdfighters app? I think we should have an app for iPhone/iPod/Droid that has the chat on it and maybe a small mini version of the forums? 

[Sarah Weiler]

AGREE. And make it available for iPad too. I loves me my iPad. Don't judge.

[Terry]

VERY unfortunately, the Ning only supports a very rudimentary protocol.  The most sophisticated thing it supports is HTTP POST.  Specifically it doesn't support XMLHttpRequest which would be about the minimum required for a nice app.  Let's not even ponder anything higher level than that.

 

One can of course wrap requests in HTTP request/response logic, welcome to 1999.  But even at that they don't allow updating Forums or Chat which seems to me much more useful than uploading pictures or blog posts (things they do support).

 

It would probably be possible to force forum support by scraping the raw html but it would be very messy, slow, and fragile.  Chat is probably impossible since upon cursory investigation it seems to use SWF, although that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

 

It appears an app interface was not on the Ning's radar.  To me, it actually looks like they were going to build an API but then abandoned the project in the first release.  Regardless, as much as it SUCKS, unless they release a completely revamped architecture you really shouldn't get your hopes up.

[Some Witty Name]

Terry hit it on the ball. The chat runs on a version of Flash (I cannot remember exactly which one), and I think has some rudimentary PHP connecting it to the user database.

 

Now, this doesn't mean we should blow the app idea out of the water, but it would be a slow and very painstaking process that would require some committed individuals with knowledge of Objective C languages to program it, as well as somehow getting your hands on the database.

 

Let us just take a small look over to this, though: http://nerdfighters.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-shiny-new-site

So don't fret yet, there is hope.

[Terry]

Objective C really? Well that's cool.

It still needs some better RPC through.

It could be a lot of fun.

[Some Witty Name]

Yep, Objective-C. I have played around with iPhone/iPad programming, and it uses Objective-C.

I believe the Android phone uses the same language, but with a different compilation. Not 100% sure with that one.

It would be pretty fun, but I think it may be best for us all to hold off.

[Terry]

No. android does haver some scripting lang for casual stuff - I haven't used it so have no opinion. But all real android development is for their Dalvik implementation of Java.. It is surprisingly fast and I think pretty easy to code. What more could a nerd want :)

[Melissa Flores]

This is the most amazing idea I have heard all week. We should definitely  do something about this.

[ALBrassard]

I think we need app

[William Grandon]

I was searching for a mobile app for all things regarding Nerdfighteria when BAM! The Nerdfighteria App! However, it is only links to different sites and a quick link list of the different YouTube channels the Green brothers operate. I was wondering if this idea for creating a full fledged app has been taken up by anyone? And if so, who?

[Charles Townsend Smith]

This would solve most problems in the universe and beyond. I'm not going to stop using the sight because there is no APP. but for the time being I only have my IPad, and forums like this one are a little slow on the hardware, mainly due to all the crap on it... But still.