So I wrote a little custom PHP script that takes the RPOL site and makes it mobile friendly, including the posting interface.

It uses PHP and cURL to request the page elements then render's the page with modifications to make it mobile friendly.

I would love to turn this into an APP so I can share this.

I can't currently b/c every request to RPOL would come from my server and RPOl would block us.

Thread here with code and screenshots: link to a message in another game

If we could make this into an app, then people could have it on their phone and the requests would be from their IP addresses.

I would also love to make the app work with the notifier (or part of) where the notices would open in the app and take  you to the mobile friendly interface.

Thoughts?

@ byzantinex
My thoughts are that I hope you get someone to make this work,
bc right now this is one of my alltime fav websites and it's not cashing in on it's own value.

Mobile is the spot, just gotta make this site more mobile friendly...
Really, even just a 'mobile front end' making the UI kinder to iOS / Android would bring in a ton of new users.

I've mentioned to Jade several time I would like to help.

I started with just a custom style sheet but the entire site is laid out in tables so I actually had to parse the site code and strip out the tables using be php simple Dom utility.

I haven't read anything yet, could you tell me more how the streams work that rpol supplies or point me to documentation?

Maybe I could just make a simple app that puts the mobile face on the site. I've got the posting part submitting. I might also be able to do the registration process.

How many more people would discover rpol if it was an app and super mobile friendly?! Tons I think.

Not to mention most people probably aren't even at their home computers but are more likely to be somewhere with a tablet or smartphone to use the rpol app

Right?! Exactly. How many more people who increase their posting frequency if they got a notification, clicked it, typed something up and were done? All from their phone.

I hated the mobile un-usability so much I wrote my own program to fix it :D :D :D

I thought about using a script to parse the site like byzantinex created, but I'm a privacy nut, and hate the idea of having access to other players passwords.  To log in, they'd have to pass through someone else's server to be passed to the site.

For the longest time, I bypassed my company's firewall/proxy filter using a similar method.  I hosted a perl script that acted as a proxy on a private https site.  The script is here:
https://www.jmarshall.com/tools/cgiproxy/


I don't think I had the feed-processing script in with the Git repo for the app... Soooo here you go:
http://www.evilknights.com/rpol/checkFeed.txt

Fair warning... This whole notifier was an endeavor I threw together in a week, so be gentle when criticizing my poorly written code.  This php script runs via cron on a set interval.  Basically, it pulls a list of registered users.  Then checks their feed for changes one at a time.  The site's feeds aren't done right, but they get the job done.  The whole reason I use the feeds over ripping the main page is that they don't require authentication.

I also have a daily database cleaner that removes stale app installs. No point checking feeds of people that can't get the notification.
http://www.evilknights.com/rpol/purgeRPOL.txt

Lastly.... we have the auto posting thread bump for the game advert. :)

http://www.evilknights.com/rpol/autoPost.txt

Every 8 days we post a bump to the advertisement thread.  I didn't use cron for this because I wanted the day it posts to walk through the week and reach players that may only play on certain days.

So do we have a download ready for the App? I'd like to test it.

Ha!!! I did the proxy bypass script route too when I worked for a company. That's hilarious. :-)

Interesting on the feed method.

I was thinking of just putting everything into the app to do all the work and not have them go through a server of mine. That would also prevent me from having to see their credentials.

In reply to Vane66 (msg # 79):

The app is in the google play store.

How do I get off of the notification settings, that seems to be the only menu that's available.

It doesn't work for me. I can only see the notification menu. I can't exit it or go to another menu. I can't see my games or anything.

I sent an rmail to jase asking if he would work with us to make a mobile app or at least give us his blessing and some ideas of the site architecture. I am also thinking we could do a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to develop a mobile app.

In reply to Vane66 (msg # 83):

It's only a notification app.  When a new message appears in one of the games/forums you're a part of, you'll get a notification on your phone/tablet.  I think you can click on one of the notifications to get to that game.

EDIT: Yep, that's it exactly.  You can close the menu, and whenever a notification shows up, you can select it and it will take you to the game using your phone's web browser.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:00, Sun 26 Mar 2017.

Yup, notifications only.  I had to teach myself Java and the Android APIs to get it done.  It started as a crude hack to keep me on top of my games.  Then I had a week break from work so I updated it enough to share with others.

I'll be honest, I lack the skill/time to make it a full mobile client.  That's why I posted the code and started the forum.

In reply to Ninthbit (msg # 86):

isn't it possible to have a possible client run off of a base like Chromium for browsing the site?

Can you explain that further?

Yeah, I'm a web dev, not an Android one. :D

I can learn, but I don't have the free time either.

I have an contractor who I hire to do some work and he could tackle this project easily.
That's why I was talking about doing a kickstarter campaign.

I'll wait to hear from Jase, but if he gives me his blessing then I'll setup a campaign and share it with everyone via the forum and see if we can raise enough funds to get the app done :D

In reply to byzantinex (msg # 88):

I'm not a coder so I can't explain it all that well, but it's like instead of a notifier, it runs off a client based on the Google Chrome engine
This message was last edited by the player at 21:19, Sun 26 Mar 2017.

In reply to carnyzzle (msg # 90):

You're talking about push notifications from the Browser, right?

Yes, that would be possible, but only if we wrote a script that basically duplicated the site. What we're talking about doing instead is creating a mobile app that would pull the entire site into it, have native Android notifications via the app, and make the site mobile friendly.

Does jase ever respond to rmail?

In reply to byzantinex (msg # 92):

Yes, but he has a million things to do, outside of RPoL.  :P  He will reply, eventually.

Right on. I figured. Been a few days.

I pitched the idea of letting us develop a mobile app and doing a Kickstarter campaign or something.

I'd love to see RPOL with a mobile UI implementation -- neither Android nor iOS, but phone/tablet compatible.

The standard UI is not a showstopper, but it's sure unfriendly for my large-screen Android.  (But I don't let that stop me!)

In reply to REkz (msg # 95):

I'm totally okay with that as well, but I can't do anything about that.

Jase has started. You can see from the homepage if you click Beta, but it's non-fuctional.

So for the mean time I use my own script to pull the stie and make it mobile friendly.

The only way I can re-format the site for everyone is to make an App that renders the site mobile friendly :D