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FREE - FX News Alert application

  • #81
  • Aug 31, 2011 12:08pm Aug 31, 2011 12:08pm
FWIW, AVG anti-virus has no problems with this software. Also, I am running the updates, not saving them. The very first one I did, but after that I've just been starting up and agreeing to the fresh updates with the prompter.
To improve is to change. To perfect, is to change often.
  • #82
  • Aug 31, 2011 12:46pm Aug 31, 2011 12:46pm
I think it's the media player that's causing the problems, notice how the setup exe is dumping two DLL files into my installation folder, both relating to the media player...

http://i.imgur.com/vgugz.png


I think people's virus software is on a high level protection setting, so any install of a dll is being flagged as malware.

As mentioned before, i'm not a professional programmer so this may be a mistake on my behalf as i forgot to click a setting deep within Visual Studio. I'll play around with the configuration build settings to see if i can release this installation dependency and apologise for any inconvenience to those experiencing problems.
Politics is the womb in which war develops.
  • #83
  • Sep 1, 2011 1:34am Sep 1, 2011 1:34am
Hi,

I just disable my Avast Antivirus - File System Shield and Web Shield for 10 minutes.
Download FXNewsAlert, install it and delete the setup file.
Reactivate my Avast Antivirus.
FXNewsAlert is good to go.
Pivot Boss in the making~
  • #84
  • Sep 1, 2011 4:27am Sep 1, 2011 4:27am
Quoting jurn_e
Hi,

I just disable my Avast Antivirus - File System Shield and Web Shield for 10 minutes.
Download FXNewsAlert, install it and delete the setup file.
Reactivate my Avast Antivirus.
FXNewsAlert is good to go.
That's a relief, glad you got it working.

Is everything working as it should? Does it play your chosen sound file okay? Does it filter your settings as expected?

Bugs:
There's a very minor bug when you click 1min as the alarm doesn't trigger. I've fixed this and also found that my setup project was set to to .NET3.5; I've changed that to .NET2.0 so people don't have to install 50terabytes of microsoft updates.

I'll release alpha v1.5 once I've done some more testing, waited for peoples bug reports and looked into this malware issue a bit more.
Politics is the womb in which war develops.
  • #85
  • Sep 1, 2011 10:02am Sep 1, 2011 10:02am
FF, attached is a pic of my laptop's screen. I have several widgets, like a calendar, local weather, CPU usage, etc. I was thinking that your app would be perfect as a full time screen widget as well. What do you think? Ever considered it?
Attached Image
To improve is to change. To perfect, is to change often.
  • #86
  • Sep 1, 2011 10:36am Sep 1, 2011 10:36am
Quoting forexhard
FF, attached is a pic of my laptop's screen. I have several widgets, like a calendar, local weather, CPU usage, etc. I was thinking that your app would be perfect as a full time screen widget as well. What do you think? Ever considered it?
That's a good suggestion, but I presumed users would primarily be looking at metatrader, then taking a cursory glance at the app when the alarm sounds.

I could add another icon in the toolbar to collapse the full screen app to a widget sized version with a minimalistic display.

Send me a draft screenshot, to show me what you'd like featured in the widget and I'll see what I can do.
Politics is the womb in which war develops.
  • #87
  • Sep 1, 2011 11:10am Sep 1, 2011 11:10am
A widget acts no differently than does the current version of the indi, except that it has a full time screen icon. So it is "always on". If the screen is powered up, then the widgets are too. This alleviates having a taskbar tab as well.

Pic #1: Shows the weather widget working.

Pic #2: Shows the weather widget mini tool bar. Commands are Close, Expand, Settings, Click/Drag.

Pic #3: Shows the Settings window.

The idea would be to have a small screen that just shows some basic info. Perhaps just the next news event with a countdown timer, already colored for impact. That's all, no other data showing. All of the other settings would be stored inside the Settings window. So essentially you still have pretty much exactly what you have now, but in a more condensed form which "lives" on the screen full time.

In my next post I will try to give some examples of how this might look.
Attached Images
To improve is to change. To perfect, is to change often.
  • #88
  • Edited 12:53pm Sep 1, 2011 11:32am | Edited 12:53pm
This is all you really need for a widget. It shows the next event and a timer. that's all. The orange color signifies a medium-level event. All other settings or misc. commands are found in the expanded Settings window. E.g., skin choices, alarm functions & features, time zones, external links -- pretty much everything you have now, only condensed.

You could offer an expanded main window that shows the next 2 or 3 events, but that would add 30% or so to the overall size. Users choice.

That's really all there is to it.

FWIW, this pic is bigger than actual size.
Attached Image
To improve is to change. To perfect, is to change often.
  • #89
  • Sep 1, 2011 12:13pm Sep 1, 2011 12:13pm
Hi FiatFap,

Apps gets better and better thanks

Is there any way of getting "actual" details? next to the previous and forcast

Cheers.

Quoting FiatFap
That's a relief, glad you got it working.

Is everything working as it should? Does it play your chosen sound file okay? Does it filter your settings as expected?

Bugs:
There's a very minor bug when you click 1min as the alarm doesn't trigger. I've fixed this and also found that my setup project was set to to .NET3.5; I've changed that to .NET2.0 so people don't have to install 50terabytes of microsoft updates.

I'll release alpha v1.5 once I've done some more testing, waited for peoples bug reports and looked into this malware issue a bit more....
  • #90
  • Sep 1, 2011 6:37pm Sep 1, 2011 6:37pm
* UPDATE *

 

  1. Created widget thingy
  2. Setup project targets .NET 2.0 (before, it was set at .NET 3.5)
  3. Minor bug fixes

Screenshot
http://i.imgur.com/vY471.png

Let me know if you i) have problems with the install, ii) encounter any bugs or quirky behaviour.

Edit: all updates can be found at the website.

Politics is the womb in which war develops.
  • #91
  • Sep 1, 2011 6:48pm Sep 1, 2011 6:48pm
A few people have requested the published results, so i'll try to address my concerns for this feature:

The issue with facilitating this request is that i'd be bombarding ForexFactory with hits to detect when the results are published. It would be deemed a DDOS attack as a 3rd party app would be making multiple requests to their server in quick succession.

I tried to find out where these published results come from, but i can imagine it's an expensive news feed and retail trade only gets access once the sharks have prepared their attack, so it's a futile exercise to populate the app with data that will show up on FF when they decide we're ready.

I found that the Forex News Site screen actually shows the published results before they are shown on the ForexFactory, for some reason. I'll make sure of this for the next high impact impact that shuts down their server and displays a red banner.

Also, it will mean a revamp of the app if i was to show published data as i'd have to keep the event in the table which defeats the way events events are removed when the alarm is triggered.

So in all probability, i won't code this request, it's just too much of a pain. It's easier to use the [Forex News Sites] button and click refresh when the alarm goes off

hth
Politics is the womb in which war develops.
  • #92
  • Sep 1, 2011 7:35pm Sep 1, 2011 7:35pm
You are too quick.

1. Much too big. Standard width for widgets is 1.5"; the length is dependant. In this case, 1.5 X 1.5" should be plenty big. This is the size of the calendar icon in one of my earlier pics here. It will be easier to downsize if you remove the bottom alarm time section and replace this with a small mute button only. In order to save space, the mute button could be placed in a lower corner of the notification window.

The whole idea behind a widget, is that the settings are all hidden. Widget users know what must be done in order to set or change preferences.

Also, the top banner section should be elimnated entirely, and leave just the (smaller) logo behind. These 2 areas use up a lot of space.

2. After exiting and re-starting the taskbar tab shows up again and stays on, even in widget mode.

3. Currently the volume slide only works if you upload a custom sound file. But to me it seems like it would work better as a full time master volume control.
To improve is to change. To perfect, is to change often.
  • #93
  • Edited 8:25am Sep 2, 2011 7:47am | Edited 8:25am
Thanks ForexHard, good feedback as usual.

I only have Win XP and so have never used widget thingies.

I'll do some googling to see how best to implement your request, but it seems i just need to tweak the UI from what you said and then create an icon for the system tray, instead of the taskbar?

On a side note, can people view this link okay. For non US forex-ians, it's funny to watch Rick Santori vilify CNBC guests as they spout lies about the US economy. I could put this vid link in the [forex sites news] form; what do you think?

Edit: Searching for gadgets, it seems i've underestimated the work involved. They are specialist scripts that is a) beyond my knowledge and b) impossible for me to build and test because i only have XP.

I may have to negate any attempt at this request and revert back to the 1.4 GUI.
Politics is the womb in which war develops.
  • #94
  • Sep 2, 2011 11:31am Sep 2, 2011 11:31am
Don't toss out the baby with the water just yet.

The widget seems to be working out OK so far. As a degreed commercial designer, I can tell you that your "mistakes" are in 2 basic areas: You have no design sense, and you are trying too hard at self-promotion. And the 2 tie together, in that you are wasting a lot of space with your name and logo, for example.

Focus on what really matters, and not on what doesn't. This indi is a utilitarian device. It's for work, not for play or for show or for promotion. Ask yourself "what exactly is this supposed to do?", and then find the simplest, most direct path to this place.

As for promotion, we already know who you are. You don't need to beat us about the head with the enormous logo. Reduce it by 50% at least, maybe more, and use it just once. Then hyper-link it to your web site for easy updates and general access. Think of it this way: An inch is 72 pts tall. The widget is only 1.5" tall, or 108 pts. Therefore the logo shouldn't be over 22 pts tall, or approximately 20% of the total height. If you consider the other widgets I have posted pictures of, they have no obvious logos at all.

Here's an easy design tip. Maintain continuity throughout the project. For example, every one of the task windows looks entirely different from the others. This is Design 101. The proper way is to create a uniform master template and use this for the main skin. Then, make every other component to mirror the aesthetic of this template. Sizes may differ slightly, but each task window should look very similar to all the rest.
To improve is to change. To perfect, is to change often.
  • #95
  • Sep 2, 2011 1:30pm Sep 2, 2011 1:30pm
Quote
Don't toss out the baby with the water just yet.
I only meant that i won't be able to create a true widget, by it's very definition, as Vista uses it's own .gadget extension to extrapolate html/css that streams data as you see it in the weather widget, for example.

I will continue with the scaled down .NET app version, if you deem it useful, as it only requires minor tweaks from your design suggestions.

You're right about the logo, it will be omitted for the widget; I was getting lazy yesterday hacking the UI, so left the logo as it was easier at the time and acted as an anchor point when i was re-jigging the panels.

From your credentials as a commercial designer, i appreciate the input and as you know, design is an waterfall/iterative process, so we'll get there by hook or by crook

Thanks again ForexHard
Politics is the womb in which war develops.
  • #96
  • Sep 2, 2011 3:55pm Sep 2, 2011 3:55pm
How does something like this grab you?

The "1 2 3 4 5" stands for your various task icons. Clicking one will open one of the larger windows.

The "+ -" stands for Maximize & Minimize

The FXnnnn.com is for your hyperlink, where you can advertise and promote to your heart's content!

Small is 1.5 X 1.5"

Large is 2.5 X 2.5" -- shown in actual size if you click on the pic. You can fit in quite a lot with proper management.

No need for "Close" and "Apply". Redundant. 'Apply' alone can do the same job.
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: news.png Size: 23 KB
To improve is to change. To perfect, is to change often.
  • #97
  • Sep 2, 2011 4:21pm Sep 2, 2011 4:21pm
What you see when you Maximize the widget...

Approx 4 x 7"
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: max template.png Size: 12 KB
To improve is to change. To perfect, is to change often.
  • #98
  • Sep 2, 2011 11:02pm Sep 2, 2011 11:02pm
Quoting forexhard
Don't toss out the baby with the water just yet.

The widget seems to be working out OK so far. As a degreed commercial designer, I can tell you that your "mistakes" are in 2 basic areas: You have no design sense, and you are trying too hard at self-promotion. And the 2 tie together, in that you are wasting a lot of space with your name and logo, for example.

Focus on what really matters, and not on what doesn't. This indi is a utilitarian device. It's for work, not for play or for show or for promotion. Ask yourself "what exactly...

please accept a proper tone to talk with OP.u may be a great designer but have u designed any thing free for community?

if u have any idea present it,but humbly,there is nothing wrong if he have kept his name in big space,its his application and he deserves it.
Trade responsiblypatience is the key/Swing trader
  • #99
  • Sep 2, 2011 11:22pm Sep 2, 2011 11:22pm
First, the OP isn't offended by my comments, so why are you? If he is offended by anything I have said I hope he would say so himself.

Second, Yes, I have contributed to the FF community myself:
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=302007
To improve is to change. To perfect, is to change often.
  • #100
  • Sep 3, 2011 1:37am Sep 3, 2011 1:37am
Quoting forexhard
First, the OP isn't offended by my comments, so why are you? If he is offended by anything I have said I hope he would say so himself.

Second, Yes, I have contributed to the FF community myself:
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=302007
I appreciate your work,but there is nothing harm is presentiing ur ideas in humble tone.

I rest my case


happy trading.
Trade responsiblypatience is the key/Swing trader
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