Version 1.1 of the Trailer iOS app released with iPad support

Title says it all really.  If you're interested check it out on the iOS app store.

Welcome page on web application updated

I've updated the welcome page which is presented as the default page for new visitors to the web application to try to make it clearer that the site is very much open for business.

Comments welcome.

Trailer web application now tested with a wider range of browsers

I have just uploaded a new version of the Trailer web application.

The new version has been tested on the following browsers:

• Chrome, Firefox and Safari on OS/X
• Mobile Safari and Chrome on iPad
• Chrome Firefox and Internet Exporer 8 and 9 on Windows.

The application now seems to be working reasonably well across all of these browsers with the following known issues:

• on Chrome on iPad, it is not possible to drag the marker for a zone on the zone details page (this does work on Mobile Safari, although finding the right touch spot to start the drag can be difficult); 
• on some browser/OS combinations, the header and footer panels render out to an area which extends outside their reserved bounds, causing display of horizontal and/or vertical scrollbars; and
• on IE8 on Windows, the intended background colours do not display.

Please let me know if you find non-cosmetic problems which are not on this list.

Google Code project containing Python scripts for generating TQZ files deprecated.

When the initial version of the Trailer iOS application came out in July, the companion web application at http://tl-trailer.appspot.com wasn't ready for use, and I released some command line scripts via Google Code to support generation of the .tqz files consumed by the iOS application.

The web application still isn't perfect, but it should be as good as or better than the scripting framework as a way of quickly setting up some .tqz files to use with the iOS app.

The scripting framework used Google's geocoding API, which is subject to terms of use including a requirement that geocoding information returned by it should be used for display of maps served by Google's infrastructure.  While iOS5 is current, this requirement is satisfied on the iOS device, because the maps displayed by the iOS device will be based on Google's services.  When iOS6 comes out in a few days, this requirement will no longer be satisfied, as the iOS6 mapping services will be serviced by infrastructure owned by Apple.  For this reason, I've deprecated use of the scripting framework for the time being, although I plan to reinstate it at some time in the future when I have time to integrate an alternate geocoding source.

If any developers are interested in having access to the scripting framework code before I get round to reinstating it, please get in contact directly via email or via a comment on this post so that I can give higher priority to the work required to bring it back online.

Get the iOS application for free

I've just worked out how to issue redemption codes which can be used to get the Trailer iOS app for free, and I'd like to spread a few around to get a bit feedback on how the app works.

If you'd like me to mail you a code (or more than one so that you can share with your friends), please go through the following steps:

1. Visit http://tl-trailer.appspot.com, log in using a Google id and follow the steps on http://tl-trailer.blogspot.com.au/p/using-trailer-web-application.html to define a trail containing at least three or four landmarks you will be able to visit to test the app out.
2. Send me an email with the URL of the trail you created, and the number of codes you would like, up to a maximum of five.  The email address for this is in near the right of the top line of the blog format (I don't want to repeat it in the text of blog posts as I am not sure whether this will result in this address starting to receive spam).  If you can't complete the trail creation process due to problems with the web app, please email me a bug report, this will do just as well as a completed trail.
3. For at least the first ten responses I get, I'll email you back with the codes.  Whether I give people the full number they ask for will depend on demand.  If you ask for more than one code I may send a smaller number in the first instance and email again with extra ones when I can see that the first ones I sent have been used in the store and that someone has visited the zones in the trail.

The value of the app to its users will ultimately depend on the number of trails which get created and shared (either in the tl-trailer.appspot.com app or elsewhere), so I plan to continue to use redemption codes from time to time as a means of saying thank-you to people who contribute in this way.