CHRISTOPHJPETERChristoph Peter

this version introduces many changes and improvements. I am finally moving towards completing all features I want to have built in before the app goes into beta stage. The only big thing that is still missing is the detail view for tasks that lets users edit all properties like Urls and tags.

download: version 0250

Credit where credit is due!

I want to thank Mike for is great work on the UI and I want to thank Justin for for his patience in debugging the “stuck at loading tasks bug”. I really appreciate the help and the additional thoughts that improve the app.

Proof reading and typos

English is only my second language and I really really hate spelling in general which manifests itself in the docs and the changelog. So if you have time to look them over, or just found a mistake please let me know. At some point I want everything to be correct, just now the coding is way more interesting than writing the docs.

Version 0250

new UI
this version includes a major change in the UI. Credits for this go to Mike who came up with most of it. its more mac like now and looks a lot nicer in general I think.

selection of tasks
I got rid of the edit mode which was kind of useless. you can now select tasks right away and move / postpone / delete them right from the main UI.

postponing tasks
along with the new UI came a button for postponing tasks. it behaves just like the rtm website. I plan on giving more options in the future, like for 1 hour, 1 day and 1 week.

displaying tasks from just one list
the button on the very left is the view button. it lets you select the two standard views + just viewing the tasks from a single list.

the icon, again
the icon is new again, and I think this time its quite okay. the first one was admittedly crap.

the icon badge
its now the standard red mac badge. due to less space I removed the sepearte number for overdue tasks and replaced it with an exclamation mark. so if there are over due tasks there is an exlamation mark after the digit.

application size and position
the app now remebers its size and position. so if you aranged it nicely it will come up just the same way next time you launch it. note: this is not yet tested on multi screen setups! let me know!

bugfixes
the “stuck at loading tasks bug” is currently under review from the rtm server team since I could pin point the problem to be a bad response from the rtm server. Thanks a lot Justin!!! see docs for further details.

next version

I will work on finishing the new UI and then implement the detail view for editing tasks.

After a month of silence I finally managed to get out a new version of app for the milk. Along side with the new version comes my new hosting platform for all my coding projects. it is still under development but should work well enough for a test run.

Christohp Peter – Applications

please go and check out: www.chrillo.info/applications/appforthemilk/ to find out whats new in the current release!

the platform includes:

• documentation for app for the milk
• information on known bugs and possible solutions
• a new download section
• a small forum for feedback and bug reporting

you can sign up but it is also possible to post without an account.

Version 0200

advanced search:

I am almost done with implementing all advanced search methods that are also provided by the rtm website. the application now supports most search functions except for location and sharing based searching. please check the docs for details.

icon:

I came up with an icon, but I am not yet 100% happy with it. please let me know what you think and what should be improved.

Next Version:

the next step is to implement a detail view for tasks that will allow editing of notes, tags and other detailed information. the next release will also include a postpone function that has be requested several times.

I originally planed to get the application into beta before 5. of july and before I go abroad for three weeks. As so often I did not get nearly as much work done as I wanted and the beta will be delayed to the middle of august. I will not be able to check my email every day but I will spend several hours in a boring class which will give me lots of time planing out features and their implementation. When I am Back at the end of July I will release a new update alongside of my application hosting platform which has a forum for bugs and requests, documentation and FAQs, so please stay tuned.

Download

download: app for the milk 0170 alpha

Changes

I just uploaded the third alpha release of app for the milk. there are again only minor visible changes but under the hood already lies the implementation for the filter system that will make advanced search and smart lists possible. I implemented 3 basic methods as a proof of concept. the search also now works in both views.

• inList:YOURLISTNAME (shows only tasks in specified list, behaves strange in the list view since tasks are already sorted by lists)
• dueBefore:DATE (filters tasks due before this date)
• dueAfte:DATE (filters tasks due after this date)

dateparsing for the american date format has also been improved and will now also work in the search field.

Icon

The icon is still a ugly blue square, and since I am not capable of producing a decent icon( I tried) I would like to invite everybody to help me out and create on for the application. I can not pay you since the application is free but I hope I can encourage some people to contribute, and every body who contributes will certainly be credited for his work publicly.

Thank you

I also want to thank everybody again who sent me feedback that helps improving the app.

the setup

I am currently building a paltfrom to host my air applications on. this is plattform includes a feedback and bug tracking forum application where users can post their thoughts and problems. In order for this to be helpfull i needed to implement full text search. the forum constists of basically two tables.

• 1.) threads (title,date,author_id,forum_id,threadComment_id)
• 2.) comments (text, author, date,thread_id)

so the way this works is that a user can open up a thread , which stores a new thread and a comment in the database. the two are linked by adding the thread Id to the comment and the comments unique id to the thread. any futur comments that are posted to this thread will simply have the thread Id stored in them.  your table structure might look differnt but the general principle remains that tables are linked to each other by the unique ids of the tables rows.

full text search

the easiest way to search through text in mysql is by doing something like this

SELECT * FROM comments WHERE text LIKE %$SEARCH_QUERY%

this will give you all the comments that have a specific term in their text field. this will not help us much in our case since relevant information is spread out across two tables. I want to search the title and the text of the comment. so we will use this mySQL Statement

MATCH (field1,field2) AGAINST(query 1,query 2)

this uses a very sophisticated algorithm and ignores words like “so, with, and…”. check the mysql docs for details, but this is not the point here. We want to search across multiple tables and MATCH AGAINST only works on one table at a time. dam it I thought when I realized this. but there is a quite simple and fairly performant solution.

relevancy score

this concept makes it possible to assign a numeric value to each row of a table and then add up the linked table rows scores to a combined relevancy score that can be used to filter the search results. first you want to split up you search query. I will illustrate this on the setting I described above.

$tR=”MATCH(threads.title) AGAINST (‘$s’IN BOOLEAN MODE) “;

so first we create a score for the threads title by doing a simple match against. this will return me a numeric value. note: this is just a php string that will later be added to the final sql query.

$cR=”(SELECT SUM(MATCH(comments.text) AGAINST (‘$s’IN BOOLEAN MODE)) as icR FROM comments WHERE comments.threadId=threads.id)”;

now the magic happens. I go through the comments table and add the score of all those tables that match my current thread id. this chunk will also return me a numeric value.

$sql=”SELECT *,($tR*1.1+$cR) as R  FROM threads HAVING R>0.2 ORDER BY R DESC “;

this is not the final sql statment with everything put together. lets examine what happens:

($tR*1.1+$cR) as R

here I simply add the scores of the title and the scores of the comments of the thread to a single value R ( Relevancy), I can even weigh the scores differently by a factor. In my case I want the title to be more important than the comments.

HAVING R>0.2

by using this peace of code I will throw out all the records that have a score lower than 0.2 there by giving the user only results that are at least some what relevant to his search query.

conclusion

my example is a really simple one but it illustrates really nicely how to achieve a decent result with very little code. since the scores are calculated seperatly for each individual table I search in it can be used on way more than just two tables.

the second alpha is available for download

download app for the milk alpha 0150

changes:

• hotkey: ctrl+A to add new task
• hotkey: ctrl+S to search
• limited support for american date format (in general settings)
• bugfix: add and search textfield no have focus right away
• bugfix: now runs properly in the background on windows machines

the alpha version of my app for the milk application is now available for download.

app for the milk alpha download

Go check it out and help me by providing feedback.

I just finished the demo video for my remember the milk desktop client project called “app for the milk”.

• view at www.chrillo.info/app-for-the-milk/
• download at http://www.chrillo.info/applications/aftm/aftmdemo.mov

please check it out and pass it around!

Update 28.6.2009: I just got my iPhone 3GS and Iplugged it in and nothing happend. It appears that apple changed something on the power management so the iPhone 3GS can not be charged with it. Crap!

Today I received my external USB Power pack from Amzon. I got it because my phones battery is crap and the iPod Touch does not get through a day of wifi and gaming either. I am currently charging it for the first time so I can not report on the devices performance, but I read in reviews that it is capable of completely recharging an iPhone up to 2 times. The charging it self takes a qutie while. I have it hooked up to my computer for about 4 hours now and it is still not done, but I guess that this kind of charging will increase the overall lifetime of the battery inside. I find this kind of powerpack more convenient that the ones specifically made for the iphone and Ipod Touch since I can charge every gadget that takes power via usb and most other cellphones as well.

Pros:

• small form factor
• looks quite nice – I generally like the appearance of philips products
• low price 24€ at amazon, the kensington one costs about 40€
  
• comes with a ton of adapters ( Nokia,Samsung, Motorola, Nintendo DS, Sony Ericsson,Blackberry and mini USB)
• has 2 ports, one for charging the device and one standard USB jack to plug in your gadgets
• is advertised with 30 hours of battery life( I will test that and post)
• Retractable cable, no additional cable clutter !!!!
• for simple LEDs indicate the level of charge
• comes with a small black cloth bag to keep verything together

Cons:

• charging takes quite some time
• nothing else really

Update 3.6.2009 – Battery performance

the battery works really well. I was able to charge my ipod touch 2 times with one charge. I could charge my girlfriends ipod nano without even noticing a decline in charge.  so keeping in mind that charging the battery takes a couple of hours its an incredibly usefull device.

Philips SCE4420

update 28.6.2009 :this does not work anymore with the 3.0 firmware and an iPhone. It still works on my iPod touch though.

I subscribe to many video podcasts and most of the time I watch them, but sometimes I want to do something else like playing a game while just listening to the audio of a news video podcast. The problem is that video playback stops when you close the videoplayer, whereas audio continues to play in the backgroud if you run another app. After the latest software upgrade even if you selected a video podcast from the audio library it would launch into the videoplayer, which is a good thing most of the time.

To just get the audio of a video, start playing the video –> close the player(the video stops) –> double click the home button so the small media controll buttons come up and hit play –> the audio of the video is still in the audio que and will start playing for your enjoyment