Kongregate Coding

Compatibility Patch

ArcaneCoder — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:32:22 +0000

Recently, Kongregate made some changes to their servers that caused the widget to fail when retrieving your user name. I just found this out a couple days ago and have released this update so that the widget will work again.

I’m assuming all previous versions are broken, so you’ll need to update if you still want to use the application.

Signup & Download:

To signup, enter your Kongregate name and click download:

The Terms:

By downloading this program you take sole responsibility for its use agree to use it at your own risk.

Mods, Rooms & More - Version 0.31

ArcaneCoder — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:00:20 +0000

I’ve made some small updates to the Widget. You can still use the older version for now, but feel free to update and test this version if you like.

Changes:

Avatars for online users will now automatically load without the need to view the user’s profile first.

The app now remembers which folders you have expanded and closed, both when you change the sorting and when you close it.

I’ve added the ability to sort your friends by which room they are in.

I’ve integrate the Modfriend account into the widget. Click on “Find a mod” and it will switch over to a list of active mods. Click “My profile” and it will switch back. This is just a first implementation and I’ll likely make this much smoother in the future.

The widget can now display your favorite rooms to hangout in your profile. Just add the tag {room:} to your profile with a list of your favorite rooms and it will be shown in the widget. For instance, you could put {rooms:General, Mostly Harmless} to specify those two rooms as your usual hangouts. See my profile for another example.

The new Find a mod button

Favorite rooms

Sorting by rooms

Links

Discussion thread

Signup & Download:

To signup, enter your Kongregate name and click download:

The Terms:

By downloading this program you take sole responsibility for its use agree to use it at your own risk.

Update 0.3 - Login & Vista Fix

ArcaneCoder — Sat, 24 May 2008 01:06:34 +0000

I’d like to give out a thanks to the nearly 60 users who signed up and tested the application over 2100 times in the past 6 days! Also, a bigger thanks to those who left their feedback in the Kongregate forums as well!

I’ve updated the Kongregate desktop widget to support logging in straight from the application itself; as well as fixed a couple of issues. This is mostly in response to reports that logging into browsers on Vista would not get the application to work. According to confirmation from FRAGM3NT at COCAK, this update should allow Vista users to login, as well as XP users to avoid opening IE at all should they wish not to.

I’ve also put a fix in for a bug that causes updating to stop if synchronization fails. Let me know if any of you still experience problems with this bug or on Vista.

General Notes

Some have opened up kong_alert.exe and complained about it not working. Do not open, move or delete this file, the application will open it for you. Open Kongregate Friends.exe.

Avatar icons in the list will not load until you click on a users name for the first time. This will change in later builds to be automatic. Until then, sorry for the inconvenience.

I’ve removed the time limitation on the build. Computers using non-US date formatting should be able to run it now.

Logging in from the application only sends your password to Kongregate, the same way you login on the site. It’s not stored locally, or anywhere else.

Links

Discussion thread

Signup & Download:

To signup, enter your Kongregate name and click download:

The Terms:

By downloading this program you take sole responsibility for its use agree to use it at your own risk.

Widget Mac Tests

ArcaneCoder — Fri, 23 May 2008 23:56:10 +0000

Dear OS X users:

Good news and bad news. I set up Leopard the other day in order to test a Mac version of the application. The good news is that it’s easy to create a dashboard widget. The bad news is that as a dashboard widget it appears to stop running when it’s in the background and reinitialize when in the foreground. This causes the app to reconnect every time I view the dashboard. I can probably fix that, but I still think it wont send any update alerts while dashboard is not in the foreground, eliminating the alert feature.

I’m going to look into creating both an Adobe AIR version and OS X app for it to see which works the best. If I run into snags I’ll at least try to make some adjustments so that it runs better as a dashboard widget; though probably without the auto-updating and alerts.

I just released a game for AddictingGames yesterday, so I’ve been on a tight release schedule lately; but I have not forgotten you all.

Widget Alpha Available

ArcaneCoder — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:23:59 +0000

As promised, I’ve made the alpha build of the Kongregate Friends widget available to others for the first time.

It has a few known bugs and is lacking some functionality, but that’s why its an alpha. If you are adventurous, try it out, see if its of any use and then leave your (hopefully constructive) feedback. This first release is only for Windows, but I’ll try and release a Mac version some time soon.

Due to this being the first alpha release:

You must be logged into Kongregate in Internet Explorer for this build to recognize your profile. This will hopefully change in the future.

You must enter your real Kongregate account name below, so that the application will authorize you to test the alpha. If you don’t put in your real account and then try to run it on another, it will result in an error. If you have multiple accounts, repeat the process for each one, but click ‘cancel’ when the download box pops up if you’ve already downloaded it.

It’s only a temporary build and will expire at the end of June. The plan is to update it by then, but since I don’t know if this will go anywhere I don’t want it floating around on someone’s computer for the next 3 years, possibly stressing the Kongregate servers.

I can’t guarantee its good behavior, so I need to know that you understand it could possibly lock up your computer or perform in other ‘undesirable’ ways. If you fear any problems, don’t download and use it - simple as that. I haven’t ever had anything bad happen myself, but I have to cover the bases.

Basically, don’t come screaming at me if it locks up your computer and you lose your homework, or it does any number of other horrible things; like awakens the Necronomicon in your basement.

I’ll be linking to appropriate forum threads here shortly.

Instructions:

Once you’ve downloaded the file, unzip it and run Kongregate Friends.exe.

Updated to version 0.3a on 05/23/08

Signup & Download:

To signup, enter your Kongregate name and click download:

The Terms:

By downloading this program you take sole responsibility for its use agree to use it at your own risk.

Kongregate Desktop Widget

ArcaneCoder — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:47:15 +0000

Due to the positive responses received from the Kongregate community regarding a Kongregate friends desktop application, it looks like I’ll move forward with letting others try it out in the near future.

Its only an initial alpha build, lacking functionality and possessing bugs (really just a proof of concept honestly) so it’s not really anything spectacular. I’ll have to make a couple of adjustments and fix a specific bug or two, but I’ll try to publish a time limited version some time shortly. When the time comes I’ll be looking for some constructive feedback on how to make it more useful.

Even though I’m not much of a blogger, I’ve set up this site to better display information regarding the widget (should it actually go anywhere) instead of tracking everything in the Kongregate forums.

If you’d have a use for such an application, please let me know!

For those who’ve randomly hit this page, Kongregate.com is an online gaming community supported by developers, where you can submit your own games for revenue and earn badges by playing them. You can learn more about it here.