v1.3.2 update

Silently, two updates were released those days. Those versions are labeled as bugfix and they should be understood like that.

So what's new ?

Now, the local is taken into account for the T3 International feeds selection. So, if your smartphone's located in Germany, France, Poland or in the Netherlands, the International Feed will be set for your local. For all other languages, as previously, the German feed will be displayed.

As a minor update, the online help menu button will propose a link to the website (which was the previous behavior) but also to this blog.

Finlay, on the T3 Feed list, a click on an entry will display the item details. The dialog window give you all the details found on the T3 feed. One little thing out of our control is the currency for the charge for a tournament. Since T3 does only send the value trough its feeds, we suppose that the currency is in euro, since it seems that it is the only currency used on T3.

Happy downloading.

v1.3 Available, first version to use T3.

The v1.3 is finally there. And this version includes a huge function: Table Top Tournaments Rss Feeds integration in the MiniWar Companion App.

Table Top Tournaments, also known as T3 is the major web site for tournaments organisation. It is available in several languages and several countries. It is not affiliated to any editor (even if the early development results from Game Workshop games players) and suitable for any games.

Available trough a button on the main screen, the Rss Feeds view will list the feeds from the Table Top Tournaments website. You can choose from any feed available on the website for specific countries. A long press on any item will display a menu like you would get on a long press on any item of your list of tournaments. So, you will be able to locate the tournament place, share the selected tournament or open a web browser on the T3 tournament page.

For this first version, the functionality also comes with some limits. The feeds are not cached locally, which means that any display need an Internet connection to succeed. There is currently no management for the feeds retrieval so you have to ensure tu have a correct connexion. The application may even crash during feeds retrieval on any connexion problem.

Oh, one more thing to notice: the international Rss feed of Table Top Tournaments is internationalized. This mean that you should get a feed in your language. Since T3 is not available in every country and before being sure about how to use the locals, decision have been made to use the German language feed since the author of T3 is from Germany.

But this improvement also draws the road map of the evolution of the Companion. Of course, after the functionality stabilisation, there will be the tournament details display. Then something to import a tournament to your list of tournaments. The fee detail also brings ideas for a checklist for any tournament. So... A lot of evolutions are still to come.

Happy downloading of this new version.

The MiniWar companion idea.

The MiniWar Companion app idea rised several years ago, long before the iPhone and its apps. Every miniatures gamer needs a management tool for something: its miniatures collection, its game references... and what to say about tournaments management... So every miniatures gamer knowing a little about programming have written a little program, which survived some time or not. Futur posts will be dedicated to some existing softwares.

With the Smartphones adoption, gamers have a new device they can use everywhere. The information is available in one's pocket and can be shared trough any media, synchronized with other datasources and so on. Miniatures gamers really deserve a set of tools to bring all this possibilities together.

Even if Apple's iOs system (iPhone, iPad or iPod) is the most interesting platform for mobile developers, Android offers a more modular approach. All components can be stand alone applications which can be downloaded independently. But each component brings everything to communicate with the others. So if one downloads several complementary apps, he could find himself using them like a single app.

With this in mind, the MiniWar Companion project started with some minimal functionalities (even the v1.2 can be considered by everyone as useless), but with the idea to integrate the "continuous delivery" principle : each time a new functionality is available, it is published. This brings the application to the public and continuously improves it with its users feedback, rather than endlessly delaying the app launch.

The v1.3 is ready to be published, and this one brings an amazing new functionality. So check it soon ;)

Blog opening

The MiniWar Companion web site exists since the launch of the app. It is now time to use the blog pages to keep you updated about the evolution of the apps. A new functionality will soon be added (coming in the v1.3) that will draw a road map for further improvements. You will find in this blog the hot news about the amazing MiniWar Companion apps.

Oh one more thing... Plural ? Yeah, a new app is on its way.

But on Android, all apps can interact and integrate. The upcoming app is an extension of the Tactical Companion. It is a new app because some people could want to use it as a stand alone application without the Tactical Companion. But if you already have the Tactical Companion, this app will integrate and bring you much more functionality.