GT5 Remote Race Mobile

  • Thread starter SeiGGy
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SeiGGy

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SeiGGy
Hi All, After a bit of work I've managed to get the Remote Race API figured out for the most part, so I've been working on building a mobile web based app. I've been posting over in the official forums up to now, but I was messaged and told about this site and asked if I'd be willing to bring my work over here! So for the time being I'll be updating both locations, although my more technical updates will go here (just incase PD starts watching my posts over there and decides to ban my server or something).

I'd do a native client, but I really don't want to rebuild the app in C#/Java/Objective-C over and over again...plus I don't have a Mac, so it'd be Android/WP7 only, and as much as I dislike Apple, I don't wanna leave the iPhone racers in the cold.


Alpha 2 is up and running.

Thanks to GTP_Jordan for showing me this site!


What's working:

* Login
* Friends List
* Driver Lists under friends list
* Select Track
* Select Your Drivers to Race
* Select your Opponents
* START A RACE

What's Not:

* Friend's profile
* race status / etc.
* track and car image loading

This should give you guys a good basis to start testing your devices on.

URL: http://gt5mobile.com

Just visit the above URL on your mobile device! NO INSTALL NEEDED! Should work with any mobile device and mobile browser.


Please post the following information to report bugs/errors:

Sample

Bug: cannot login

Device: HTC EVO 4G

OS Version: Android 2.3

Browser: Android Browser

Browser Version: unknown (latest version)
 
Last edited:
*UPDATE*

I've got the RaceStatus work cycle started. You should now be able to do the full cycle, from starting a race, to watching the progress, to returning to the landing page and starting a new race!

I've still got to figure out how they do all the timing calculations, add lap tims, and figure out the gap calculation too. Otherwise, it's on to bug squashing, error retry logic, and a bit of clean-up and housekeeping of the UI.
 
If I remember right, the server just reports the time every so often and the web page might calculate it from there. i.e. some remote races have been "stuck" and the counter keeps on going well into the 40 minute times, but when you refresh, it might go back to 17 minutes or whereever the race froze.

At least that's what happened when my Bob got stuck in time.
 
does this work on blackberry too?? my PS3 is not in server standby mode right now or i would test myself. i was able to go to the link in the thread on my blackberry and was able to logon. so that part works. anyone else try on their blackberry??
 
checked out your site, but let me ask this. and i guess let me say i have an evo phone. what is the difference between your app and just going to the website itself? i just go to the website on my phone if i want. works fine.

the https thing i dont so much care about, but giving up my user name and pw to someone i dont know is a little sketchy.
 
lav01
the https thing i dont so much care about, but giving up my user name and pw to someone i dont know is a little sketchy.
Click to expand...
thats exactly the problem about not using https. without using https and validating the cert, it means that anyone could be listening to what is going on between you and the server including your username and password. places where this would be a real threat would be a public wifi access point, or any network using WEP.
 
You can use the widget and browse the website with this app independently just so long as you don't try to start a race with the website (otherwise you will make certain drivers unavailable and may cause the widget to fail).
 
Last Night's Update:

Ok, HUGE cleanup of the code-base was done last night. Also I've added in retry logic and some error handling.

I've also added and enabled the SSL cert, so all site traffic is now automatically redirected through SSL...so no more security issues there.

Let me know how it works!

Also switched ad providers.

As odyss3y said, you can use this and the widget at the same time; although I don't know how much it would conflict with each other.

I don't plan on automating this, as most smartphones don't keep the browser running JS in the background very well.

I've still got a bit of a glitch that I've gotta work on today where it's not properly loading the RaceStatus.aspx page once you hit "Start Race". However, if you go back to the landing page, and then hit start race, it should take you to the status page and do the ajax calls to give you updates just fine.
 
lav01
checked out your site, but let me ask this. and i guess let me say i have an evo phone. what is the difference between your app and just going to the website itself? i just go to the website on my phone if i want. works fine.

the https thing i dont so much care about, but giving up my user name and pw to someone i dont know is a little sketchy.
Click to expand...

The difference really is just ease of use. My web-app is more finger friendly, and as I continue to work on it, it will be easier to use, and easier to read on a smartphone, as it is designed specifically for a mobile device's screen size.

Aside from that, there's no functional difference (minus the features I'm still working on, like lap times, etc).
 
SeiGGy
Last Night's Update:

Ok, HUGE cleanup of the code-base was done last night. Also I've added in retry logic and some error handling.

I've also added and enabled the SSL cert, so all site traffic is now automatically redirected through SSL...so no more security issues there.

Let me know how it works!

Also switched ad providers.

As odyss3y said, you can use this and the widget at the same time; although I don't know how much it would conflict with each other.

I don't plan on automating this, as most smartphones don't keep the browser running JS in the background very well.

I've still got a bit of a glitch that I've gotta work on today where it's not properly loading the RaceStatus.aspx page once you hit "Start Race". However, if you go back to the landing page, and then hit start race, it should take you to the status page and do the ajax calls to give you updates just fine.
Click to expand...

I was not automatically redirected but did validate the cert.
 
thanks for answering my question. one more though. is there anyway you could make it to reload the race and start automatically? or at least reload the racers?
 
I'm about to push out a patch that should fix the issues with the race status.

lav01: so have it go to the track select page, instead of the landing page after a race finishes?

Or do you want all the checkboxes automatically checked (I'm planning to add a checkbox that says "add all racers" for both the player profile, and the friends profile screens.)
 
Sorry for the lack of updates the last few days guys. Had a busy weekend. Paintball with some friends on saturday, and then sunday I was in so much pain that it hurt to walk (I'm soo outa shape!)

Anywho, I fixed a bunch of bugs over the weekend, and worked more on a lot of the retry code. Also fixed the weird issue of it no loading the RaceStatus page properly. So we're very near a beta release. I just want to add in the lap time and gap code before I officially declare it beta.

Also, found a oversite on my end. Apparenly you can only race one of your own drivers in a remote race? Either that or I'm doing something wrong on my end. If so, I've gotta update that page so it only allows you to pick one driver.


So now that we're nearing beta. I need more feedback on look/feel of things. Any ideas to improve the flow of things, where you want pages to go to, any features you want added. Etc.

So here's a list of Planned and Will Not Implement features:

Planned:
* Time Gap calculation
* Lap Times
* End of Race Stats with option to return to landing page or go start a new race immediately
* Select all available drivers (up to first 15 listed)

Will Not implement:
* Automated racing. There's someone else that has been working on a Yahoo! Widget for this, and to me it's kinda cheating. So I won't be implementing anything that automates things completely.
* Anything silly that I can't do, such as "Issue Commands"; unless of course PD adds the feature first

I've decided that I will be building mobile native clients for at least the Android phones. The SDK is free, and I can release an APK without using their marketplace. If I get enough donations (or when MS opens WinMo7 up to out-of-market software), I'll do WinMo7 ($99 app submission cost) and iPhone (going to cost me about $200 due to purchase of a Windows based SDK, and the services required to build the app remotely and then submit to Apple). I've already started work on stripping all the functionality of the app out to web services, so that's the first step in making this stuff native. The money that you guys have donated so far allowed me to pay for this month's hosting, and buy the SSL certificate for the next year. So that's really awesome, and thanks to everyone who's donated and clicked on the adds on the site.
 
Get rid of driver stats when selecting drivers to race with, B spec level is all thats realy needed if you can, It will save a lot of screen space, you're selecting 16 drivers thats alot of screen space for no reason. you only need to tick a driver on a friend then move on.
 
I don't think it will.
The PSN has had LOADs of security updates.
The Remote race widget by yonis for computers had to have updates for each time PSN updated the login system.
Yet this topic was dead till you bumped it.
 
GraphiteGB
I don't think it will.
The PSN has had LOADs of security updates.
The Remote race widget by yonis for computers had to have updates for each time PSN updated the login system.
Yet this topic was dead till you bumped it.
Click to expand...

Just wanted to know if it works. And I didn't want to create a new thread if there is one already here.
 

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