Recent posts by CaptainCaveman on Kongregate

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

Tiny update released, version 1.5.11. The only changes made are that the extension is now compliant with all AMO policies… That leads to good things: Mozilla will now, after reviewing, automatically update the maxVersion to keep up with the Firefox releases), and less good things: I had to drop the “unofficial update available” check from the extension…

I can still write an unofficial update notification here though: http://www.captaincaveman.nl/firefox-extensions-kongregate-sidebar.aspx ;)
Compatible up to Firefox 12.0a1 (at the moment of writing this)

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

Hi all, back again :)
I hate to say it @Illucoran, but all those actions you took were quite irrelevant I’m afraid. It was “just” another case of Kongregate writing some invalid HTML on (I think the challenges or the profile) pages which is unfortunately still causing problems for the sidebar every now and then… As long as not data is available through save JSON feeds we will every now and then experience problems like these, I will of course try to prevent them where I can.

Just a small tip for next time, when something like this happens check the Error Console (CTRL+SHIFT+J) of Firefox first for Kongregate related errors. You can also enable the Kongregate sidebar’s debug mode in the options window to log a bit more in the error console.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

New update version 1.5.9:

v Made the cards/challenges work again for the updated html, and simplified the screen scraping a bit

v Tested on Firefox 6

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

Maybe just uninstall 1.5.7 first, restart and then install 1.5.8 in case of update problems?

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

Just to be sure, you did try to install 1.5.8 from my website did you? Cause the official AMO version has not yet been reviewed
http://www.captaincaveman.nl/firefox-extensions-kongregate-sidebar.aspx

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

The loading circle only indicates that it’s retrieving data from the Kongregate website, and over here it is still showing (though just briefly). After that it’s crunching your Firefox to add the 1500+ badges to the list, and while doing that the busy indicator would be stuck anyway so not that useful…

1500+… I think it’s time to redesign the sidebar a bit to do some smarter loading cause it’s beginning to ask a bit too much perhaps…

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

New update version 1.5.8:
v Don’t reset the filter when hiding badges
v Changed the default shortcut key to CTRL + SHIFT + S, configurable in the options window)
v Resized the level images a bit
v Added a “Level cap reached” text for those level 65 heroes
v Tested on Firefox 5

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

Terrible isn’t it? That Mozilla does not even look at a world changing addon like the Kong sidebar before it decides to brutally steal OUR shortcut key…

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

@Nathanyel
1. Category would be nice, but I can’t add data that Kongregate does not provide. So until there’s a category in the JSON feed, or perhaps even the game’s tags, I can’t add this.
2. Same story for friends basically, there’s not a whole lot of information available on them…
3. That’s strange, there’s not even a reset feature for the hidden badges, it’s just a Firefox preference where I store the ID’s of badges you hid. Did you happen to loose other settings as well at that time? I will have a close look through the code to search for theoretical causes for this.
4. It should not indeed, will fix that.

@Gama11
1. 65 levels is indeed the cap for the algorithm, shall I just write “Hero!” there instead? I’ll think of something.
2. It does look slightly resized. Will have a look at it.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

The badges feed is updating again thanks to duncanbeevers and all his colleagues ;)

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

The badges json feed appears to be broken, it no longer updates. The last badge available according to the official feed is indeed Rebuild. I have contacted Kongregate support about it.

@Bobogoobo, I will add the timestamp in the next release.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

Sorry for the long delay in the update, I kept doubting whether or not to wait for Kongregate to add some new features for me… Today I decided it was just time to do a big cleanup and at least give you all a working update again. A lot has been stripped from the extension however because it’s simply no longer supported by Kongregate. Maybe some things will be added back in the future, but maybe not, I can’t tell… Though I did do a big cleanup, removing things of which I am sure they wont come back, I did leave in the empty favorites for now, simply because the chance of it coming back, and the work needed to clean it up did not make it worth it… For now… Let’s just cross our fingers ;)

New update version 1.5.7:
v Removed almost all HTML screen scraping code as it was causing problems too often. This means no more shouts, whispers, awards and total cards count
v By holding down modifier keys when pressing the [Copy statistics] button you can copy the data in different formats:
- No modifiers: Textile data for on your profile page
- CTRL: Plain HTML list
- CTRL + ALT: HTML list with game images
- CTRL + SHIFT: Complete badge list as semicolon separated data.
v Bugfix: The customizable keyboard shortcut was only being applied if the sidebar was open
v Tested on Firefox 4.0b8

EDIT Since one of the things currently broken is the update notification, you can download this update from my website

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

Time for a little update. The reason the original feed was removed was for security/privacy reasons, fair enough so no discussion from me on that. There is another json feed that I can use which is, and will be, supported by Kongregate, but unfortunately that one does not contain awards, friends online, level image and favorites… I am still hopefully awaiting a reply on my plea to add that information as optional data to the feed, but chances of that are slim because that feed is heavily used by all/some games on the site so it would become too “heavy” for Kong’s servers. But one may always hope.

For now it’s been long enough already so I will release an update asap. The update will have the missing information removed for now… :( But better that than the white empty box you’ve all been looking at for the past few weeks.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

The JSON feed for the user profile box has been removed, changed and moved to a different location all at once. Because of that the profile box in your sidebar is currently quite empty… I have already contacted Andrew asking him about the changes in location, and about the missing features in the new JSON (awards, friends online, and favorites are gone…)

Stay tuned.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

New update version 1.5.6.1:

v Bugfix: The customizable keyboard shortcut was only being applied if the sidebar was open.

v Tested on Firefox 4.0b6.

@y0ttabyte sorry about the late reply…

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

New update version 1.5.6:

v Made the shouts and whispers work again with Kongregate’s new message center.

v Tested on Firefox 4.0b1.

Topic: Technical Support / Flash Trouble, some games won't start. Help please?

I found a possible cause for this issue, but not yet a solution, perhaps a flash developer can assess the errors better than I can.

I installed the debug version of the Flash Player (http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html) which showed me a null object reference for all failing games. Looking at the decompiled code (without having any real ActionScript experience) I think all of the 4 errors indicate something with audio. I of course immediately tried disabling my onboard sound, and installing other drivers, but the errors remain. Help?

EDIT
Should have remembered that coincidences do exist… Though all 4 of the non working games gave a similar error… Games that do work often also give similar errors… Back to square one or does this help anyone?

LightBot 2.0
TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at Lightbot2_fla::MainTimeline/frame4()[Lightbot2_fla.MainTimeline::frame4:13]
at flash.display::MovieClip/nextFrame()
at Lightbot2_fla::MainTimeline/enterLogo()[Lightbot2_fla.MainTimeline::frame3:84]

Tower of Greed
TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at Control$/changeLoop()
at Global$/changeLoop()
at PlayScreen()
at Main/setScreen()
at Control$/setScreen()
at HandHoldScreen/run()
at Main/run()
at Control$/run()

Continuity
TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at TDA.audio::TDASound/play()
at TDA.systems.audio::MusicSystem()
at TDA.systems.audio::AudioSystem()
at Continuity()
at _Continuity_mx_managers_SystemManager/create()
at mx.managers::SystemManager/initializeTopLevelWindow()
at mx.managers::SystemManager/http://www.adobe.com/2006/flex/mx/internal::docFrameHandler()
at mx.managers::SystemManager/docFrameListener()

Enough Plumbers
TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at Banks::CSound/play()
at Application::CSoundPlayer/play()
at Actions::ACT_PLAYSAMPLE/execute()
at Events::CEventProgram/call_Actions()
at Events::CEventProgram/computeEventList()
at Events::CEventProgram/compute_TimerEvents()
at RunLoop::CRun/f_GameLoop()
at RunLoop::CRun/doRunLoop()
at Application::CRunApp/loopFrame()
at Application::CRunApp/playApplication()
at Application::CRunApp/stepApplication()

Topic: Technical Support / Flash Trouble, some games won't start. Help please?

Yes it is indeed that same problem.
Is there any chance to gather the developers of at least these 4 games and ask them if there’s anything specific they do in the first frame of their games?

Topic: Technical Support / Flash Trouble, some games won't start. Help please?

Searched for about 2 weeks now, but can’t find a solution to this issue. I’m also having the exact same problem, some games (Continuity, Enough Plumbers, Lightbot 2.0 and more) will only load until the “main menu”, and fail to load the actual game loop. In these cases the main menu animation does appear to work (links to developer sites work, hover animations work etc.) but in LightBot 2 for example hitting the “Play” button does nothing. My current and only guess is that all of these flash movies try to initialize/load a specific flash “thing” at that point which fails because of permissions/memory access/graphic capabilities?

Notable things:
- Windows 7 Ultimate, 2GB mem, NVidia Gforce 8600GT graphics
- Occurs on Firefox, IE and Chrome
- Occurs with FlashPlayer 9.x, 10.x and 10.1.x (uninstalls done using the uninstaller+reboot)
- Occurs with virus software disabled (Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition)
- Occurs with Windows Firewall disabled
- Works just fine on the “same” (different hardware) pc of my colleague sitting next to me
- Occurs using the standard Windows WDM video driver as well as NVidia’s own official driver
- Occurs after login in as local administrator
- Occurs when the .sol file does not yet exist

I’m lost here… Anyone any ideas?

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

Big thanks to Andrew and his colleagues, it’s all working again!

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

The JSON feed does appear to have died last night or so (HTTP 503 on e.g. http://www.kongregate.com/accounts/captaincaveman/badges.json), I’ve contacted Kongregate staff about it and hope it will get fixed asap.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

New update version 1.5.5:

v Updated Copy Stats text, now includes “all achieved” texts for each difficulty.

v Bugfix: Fixed a couple of issues with friends loading and displaying (now that it all works again, it might prove too slow for people with a lot of friends…)

v Bugfix: Changes on the website broke the current cards scraping.

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

Better late then never, friends do indeed appear to be broken… Working on it!

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

That should not be a problem, but I’m wondering if striking the line would look best, IMHO making the entire line italic and no bold 0 would look better. Opinions?

A: Easy badges: 0 left (276 of 276 = 100%)
B: Easy badges: 0 left (276 of 276 = 100%)
C: Don’t show the line at all
D: Easy badges: Achieved

Topic: Kongregate / Kongregate Sidebar Firefox Extension

New update version 1.5.4:

v Reformatted the Copy Stats text using textile formatting.

v Bugfix: Long challenge names overlapped the challenge description.

A new version for Chrome was on my wish list, but then my other wish Leanne was born :) When I have a bit more free time again I’ll try and do it, but if someone else wants to, please feel free to go ahead and make it.