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Cant' submit app to online database


Electrosokk
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I recently submitted a new application (ArsClip) to the online database, but later I could not find there, so I checked my log:

Could not submit 'ArsClip' to the online database: Unhandled XML_RPC2_Exception exception:The application name is missing.

After that I re-shared several my apps, but none of them get updated online. They had the same error as ArsClip.

Since all my apps have name (obviously), the issue must be with the online database.

Edited by Electrosokk
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  • 2 weeks later...
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I tried it in early June with several new apps but received the errors that the Electosokk described. Similarly, I have updated a couple app profiles and see no change in the online database. A quick look through the db with single-letter search terms suggests that not a single app has been updated or added since May 5th. IOW, this is still a problem.

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Yeah the online DB is sketchy at best. Always has been. And if no one is doing maintenance on it then something goes belly up sooner or later.

One of my friends has actually stopped sharing to ODB because of confilts with some ancient abandoned apps in there. Frankly im considering doing the same. Im sick of having to find creative names to my apps so i can submit them and as evidenced by this topic it still doesent work. So why should i even attempt to submit when no-one benefits from it?

 

I suggested ODB reset a long time ago. Unfortunately florian (dev) did not agree.

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Yeah the online database...it definately needs some refinement. I'm not quite sure which way to go. Resetting doesn't really solve anything in the long run.

 

The question is

- How do we prevent submission of garbage (apps that simply don't work)

- Handle multiple uploads of the same app (with same or similar name)

- Detemine if apps are still up-to-date or obsolete

 

Not sure if some kind of voting mechanism would help? I am open to suggestions, maybe I'll get some time to spend on that during the holidays. Wouldn't hurt to give Ketarin an update again.

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- Handle multiple uploads of the same app (with same or similar name)

Perhaps GUID based check? The app XML already contains an unique GUID. This would allow duplicate names easily.

- How do we prevent submission of garbage (apps that simply don't work)

This is a bit more tricky. Perhaps save the last EXIT code value into XML and check that?

- Detemine if apps are still up-to-date or obsolete

Dont know about this one.

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- How do we prevent submission of garbage (apps that simply don't work)

Tie it to reputation.

 

Tie submissions AND voting to the forum username so we can purge the spam and reduce the risk of crap getting in there.

 

In order to upload app profiles, the user should have to have an account on the forum here, and the apps can be listed within the forum somehow for voting. It should be implemented something similar to this:

http://community.opendns.com/

It's a very simple polling system that allows tracking of specific profiles (in this case domains) and up or down voting.

 

 

- Handle multiple uploads of the same app (with same or similar name)

I would rather have a dozen apps of the same name or profile and slightly different implementations, than have only 1 with a very poor accuracy or that doesn't work (which is usually why more were created). This is one of my biggest annoyances with the online database. I found an app in the database, but it doesn't work. So I devote my time to make a new one -- but it's forbidden based on a similar name. So now in order to share it I have to rename mine. I *hate* having abnormal app names stored locally, so this is a real problem for me. I end up not being able to submit my fixes because the name is taken and, well, I'm a little neurotic. :(

 

 

- Determine if apps are still up-to-date or obsolete

On the Ketarin side, track success/fail on an app GUID basis locally and optionally (with permission, of course) submit this data to the online database to help identify broken apps. This could be as simple as a counter -- [guid, success, counter] and [guid, fail, counter] -- so it should take up minimal space in the local database. If the specific app is configured to return a non-pass value within the 'pre-update' command, do not increment pass or failure. It would be nice to have these counters available as app variables, too, so we can see them as a column. ;)

 

Also on the Ketarin side, display the App Name, Contributor, GUID and a 'quality' rating within the database lookup. This will help people identify quality submissions as well as identify a specific app profile if we talk about it in the forum or on one of our sites. Maybe even have a web-viewable download link based on the GUID, something like "/database/guid/xxx-yyy-zzz" so we can link to a specific app profile within the forum.

 

"Quality" would be a simple formula like [successes+1/failures] and could be red, black or green based on the rating. Anything over a 5/1 ratio should be considered high quality (green); anything under 2/1 should be considered low quality (red); anything between those two would be average (black); and anything with a severe negative value (1/2) would not be publicly listed at all, though could still be found within the search if the query is a GUID. As success counters are processed over time it would be possible that hidden apps would show up again and the quality rating would normalize so short-term server outages and such wouldn't result in long-term blacklisting of an app.

 

A download count is nice, but recently it only really indicates whether an app is more likely broken than not. A quality rating (does it *still* work!?) is far more important.

 

I'm happy to code up some of this. I've never coded for IP Board but there are over 700 mods for it so it shouldn't be too hard to get some of this integrated into the Ketarin online db.

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This quality rating thing could indeed work and is not too hard to implement either.

Linking it to forum users might not be hard either, if I add a custom field in user profiles that allows entering your GUID it should be rather easy to use this for the app database. I just added such a field (only readable by yourself), so that part seems to work fine. I need to expose your GUID in the Ketarin about screen though so that you can actually copy&paste it.

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  • 1 month later...

I thought through the options for a while and I think it would indeed be best for now if we could integrate the app database into IPB.

 

I would like the apps be displayed like forum topics in a separate "virtual" forum. The list would include the app name, author (if registered and GUID specified in custom profile field), the number of downloads (instead of views), creation date, modificationd date and the rating (font colors green/red/black depending on rating). The list should be sortable and paginated like forum topics too. Opening a "topic" will result in displaying detailed information about the app (what exactly needs to be determined and would require some XML parsing). Voting should be possible in the list like suggested (up/down) and deletion should also be possible (for moderators only). If not too much effort, searching the forum would also be great. Each post should display an attachment that downloads the application as XML file.

 

I don't know how difficult this is to create as addon for IPB. If you (shawn) think you can easily do this, feel free, otherwise I would actually post a job offer on http://community.invisionpower.com/resources/projects. I don't mind spending some money on this.

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Hello!

I have the same issue: online database doesn't reflect my updates to my shared apps. Also, despite entered author's GUID in my online profile, I see no my app profiles here (particularly in the profile section).

Ketarin 1.8.7.0

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  • 6 months later...

@Rainie please go to https://ketarin.org/forum/settings/ and enter the GUID from the "Author" field in the image above. This is a required step in uploading to the online database.

You should also check the online database to ensure that none of the existing Applications use the exact same name as your app, and that you actually created the app profile locally and did not modify an existing one. If you did not create it then the 'Guid' field (if you copy it) will not be unique to your app profile either, and will need to be modified/recreated so yours will sync. 

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