Show HN: My first project – Football voting app built in RubyMotion

by bg23 • 12 years ago

73 65 12 years ago

logikblok• 12 years ago

Hey this looks impressive. Something I can use to end arguments as well where can I deliver feedback once I start using it? Cheers

bg2315• 12 years ago

Yes thanks, any feedback is very much welcome!

dvcc• 12 years ago

Does this exist for general opinions? Looks awesome overall.

bg2315• 12 years ago

I think a few have tried but nothing major I don't think. I recall a site called Opinsy a year or so back.

My initial thoughts we're creating it on a subject I was passionate about, as I personally wouldn't go on a generalist site to argue my opinion's about chalk then about cheese.

But the concept can be applied to anything of course.

netskrill• 12 years ago

I'm learning Rubymotion myself. Can you list out the different technologies/gems used in this? RMQ, teacup, etc...?

This looks really nice, btw.

bg2315• 12 years ago

Thank you.

I bought Rubymotion in November and it took me a month or two testing out different gems etc.

I ended up using RMQ, CDQ, Restkit, formotion, bits of bubblewrap

wuliwong13• 12 years ago

Did you try promotion at all? I've made a few toy apps with RMQ and now have been trying Promotion. I think I'm going to stick with Promotion but would love to hear anyone's experience with the various frameworks.

Omnipresent3• 12 years ago

This looks great! I'm in the process of building my first iOS app with Rubymotion. May I ask where you got all the awesome looking icons and whether you used RMQ? Awesome work!

bg2315• 12 years ago

Thanks! I'm using RMQ for the front end and CDQ (also created from infinitered) for the Models and backend syncing.

The icons are from https://flaticons.co/

Omnipresent3• 12 years ago

awesome. I loved RMQ. I can't imagine the level of detail in your cell stylesheets though :) looks fantastic.

wuliwong13• 12 years ago

I'm also trying out rubymotion. :) I'm trying out promotion. I gave RMQ a try but I think promotion will get me up and running faster which is really important to me. And if you guys wanna help a fellow rubymotion noob out, take a look at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23233485/add-uiimage-from... :)

PS. I'll download the app and take a look. Did you see that the top paid app in the app store right now is a rubymotion app??!

Omnipresent3• 12 years ago

I'll take a look at the question in a bit but from my experience, the support for rubymotion on SO isn't great. You are better off asking something in the mailing list or in #rubymotion room in irc.freenode.net especially if colinta or mark rickert are present. They are great and extremely helpful.

wuliwong13• 12 years ago

I've been using icons from http://www.glyphish.com/. They let you use them for free but I think they ask you to credit them somehow. I'm still hacking around, so I haven't found out exactly what that means but I'd be happy to add a link to my "about" page pointing to them if that's what they are asking.

nowlnowl• 12 years ago

Thinking about an Android version?

bg2315• 12 years ago

Yes definately.

mwcampbell• 12 years ago

Is there any good way to port a RubyMotion app to Android? Or would you have to rewrite it?

wuliwong13• 12 years ago

I don't believe that is possible. I think the closest thing would be http://ruboto.org/ which allows you to code native Android apps in ruby.

waterside81• 12 years ago

As a football fan, this looks like it can be fun. Especially as you're watching the game live, create a poll to see the opinion of people in real-time during a controversial play e.g. "Was Rooney tripped or did he dive?". Good stuff bg23.

One small nitpick: on your demo screen shots, you have "Which is the best player?". It should be "Who" not "Which".

bg2315• 12 years ago

Thanks waterside, and thanks for picking that error up.

Completely envision the app working in real-time too. Also for man of the match voting etc.

Future versions will also include a breakdown of the votes by supporters as Football is a tribal sport and opinions are biased towards your club.

Thanks for the feedback

nelmaven• 12 years ago

I think this will be a especially fun for the World Cup. Good stuff!

rkuykendall-com• 12 years ago

I agree with the "event" polls aspect. There should be a way to say that you are live-watching a specific event and get/create realtime polls.

Microsoft did this with the presidential debates and it was a blast. I'm not a sports guy, but once this app is more developed you may consider forking it to politics or TV shows or maybe just generic mass events.

wingerlang2• 12 years ago

Is that a volleyball in the logo though?

soneca• 12 years ago

It is a very old football one: https://icfut.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/files_37988_201003...

But I agree he should have gone with the traditional one: http://donosdacopa.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bola-mexico-1...

brycekahle• 12 years ago

Volleyballs generally have 3 parallel panels, while the older style footballs have 2.

leemcalilly2• 12 years ago

+1 for the old school ball

bg2315• 12 years ago

Still trying to figure out how to add a piechart/barchart into the logo...

wingerlang2• 12 years ago

You could have a line-chart with the ball at the end? Like this(ish) http://imgur.com/FGFGjI8

markcrazyhorse• 12 years ago

Love the site design too

leemcalilly2• 12 years ago

Just in time for the world cup!

m4tthumphrey• 12 years ago

Looks awesome man. I presume there are no plans for Android at this time? :)

bg2315• 12 years ago

There are definitely plans, I would like to get round to it asap really....

wlj• 12 years ago

Impressive. Really like the design.

A quick note...on your Twitter auth page it's not possible to paste usernames and passwords into the fields. Probably not a huge problem for most but my passwords are at the long and un-typeable end of the spectrum and I normally paste these in from a separate password manager app.

bg2315• 12 years ago

Thanks for the heads up. I will look into improving that!

finalight• 12 years ago

too bad only for ios, furthermore the SDK that you use can only be deployed to ios as well

bg2315• 12 years ago

Well if the app is successful I plan on releasing it for Android and on the web

knes• 12 years ago

Really great idea and looks like it it well executed.

On a side note, I really enjoy the new turn of HN moderation which let a lot more of cool project / show HN rise to the front page.

Good job bg23!

ppanagi• 12 years ago

Or google, intitle:show hn site:news.ycombinator.com

joshdance• 12 years ago

For a first project, design looks pretty great. It it works like it looks, nice work!

wuliwong13• 12 years ago

Just installed it, seems to run great and it looks good too. Selfishly, I would LOVE if you wrote an article about implementing signup with facebook/twitter via rubymotion. What did you write your server using?

bg2315• 12 years ago

Happy to write an article on that. I initially built the website using Ruby on Rails and had twitter/facebook omniauth implemented.

It was then a simple case of displaying a web view in the app with login similar to how you would on the web, then diverting back to the app upon login.

wuliwong13• 12 years ago

awesome, what's your twitter handle or website? I was thinking the webview might be the simplest way to go. I wonder if you get any extra functionality by tying into iOS's facebook/twitter stuff? Might be easier for things like "post to facebook" and the like.

JSno• 12 years ago

Great app. I have tried. Registred as MANUTD fan. your app gives me some Norwich polls I don't care. Maybe that is something this fabulous app can improve. thanks!

bg2315• 12 years ago

When you log in initially you are following 'Footpoll'. The main page is similar to twitter dependent on who you are following. You can go to the categories section to view Man Utd polls.

goshx• 12 years ago

Did you find help to translate it to portuguese yet? Brazil will love this.

zscho97• 12 years ago

I've been debating about learning code for a while. Really like what you did. How long did it take you to learn and develop?

tejaswiy• 12 years ago

I feel there needs to be an expiry date on polls. I'm still getting questions on who's going to win in past football games.

almata2• 12 years ago

There's one thing I totally disliked: I hate when I need to login as the very first required step. I (may) still don't know what the app does and I already have to login or create an account. To me, that's a bad user experience and in general I uninstall apps that do that. Very few apps really need the user to be logged in from moment zero. I would suggest to let the user see what the app is for, so he feels by himself how cool it'd be to have an account to use the app at its 100%.

wuliwong13• 12 years ago

I understand this argument but I don't believe it is a slam dunk. On the web, a user has invested nothing other than a click or possibly typing a url. On mobile, a user has already downloaded and installed the app. They have more invested, so you would think, are more likely to create an account.

That being said, you are certainly making the "funnel" smaller at the top but possibly the slope of the edges are more forgiving to the app developer as the user progresses down the conversion funnel?

almata2• 12 years ago

I don't know. I know apps requiring login as step zero have a higher rate of "installdeletes" (I myself do that usually). Not sure if the users who actually decide to stay (so, to login) are then "better users". It could be. It actually makes sense. But I have no data about that tbf.

dan1234• 12 years ago

Here's a bug:

I signed up via email, I was told my username had already been taken but then it let me go to the next screen and create polls with that username.

I like it though, nice design & well executed.

anupshinde2• 12 years ago

This question might be a bit naive. I'm developing a similar app and I have not developed full mobile apps earlier - I started with Phonegap. Was there a reason why you did not consider that?

bg2315• 12 years ago

I came from a zero programming background and built the website in Ruby on Rails whilst learning Ruby.

I wanted to build a fully native app for the best user experience and really enjoyed learning ruby, Rubymotion seemed like the perfect fit and it didn't disappoint.

I still have the limitation with Android of course...

anupshinde2• 12 years ago

Great work! Where/How did you learn Ruby (and programming)?

livestyle• 12 years ago

Really clean design.

This reminds me of the Heineken Star Player app from a couple of years ago.

http://www.akqa.com/approach/social/case-studies/heineken-st...

I work for a pro sporting league and have need for the same experience.

Show HN: My first project – Football voting app built in RubyMotion

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