Flickr Addict – New Dojo powered app for the Palm Pre
Posted by Shane O'Sullivan on December 1, 2009
Flickr Addict, my second Dojo powered mobile application for the Palm Pre and Pixi has just been released in the Palm App Catalog. Flickr Addict automatically downloads and displays a rotating set of great wallpapers for your Palm phone.
For users who just want very high quality wallpapers on their phone, auto-downloaded and changed on a regular basis, Flickr Addict gives you all you need.
For Flickr members who want to show their own photos, or the latest images from contacts, Flickr Addict gives you the control to select users and photo sets to download.
There are also a number of other options such as searching for photos that match a particular tag, or photos from the iPhone Wallpapers group.
For those interested in technical matters, Flickr Addict was written using Palm’s SDK and the Dojo Ajax Toolkit.
Flickr Addict – New Dojo powered app for the Palm Pre « SOS | High technology information said
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Frankcesca said
Oh my god! This application is so cool! I’m so happy that I bought it! Good work SOS!
Nick said
This is such a great app, exactly what I was looking for. One question: I created a set to use for wallpapers, with about 30 images in it. I have Flickr Addict set up to download 10 images. It looks like only the first 10 images from the set get downloaded, is that right? It would be nice if it could randomly pick the 10 images from the set.
Shane O'Sullivan said
Hi Nick,
At the moment it’s designed to take the latest images. The idea is that you use it to keep track of the latest photos uploaded from particular users. Could you not tell it to download 30 photos? If you want to keep showing those photos, you can disable the auto-download of new images by setting the “Download At” preference to “Disabled”
Shane
Nick said
OK, I see what you mean, that makes sense. Sure, I could tell Flickr Addict to grab all the photos in the set, but right now I have it set to rotate once per hour, so I wouldn’t get through them all, even if I waited all day. That’s no problem as long as it would eventually get through all 30 – i.e., it would go through 24 in the first 24 hours, and then cycle through the next 6 before repeating. It sounds like if I turn off auto-download, that would be the case?
Of course I could just pare down the number of photos in the set, or have them rotate more frequently, neither of which is a big deal for me.
Your app came out with great timing actually – my wife had bought an app for her Pixi that rotates through backgrounds, but you can’t customize the backgrounds, which she was bummed about. Also, I had already written a little webOS Flickr viewer for my own use. So just a couple days ago that gave me the idea to write an app for her (and me) that does exactly what Flickr Addict does. I’m lazy though so I am very happy to use yours instead
Nick
Shane O'Sullivan said
Hi Nick,
It would be pretty simple to put a “randomize” option into the scene where you choose a set. I’ll look into doing that for the next release.
Nick said
Thanks Shane, that would be great! For now, your suggestion to download all photos and then disable auto-download is working well.
thanks,
Nick
jn said
Are you only pulling down images marked Creative Commons or all images? It is probably not a good idea to make images marked “All Rights Reserved” available. Especially if you intend to allow people to use them as wallpaper.
Shane O'Sullivan said
I pull down all images. However they don’t appear in the users photos, you have no choice to save them, and they’re deleted every day. This is essentially the same as someone right clicking on an image in a desktop browser and choosing “Use as Wallpaper”, but without even letting them at the photos. So it’s more secure than that.
Jn said
It’s not a question if it is secure. It’s more a question if copyright is being violated. If a picture is marked “all rights reserved”, that’s what it means. Being able to right-click save does not mean that it is right or okay to do so, particularly if permission is not granted. This use case would also likely not fall under any sort of “fair use” provision.
Additionally, given that Flickr Addict is a for-pay app, copyright owners might (and probably have a case for it) object to their pictures used in such a manner. The Flickr API allows for pulling only CC pictures, I would recommend doing so to avoid running afoul of any complications later.
IANAL but just thought you should be aware of the potential pitfalls.
Shane O'Sullivan said
Jn,
Thanks for the info. I’ll look into it.
Neil said
would love options to:
1. crop a photo to fit (rather than centering it or stretching it)
2. put a randomize option as you mentioned above
3. change the selected photo set of a user without having to delete the user and re-add them
Shane O'Sullivan said
Hi Neil,
I implemented #2 last night. #3 is in the works.
#1 might come a little later. However the main idea behind Flickr Addict is that you don’t have to manually set the wallpapers, so it’s less of a priority.
Thanks for the suggestions
Shane
Flickr Addict gets a huge upgrade « SOS said
[...] Flickr Addict – New Dojo powered app for the Palm Pre [...]
Chris said
Great app. I too would like to be able to update a user (change set, change latest to random) without having to delete and re-add. Basically #3 above.
I find that Flickr Addict allows me to add only five users. When I add a sixth, a white bar is displayed in the “PHOTOS FROM USERS’ list following the fifth user. Is there supposed to be a 5-user limit?
Shane O'Sullivan said
Hi Chris,
No, there’s no 5 user limit, I’ve just never tested it with that many users
I’ll look into it.
The next version will have user editing in it, thanks for the suggestion.
Shane
Chris said
Interestingly, it seems that when I enter a sixth user, the white bar appears and Flickr Addict doesn’t pull pictures from that user. If I then delete one of the five displayed users, the white bar disappears, the user name appears, and Flickr Addict starts pulling pictures from that user. So you do remember the user.
Shane O'Sullivan said
Ah OK, I know what the bug is. It’s easily fixed, and will be in the next version of Flickr Addict. Thanks for letting me know.
Andrew said
Hey, I’m still having the problem where it won’t let me use more than one tag. It’s only grabbing the “interesting photos” if i have more than one tag. I paid for the full version of the app and this isn’t an isolated incident, as after that last update, the same thing is true for a friend of mine who has the palm pre as well. What’s the deal?
Shane O'Sullivan said
Hi Andrew,
I know, I’ve been trying to submit an updated fix, but the Palm developer portal is broken, and has been for over a week now – see the forum discussion at http://developer.palm.com/distribution/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=8387
As soon as I’m able to submit the fix, I will. Apologies for the bug, I missed it in the last release.
Shane
Andrew said
oh, okay. Ya it’s just kinda lame we can only have one tag. When it’s fixed, is there just an update we’ll need to download?
Shane O'Sullivan said
Yes, you should see it as an available update, hopefully soon