Frank Moricz


Web Portfolio and Art Gallery

Magic made with caffeine and a keyboard.

Clipping Along - Monday, February 11th

There have been a couple of different projects I've been keeping close to the chest, but there is one that is nearing completion - Android Hit List.  AndroidHitList.com is a weird combination of Wikipedia/Reddit/and the Google Play store.  If it takes off, what people can expect is basically a top list of different applications for the Android Platform, and information can be easily updated as it changes.

Right now there are still parts that need to be made to look cleaner, but the most critical functionality is in place - a user can submit an app with simply a title and the Google Play URL, and most (if not all) of the other information is parsed automatically.  A moderator basically just verifies that the information looks clean and correct before putting the new entry into live rotation - this system will be changed to more of a community vote system as a community actually grows in time. :)

Hopefully this is a setup that others can appreciate.  As far as I know, there aren't a lot of options out there to quickly find whether or not an app or game has ads, in-app purchases, etc.  Those information types are already in place, but I am soon to add tracking for things like application/game classification (for better sorting) as well as a section for "Tablet optimized", which I think might be helpful.

Of course, getting the site to look beautiful on a mobile device will be critical, but I want the existing sections to have a "finalized look" before jumping into that directly - It will save me from having to code multiple times for the same information as things are changed/altered.

The official "release date" for the site is maybe 1-2 weeks away, but I've already got a few apps in the database for testing and display.  So far, I haven't seen any site-breaking buggery, but I'll keep a close eye on reports from founding users to see if anyone manages to run into something unexpected.