Extra Life Donation Tracker/Alerts – Beta Version 0.6.9 (11/3/2016)

Alright, finally ready to release this thing out into the public.  It’s still in Beta, and there are likely still bugs hiding that I haven’t ironed out.  My email is in the application to submit bug reports to.Download Link So you download it, and install it.  You’ll need Adobe Air, which you can get at Adobe.com. Here’s the quick rundown:

1. It will fill in my ID as a default.  To change it, head over to Settings and fill in your ID from your URL (the numeric one, not your screen name).
2. Set any other defaults you want, things like background color of the alert window, currency sign, etc. Then be sure you click Save
3. After you save, it should refresh the display with your information, not mine.  If for some reason it doesn’t, hit the ‘Force refresh‘ button.
4. Click Tracker to bring up the window where New Donation alerts will be displayed.  It should be flashing all donations you have already received.  I’ll explain this more later.
5. You should be good go to.

How it works Once you’ve set up your ID/settings the program checks your donation list every 30 seconds.  Every 15 minutes, it also checks for team information (if you’re on a team).  It updates the display inside the app window, but also sends information in various formats out to text files in a folder on your Desktop titled “extra-life-output“.  The titles should be pretty self-explanatory.Every time it detects a donation that it hasn’t seen before, it adds that to a locally-stored database. Simultaneously to all that, every 10 seconds, it is checking that database for any donations that have yet to be displayed in the alert window.  If it finds one, it displays the image and plays the sound you’ve selected, along with the name and amount of the donator.If you don’t have the tracker window open, that check simply exits out.  This means if you have the application open, but not the alert window open, any donations received during that time are queued up for the next time the tracker is opened.   It will play the alert once for every donation.  So the first time you open the app (or open it after not having opened it for a while) you’re going to get to hear your donation alert a few times (hopefully a lot of times, which means you’ve raised a ton of money for CMN).There are a couple buttons up in the top right corner for utility, one to force a refresh of all data (Both individual and Team), as well as a ‘Test Alert‘ button to trigger an alert to see what it looks like.It’ll check to see if there’s a new version available and give you a button pointing to the new version.  There’s also a button to donate to my EL page if you like it *HINTCOUGHCOUGHHINT*.Alert FilesSo the box for the alerts is approximately (may vary based on your OS) 685px wide by 215 px tall.  That’s what you’re aiming for when creating images to use on your alert.The alert sound must be in MP3 format.  You can use something like this to convert it to MP3 format if it isn’t already.Text FilesThe text files this thing spits out can be used in OBS (via the “Text” source”) and X-Split (using the “Title” source) pretty easily.  Using those tools, you can set the size, font, outlines, scroll speed, etc, of any of that information.  It behaves in the same was as most of the “Now Playing” type plugins out there.  If you’re confused, YouTube and google have plenty of tutorials on both tools and how to place text files in your stream stage. What’s next I’m going to leave it out in the wild for a few days and hope some folks have bug reports/suggestions.  Otherwise a few things I’m looking to add:

• Manually set the delay between alerts (for folks who have longer alert sounds)
• Add more font choices for alert text (what fonts?)
• Squash whatever bugs people find
• Refactor the code so it’s not too embarrassing to put on GitHub.
• ????

I think I’ve covered everything it does, but if I forgot, let me know and I’ll update this thread.  I’m planning on using this thread as the ‘home’ for future updates, since it seems to have evolved from what I’d mentioned in other threads.  I apologize if I’m cluttering the front page of the forum with this.  I’ll update the title as well as the in-app notification when I release new versions, and you can come back here to find out what’s new.If you have any questions, please let me know here or via the e-mail listed in the app.If you enjoy the tool, please consider donating to my Extra Life Fundraiser.  My niece was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart syndrome, basically meaning she had only one half of her heart.  Three open heart surgeries during her first year of life at the hospital I’m raising money for, the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital, and she’s now a super energetic, sassy, awesome 2nd grader.  She’ll likely need a heart transplant as she nears her adult life, but even 20 years ago, these children didn’t survive, so I’m extremely grateful to CMN hospitals, the UI Children’s Hospital, and everyone who’s ever thought about maybe helping a sick child get better.Edit: Fixed the actual download link.  I’m an idiot.