HP webOS Developer Blog

By no means would I categorize myself as a gamer, but found Ancient Frog LE to be instantly addictive from the first time I fired it up. Ancient Workshop did a great job of offering up stimulating puzzle challenges with a mesmerizing visual experience, while keeping the learning curve low with a user friendly interface. The result is a gaming experience that’s perfect for light play while waiting in line, or killing time on a train ride home. In other words, perfect for someone who knows their smart phone isn’t all work and no play.

The developers over at Ancient Workshop did a great job of animating the frog with super fluid movements that are really captivating. Froggy footprints mark the trail that needs to be traversed, and the number of moves are displayed in a daisy at the top of the screen. The overall user experience is enhanced with subtle ambient forest noises in the background. Nice touch. And I like that Undo and Redo are called by simply swiping forward or backward across the screen.

This is a great example of what’s possible with a graphically rich app that’s ported to webOS with the PDK. If you’ve got a C/C++ app that you haven’t ported over to webOS and you’re feeling inspired, the PDK makes porting a breeze, and there’s still ample time to be a fast mover in the Hot Apps competition.

There’s something mysterious about the moon. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s one of the few natural wonders that can be witnessed from anywhere in the world, or that its appearance is constantly shifting. Whatever the reason, I have a feeling some of you feel the same as I do, because Moon Info is one of the Fastest Movers in Palm Hot Apps this week.

If you’ve ever looked up at the sky and wondered when the next full moon would be, or what phase the moon is in currently, you should check this app out. There is a visual depiction of the moon phases, all of the data is presented in a clean way, and the interface provides multiple ways to input the date of the moon phase in question.  The interface also displays useful information, such as illumination, age, and distance of the current moon. Along the side of the interface, relevant moon cycles like the last new moon and first quarter moon are provided as well.

I like that the developer included separate buttons for timeline traversal, one set to go between days and another that iterates by hours.  There is also a consolidated view that appears for the current state of the moon if the main view is tapped.  The application can be configured to display distance in miles or kilometers, so nobody’s left out.

What features have you run into in an application that gave you an “ah ha” moment? If you have either run into this in a webOS application, or of course if you have written this yourself, let us know! If you’re close to submitting your app, do it now! You can still benefit from our Hot Apps promo; Fast Movers have shown that you can get in the money within a week

Oh developers, we love you. The WORLD loves you for the seemingly tireless efforts you put forth into delivering new toys to tinker with and creative ways to make whatever platform you develop for that much more relevant and useful. But all of that toiling into the wee hours of the night doesn’t come without a cost, and often leads to heavy caffeine consumption to make up for the late night sessions. We all know caffeine is ‘bad’ for us, but what does that mean? Well, here’s an app that makes it dead simple (pun intended).

Death By Caffeine lets us know exactly how many of our favorite drinks it would take to bring about …well, death by caffeine. The app is simple and some of the implementation details are why it has climbed the HotApps Leaderboard.

When you are entering your weight, the number lock is automatically enabled.

I love this, and wish more developers took notice of that little time saving detail. Code-level, this can be achieved by including a modifierState, set to value of Mojo.Widget.numLock in the set of attributes used in the instantiation of the textField widget, as shown in the example below.

this.controller.setupWidget("textFieldId",
    this.attributes = {
        modifierState: Mojo.Widget.numLock,
        enterSubmits: false,
        focus: true
    },
    this.model = {
        value: "",
        disabled: false
    }
);

(There is also an option to have the text in the textField widget default to caps lock instead of numbers, by setting your modifierState attribute to Mojo.Widget.capsLock)

You enter your weight (and from the screenshots – when you notice the entered weight you will see WHY it is Coke ZERO and not plain Coke), note the units you are reporting in, and hit the aptly-named “Kill Me” button.

Simple, clean, fun.  Now to find 436 Coke Zeros…

What features have you run into in an application that gave you an “ah ha” moment? Let us know if you have either run into this in a webOS application, or of course if you have written this yourself, let us know!. And if you’re close to submitting your app, do it now! You can still benefit from our Hot Apps promo; Fast Movers have shown that you can get in the money within a week.