GamerBar360

I was contacted a few days ago from a guy named Chris asking if he could include GamerBar360 in a phpBB3 forum mod he was working on.

Thrilled at the idea I gave him the go-ahead.

He contacted me today to let me know that he has it implemented and be seen on the post here. Also the mod developer topic can be found here.

One thing he did ask for in a future version of GamerBar360 is to be able to customize the border color. It just so happens that’s on my list of things do – if I ever get some free time!

Thanks Chris! I hope it works out and people like it!

Issue:

Depending on when data is loaded and processed by GamerBar360, the game cards may fall behind other objects. Typically refreshing the page fixes this.

Solution:

Updated the game card script to force a higher depth to ensure cards remain on top when activated.

Please download the latest version and overwrite your current gamerbar360.swf file.

No other functionality has been added.

I haven’t ironed out all the details yet but I was able to embed GamerBar360 on my MySpace page.

I used a HTML module and could only use the standard <object> tag to embed GamerBar360. I also had to use a querystring to pass in my gamertag – which is perfectly valid.

The issues with this approach is:

• GamerBar360 had to be hosted externally – unless someone knows if MySpace gives you some storage.
• The HTML module has a fixed size – if you can modify the width of it – I couldn’t find it.

So, hope is not lost. Looking for further suggestions regarding this.

Once I have something ironed out, I’ll post the process.

The first couple days have gone well. Some have posted a few suggestions in the forums such as:

• Supplying instructions for using GamerBar within MySpace
• Suggestions for those that may just have a blog hosting service like Blogger.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I’m not sure the best way to deal with those that may want to use GamerBar360 with blog hosting sites such as Blogger. I’ll have to figure out someway to deal with that as the file(s) would have to be hosted externally and typically hot-linking is not encouraged.

One thought is that sometimes your ISP gives you X amount of web space – of which you could upload GamerBar360 and the accompanying SWFObject to your ISP hosting account and adjust the paths to those files within your site’s template/theme using absolute paths.

I don’t have a MySpace account (*gasp*) so I can’t speak to that – yet. If they allow for hosting files, then it shouldn’t be that hard. Otherwise the option above could possibly be used as well.

Thanks again for all the first time visitors and the “congrats” and “good jobs”. I hope you’ll be able to take advantage of GamerBar360 and show off how you’ve incorporated it into your site.

Welcome to GamerBar360. It’s the oversized gamerbar that has it all. Made possible by the 360Voice API.

GamerBar360 has been a few months in the making and I’m very proud to finally open it up to the Xbox and 360Voice community. I hope you enjoy it.

Why build such a beast?

I really love the 360Voice service but I just never found something that could be displayed on my web site that would encompass most of their great features. And since the guys at 360Voice made their data availabe, I thought I’d give it a shot and build something. The result is GamerBar360.

Features

• Flash based application (version 8+)
• Utilizes 360Voice API
• Recognizes if gamertag is a Gold or Silver Xbox Live member
• Shows last 6 games played
• Each game has it’s own “stats card” showing
  • Game Name
  • Percent Completes
  • Achievement Score
  • Number of Achievements
  • Last played date
  • How many times played
• Displays your current 360Voice badges and their descriptions, as well as provides a link to the current list of people that have that badge; scrollable
• Displays the last time you played
• Your current playing streak
• Your longest playing streak
• Standard gamercard info:
  • Gamertag (links to 360Voice blog page)
  • Gamerscore
  • Reputation
  • Zone
  • Gamer picture
• Displays the your Xbox’s last 5 blog entries
• Link to your 360Voice RSS feed
• Ability to set background transparency

Gotta have it?

Just pop over to the download section and get ‘er done!