I know it’s been forever since I’ve updated, so I just wanted to make a short note of my progress. I’ve been out of town a lot in the last few weeks and have found it very difficult to make time to work on my project. That being said, I’m about to have 2 weeks of nearly uninterrupted work, so my goal is to have something submitted to the app store no later than early August.
There are three critical things that I need to get done before I submit:
- A database program is pointless without a search. I have an extremely rudimentary search working right now (can only search for white players by exact name). I feel that this should be expanded to include black players and give the option of searching for games between two players, and whether or not to ignore colors (so that a searched player may play either color). Also, filtering by result would be nice. Without this basic functionality, it becomes too difficult to work with a larger database.
- Annotation support. I want this database program to be more complete than other databases. For this, one would of course expect annotation support. I’m still searching for the best way to display annotations, as I’m not terribly keen on the idea of completely interrupting the UI by using popups for annotations. I would also like to support NAG (Numeric Annotation Glyphs) but this support will become a priority in the update following the initial release.
- Improved UI. This is my first iPhone app and I want it done right. I want to make full use of the iPhone user interface elements. This also means making the most of the highly limited screen space on the device. Currently there’s not enough space to display all the information I’d like to while viewing a game, so I’m looking at implementing a full-screen mode to gather more screen space.
This is my first experience developing any software project larger than those required for basic CS classes, so I’m running into challenges that I wasn’t even aware existed. I’m still making progress, though, and I’m very excited about releasing my app soon.
