Tool for Posting NZ Games on Wednesday Mornings

Discussion in 'Site Feedback and News' started by Eli, Nov 5, 2014.

  1. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold

    #1 Eli, Nov 5, 2014
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2014
    Hey dudes,

    Given some really strange drama surrounding posting NZ threads on Wednesday morning, I figured I'd make it as easy as possible for absolutely anyone to post NZ games. It's a little tricky as unlike games that are out in the US and are on AppShopper (so appinfo works) you've got to manually pull everything over. It's a bit of a headache, and sort of annoying, so I automated it. Again, just to emphasize this again, anyone can use this. If you switch your App Store region over to New Zealand early Wednesday morning and start snooping around and see something cool and want to make a thread DO IT!

    Here's the link to the tool I made: http://elihodapp.com/thread-o-matic/

    It's very much 1.0 right now but it will take any iTunes link and grab data from iTunes to form a forum post. One assumption it makes which I'm not sure what else I can do about yet is it puts a country tag in the thread title if you input a non-US iTunes link. It's specifically looking for the /nz/ in the URL to add [NZ] to the thread title. I made it this way intentionally as if there's a weird soft launch in Australia or something and you feed it an Australian iTunes link it'll add [AU] to the thread title field.

    Otherwise, it grabs all relevant data, links, whether or not it has Game Center, all the screenshots, and everything else. This should save us all a lot of time.

    Enjoy!

    edit: Oh there's really only two known issues right now- It looks very specifically for normal iTunes links, i.e. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toucharcade-best-new-games/id509945427?mt=8 any of the shortened iTunes links won't work as it needs the country in it (in that case, "/us/") to know where to pull the game data from. Additionally, it's not pulling screenshots for iPad only games at the moment as the way iPad only game screenshot URL's are stored in the JSON Apple sends is annoying.
     
  2. Infinity89

    Infinity89 Well-Known Member

    Apr 8, 2013
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    Sorry Eli but I want to ask how to get the link on the iPhone? Some it only generates the shortened list there!
     
  3. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold

    Oh, um, I didn't really build this with the iPhone in mind. You can get iTunes links on your device by loading up the App Store, getting to the actual page of an app, hitting the little up arrow button on the top right corner go to "Copy Link" in the share sheet that comes up. Down side of this is that it'll copy a bunch of junk AND a shortened http://appsto.re URL.

    So, take that http://appsto.re URL and plug it in here- http://wheredoesthislinkgo.com/ which will give you the full iTunes link you need for my thing to work.

    i.e. http://appsto.re/us/EMdJ3 translates to https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nighty-night-circus-bedtime/id931936670?mt=8
     
  4. bhavukjain1

    bhavukjain1 Well-Known Member

    Jun 14, 2013
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    Hey! I've made an iOS app for this to ease you guys. Wana see it? I can post a small video about it. And yes it works with shorten links as well.
     
  5. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold

    Sure! I don't care how people post threads for games they think are cool as long as people are posting threads for games they think are cool. :)
     
  6. PrototyperGame

    PrototyperGame Active Member

    Sep 21, 2014
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    Developers
    US and TW
    Thanks

    Good to see there is an explanation for url tag fail~
    Thx!
     
  7. Hey everyone! Our latest game BlazBlue: Battle Cards™ is going live in the App Store tonight. I wanted to post the game on iPhone and iPad games once it goes live by pulling the info from iTunes using the tool. It looks like since we are iPad only it isn't working as intended. Any suggestions for alternative ways to post our release? Thanks!
     
  8. Echoseven

    Echoseven Moderator
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold Patreon Bronze

    Jul 19, 2011
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    The red Skittle
    How does it not work?
     
  9. #9 wemakegames, May 13, 2015
    Last edited: May 13, 2015
    I tested out the tool using our url for the Candadian App Store (that's where we are soft launched). Copied the text that was generated. Pasted it in a new post and hit preview. It pulled the correct info from the App Store but it didn't pull any images. The html code didn't appear to work as expected. I believe Eli mentioned there was an issue using the tool with iPad only games so I'm trying to figure out the best way to post our game when it goes live elsewhere.

    Here's the link I tested with:

    https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/blazblue-battle-cards/id947007851?mt=8
     
  10. triggywiggy

    triggywiggy Well-Known Member

    Jan 24, 2010
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    Freelance writer, Student, Casually employed in re
    Perth, Western Australia
    So I have got the RSS feed link. I have gone NZ, show 100, App and Games yet the stream doesn't show any of the games the Peteozzy and others are posting. I have asked him how he finds them, but he has ignored my messages so I assume he doesn't feel like sharing.....
     
  11. Yaning

    Yaning Member

    Jul 6, 2014
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    great tool, saved me a lot of time filling app info by myself, thx!
     

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