Introducing: OMAC Application Registry

[Nic G (Audeonic Apps)]

(or - no more home buttoning)

Following on from discussions regarding a shared plist for allowing
OMAC apps to fast-switch between each other, I'm pleased to
announce the launch of the OMAC Application Registry.

Essentially this is a public (binary) plist hosted at dropbox.com
and I will maintain this for the community. I have cobbled together
a crude website which allows OMAC developers to add their
apps to the registry and provides a guide about what a dev.
needs to do to participate.

At the risk of having my code dissected and criticised by code
gurus, I have also created a free to use class OMACApplicationRegistry
that can be used for querying the plist and also for downloading an
updated plist when it changes (automatically in the background)

You can access the registry and resources at the following link. In
order
to keep bots out, the username is 'omac' and the password is
'registry'.
This isn't a secret. I'm hosting this under the audeonic.com domain
for now, but maybe would move it under an official omac domain in
the future if that gets created.

http://omac.audeonic.com

The benefits of participating are that other apps can fast-switch to
your
app and your app can fast-switch to other participating apps. Apps
could also provide a list to their users showing a list of other
compatible
apps and whether they are installed or not, allowing OMAC devs to
get cross-app exposure.

Any comments or questions, please feel free to post here. In the
future
maybe one or two other OMAC devs could volunteer to administer
the registry, but I'll see what the takeup is first!

Regards, Nic.

[Sebastian Dittmann]

Nice!

Someone had to do it - thanks for stepping forward!

Best,

Sebastian

[Dave [WhiteNoiseAudio]]

Thanks!

I'm definitely interested in adding this to Genome at some point.

-Dave

[Nic G (Audeonic Apps)]

Given the very underwhelming response to this (zero devs
have added their apps), I'm going to try another tack:

If your app has (or you plan to add) a URLScheme in
your Info.plist file that allows an app to use openURL
to launch/switch to it, please post the name of your
app and the url to be used and I will do the legwork
and add the app to the plist in a basic form based
on information I can get from the App Store (tm).

I know many of the virtual port names that
devs are using so I'll use this knowledge also
to complete entries in the plist.

I already know about these:

Arctic Keys
NLog Midi Synth
NLog PRO

Don't hold back - post your app name & url so
that other apps can fast switch to your app.

Finally, I do recommend you register your app
at omac.audeonic.com, especially if you have
a promo video, as other apps can refer to this
also.

Regards, Nic.

[nlogmusic (TempoRubato - NLogSynth)]

I like to support this by including it in next NLog's updates!

But since we have now a few nice synth apps, we need some controllers
too.

@Sebastian & Gabriel: I am sure, you would like somebody to switch
from NLog
back to SoundPrism, don't you? ;-)

@Nic: Somehow the 'register' link does not work with the credentials
you posted.
Any idea? (I wanted to update "NLog PRO" into "NLogSynth PRO")


Cheers
Rolf

On Nov 15, 12:41 pm, "Nic G (Audeonic Apps)" <a...@audeonic.com>
wrote:

[Nic G (Audeonic Apps)]

On Nov 15, 12:06 pm, "nlogmusic (TempoRubato - NLogSynth)"

<nlogmu...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> @Nic: Somehow the 'register' link does not work with the credentials
> you posted.
> Any idea? (I wanted to update "NLog PRO" into "NLogSynth PRO")

Hi Rolf,

Are you getting as far as the launch page and the register link isn't
working?

Userid is 'omac' and password is 'registry' - that gets you on to the
launch
page. Click on the register link at the top and fill in the form -
shouldn't
need any further verification.

How far do you get?

Regards, Nic.

[nlogmusic (TempoRubato - NLogSynth)]

Well, it asked for and the omac/r... didn't work again.

[Michael Tyson]

I'm seeing this too, I'm afraid - I can get to the launch page, but clicking the "Register" link brings up the auth window again ("The server says: BogOff." How rude ;-), and doesn't accept omac/registry.

[Nic G (Audeonic Apps)]

How rude indeed!

My apologies - I found a .htaccess file in the register cgi area that
must have
been there for some time and sure enough it excluded my own IP so I
never
noticed it was there. I have removed the offensive and offending
article and
you should be able to access the form now.

Any problems, please let me know.

Regards, Nic.

sorry for top-posting.

[nlogmusic (TempoRubato - NLogSynth)]

Great, works now!

How shall I deal with NLog? Have you all details in (I'm not sure,
since there is no edit page to see existing info)?
Or should I register newly?

Best
Rolf

[Nic G (Audeonic Apps)]

Hi Rolf,

Please add your apps via the register link. That way the information
will
be as you want. I check each plist snippet manually and verify all the
links.

I hadn't started adding in apps myself yet - I'd prefer the dev to do
it
so the information is as it should be (and to save me some work). I'll
probably start adding in apps myself later in the week.

Regards, Nic.

On Nov 16, 6:57 am, "nlogmusic (TempoRubato - NLogSynth)"

[Sebastian Dittmann]

On Nov 15, 2011, at 12:41 PM, Nic G (Audeonic Apps) wrote:

> Given the very underwhelming response to this (zero devs
> have added their apps), I'm going to try another tack:

Don't despair, we're definitely going to add SoundPrism to this list.
Gabriel is going to provide you with the detailed URL Schemes for our apps.

Best,

Sebastian

[Sebastian Dittmann]

On Nov 15, 2011, at 12:41 PM, Nic G (Audeonic Apps) wrote:

> If your app has (or you plan to add) a URLScheme in
> your Info.plist file that allows an app to use openURL
> to launch/switch to it, please post the name of your
> app and the url to be used and I will do the legwork
> and add the app to the plist in a basic form based
> on information I can get from the App Store (tm).

Just got the info from Gabriel, so here it goes:

SoundPrism:
URL Scheme: com.audanika.SoundPrism
Opening URL: SoundPrism://

SoundPrism Pro:
URL Scheme: com.audanika.SoundPrismPro
Opening URL: SoundPrismPro://

Best,

Sebastian

[nlogmusic (TempoRubato - NLogSynth)]

Ok, did it. Could you please check if everything is ok?

On Nov 16, 11:02 am, "Nic G (Audeonic Apps)" <a...@audeonic.com>
wrote:

[Nic G (Audeonic Apps)]

Hi Rolf,

I have grafted your entries into the data I already had for NLog MIDI/
Synth PRO. Previews of
your videos showing up in MidiBridge's OMAC App panel - looking good.

Just one quick question - Do you prefer 'tempo rubato' as in the App
Store or
'Tempo Rubato' as per the IK Multimedia App of the week??? ;-)

I must be in your spam filter as I have never received an email reply
from you, so that's
why I'm posting here.

Oh, and Sebastian, both SoundPrism and SP PRO are using the same
URLSchemes
string in Info.plist, namely 'SoundPrism' which seems to confuse
things (I had both
installed). I removed one, but still SP exits when openURL is executed
on it. Strange.

Has anyone implemented fast-switching from their own app at all? I'm
hoping to
produce a short video showing OMAC app switching/exploration in action
if I have
some spare time this week.

Regards, Nic.

[nlogmusic (TempoRubato - NLogSynth)]

Hi Nic, thanks!

"Tempo Rubato" is fine for both.

A little video would be great!

Cheers
Rolf

On Nov 21, 11:33 pm, "Nic G (Audeonic Apps)" <a...@audeonic.com>
wrote:

[Nic G (Audeonic Apps)]

OK, all changes incorporated and new plist pushed

Regards, Nic.

[Sebastian Dittmann]

Hi Nic,

On Nov 23, 2011, at 8:05 AM, nlogmusic (TempoRubato - NLogSynth) wrote:

>> Oh, and Sebastian, both SoundPrism and SP PRO are using the same
>> URLSchemes
>> string in Info.plist, namely 'SoundPrism' which seems to confuse
>> things (I had both
>> installed). I removed one, but still SP exits when openURL is executed
>> on it. Strange.
>

That is actually correct for SoundPrism (pro) 2.3 but not for the upcoming release which is hopefully going to be available in the next weeks.

Best,

Sebastian

[Nic G (Audeonic Apps)]

OK, I have pulled out all apps that I added manually that don't have
an URLSchemes entry as it has been causing a lot of confusion for
MidiBridge users.

So, here's an appeal to all app devs out there whose apps already
have an URLScheme in their plist file. Please add your app to the
omac registry (as described in this thread) at the very least as the
feedback I have received from MidiBridge users about being able
to fast-switch/launch apps from MidiBridge is extremely positive
when it works.

The benefit is that users will be able to switch to your app from
other apps (like MidiBridge/MidiVision) without pressing the home
button and your app gets exposure as being listed in these apps.

As far as I am aware only MidiVision/MidiBridge actually provide
the mechanism to fast-switch, but hopefully some other app devs
will add this to their apps as more and more users are finding
this feature useful!

Regards, Nic.

[nlogmusic (TempoRubato - NLogSynth)]

Hi Nic,

looks great in Midi Bridge!

Next NLog Update will have it too.

Cheers
Rolf

On Nov 30, 11:29 am, "Nic G (Audeonic Apps)" <a...@audeonic.com>
wrote:

[Nic G (Audeonic Apps)]

On Dec 1, 11:32 pm, "nlogmusic (TempoRubato - NLogSynth)"

<nlogmu...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Next NLog Update will have it too.

Hi Rolf,

That's fantastic. Anyone else?

Regards, Nic.

[INTUA]

Hi there,

I'm Mathieu Garcia, from INTUA.
I'll be adding the OMAC registry code in the next BeatMaker 2 update.

By the way, we use:
Bundle Identifier: net.intua.beatmaker2
URL Scheme: beatmaker2

So far, we are receiving great feedback with the addition of OMAC in
our app.

Thank you !
Regards,
MG.