TwitLive AIR application

Last Sunday afternoon I was listening to The Tech Guy on twitlive.tv and when I accidentally closed its tab one too many times decided to quickly make an AIR app for it to have it available as a desktop application.

TwitLive AIR application

It literally took me 11 lines of code and a good 15 minutes to build. Decided to send it to Leo and was happy to hear how excited he was about the app and did a plug for it on the net@night and MacBreak Weekly podcasts.

You can use the application to watch the live video stream and see the schedule for upcoming shows. Looks like it was released just in time to see him do the 24 hour iPhone 3G launch marathon.
 

How was this built?

For those of you not familiar with Adobe AIR:

  • AIR is a free cross OS runtime (Windows, Mac and Linux)

  • There’s no new language to learn, it uses web technologies like HTML, AJAX, Flash and Flex
  • You get a lot of additional API’s like drag ‘n drop, filesystem access, network detection, clipboard access, local database support and much more that you can directly call from your code

This particular application was built in Flex with a TabNavigator component and two HTML components that are specific to AIR (the runtime has the open source WebKit embedded, the same HTML rendering engine as Safari uses).

For embedding the AIR install badge on his blog, Leo is the AIR Badge plugin for WordPress, a project I started a couple of months back.

I hope you’ll like this little application, there’s obviously a lot more you can do with this so am happy to hear any feature requests you might have. Leave a comment or drop me an email.
 

Download and install

Please upgrade your Flash Player


 

44 Comments

  • mike chambers
    July 10, 2008 - 5:58 pm | Permalink
  • July 10, 2008 - 6:22 pm | Permalink

    Thanks Mike, just added one!

  • Chris
    July 11, 2008 - 12:59 am | Permalink

    Any chance of adding “Always on Top” functionality.

  • July 11, 2008 - 1:02 am | Permalink

    Hi Chris, I just did a 1.5 release and sent it to Leo — new release includes IRC channel support, compact video mode with that “always on top” feature, application logo is much nicer as well.

    Hope he’ll have it up soon, if you want to test in the meanwhile feel free to drop me an email via the contact form.

  • Kitsunisan
    July 11, 2008 - 2:14 am | Permalink

    Wonderful app, its crashed on me a couple of times in a few hours, but otherwise very solid, probably the connection. I use a dock, took the TWiT logo Mike Shelby made and cut it out to work with RKLauncher if anyone needs it: [IMG]http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d171/Kitsunisan/TWiT.png[/IMG]

  • Jeremy
    July 11, 2008 - 2:17 am | Permalink

    Error #1023 – Can’t install.

  • Chris
    July 11, 2008 - 2:17 am | Permalink

    Love the new features, two requests (sorry if it seems i am complaining) always on top for the main desktop window and compact mode to be the same aspect ratio as the non-compact window. Love the app and what it may become.

  • July 11, 2008 - 2:18 am | Permalink

    Thanks Kitsunisan, Leo just published the 1.5 build on his blog (the install badge still reads v1 right now).

    The logo is now vector and much nicer. Will do a blog post about the new features tomorrow.

    http://leoville.com/2008/07/10/1586/

  • Chris
    July 11, 2008 - 2:19 am | Permalink

    comment so that I can subscribe to the thread…

  • Jeremy
    July 11, 2008 - 2:21 am | Permalink

    Err, i meant Error #2023 – can’t install

  • Sinclair
    July 11, 2008 - 2:22 am | Permalink

    I am not able to install, it displays error # 2032

  • July 11, 2008 - 2:22 am | Permalink

    @Jeremy – not sure what that Error #1023 is — might want to try manually uninstalling any previous version of the application. If the badge install is giving you problems you can download the .air file directly from the URL here and it should install if you have the AIR runtime installed:

    http://www.peterelst.com/twitlive/TwitLive-1.5.air

    @Chris – always on top feature for main window is definitely coming, the aspect ratio for the compact video mode seems to be set by stickam, trying to work around that problem.

  • Chris
    July 11, 2008 - 2:25 am | Permalink

    what about compact mode, where you use the main window but kill everything but the main video?

  • July 11, 2008 - 2:27 am | Permalink

    Those of you getting that #2023 error were probably trying to install the application from this blog post — hadn’t updated it yet to the 1.5 version. It should work now.

    Thanks for the feedback!

  • Alan
    July 11, 2008 - 2:29 am | Permalink

    This is great. Thanks

  • July 11, 2008 - 3:18 am | Permalink

    Love the app, I just downloaded the update and noticed the minimize option is gone. I use this at work and periodically need to minimize the app while I’m doing other things and I just listen to the audio, can you fix this? Thanks & keep up the great work

  • July 11, 2008 - 3:22 am | Permalink

    Thanks for the feedback BilliamJ, the next release will have improvements with regards to resizing the application as well as better minimize and maximize options.

  • Cam
    July 11, 2008 - 3:56 am | Permalink

    hey great app thanks but the lastest version does not have minimize anymore can you add that again? Thanks

  • July 11, 2008 - 3:57 am | Permalink

    Thanks Cam, the minimize feature was giving me some problems — it’ll definitely be back in the next release.

  • July 11, 2008 - 4:30 am | Permalink

    Very nice AIR App!!

  • Beltane
    July 11, 2008 - 5:21 am | Permalink

    great app!! my only request would be to be able to drag and resize either window. Thanks you should get a free iphone:)

  • Hank B
    July 11, 2008 - 7:29 am | Permalink

    very nice. need a maximize button to make the irc window nice and big. kudos to you!

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  • July 11, 2008 - 9:57 am | Permalink

    Beltane, Hank B — thanks for the feedback, as mentioned earlier in the comments the next build will have minimize, maximize buttons back and more resize options.

  • July 11, 2008 - 10:02 am | Permalink

    Fantastic app. great updates as well, keep up the great work- looking forward to seeing this grow.

  • July 11, 2008 - 12:43 pm | Permalink

    Could you please post a direct link to the AIR file? The SWF installer does not detect the Linux version of the AIR runtime.

    Thanks!

  • Kylde
    July 11, 2008 - 12:45 pm | Permalink

    no live stream :( Says “you have been banned” ? twitlive.tv is the same, I have to go to stickam to watch, why? UK IP ?

  • July 11, 2008 - 1:15 pm | Permalink

    @Oliver – this is a direct link to the 1.5 release for those on Linux that can’t use the AIR install badge:

    http://leoville.com/wp-content/uploads/twitlive-air/TwitLive.air

    @Kylde – it seems to be working here, twitlive.tv is under high load with Leo’s 24 hour iPhone marathon. You can try refreshing in the app if its giving you problem or see how it goes on a less busy moment.

  • Kylde
    July 11, 2008 - 1:22 pm | Permalink

    thx for the reply, but “banned” has always been that way for me on twitlive.tv, & I have no idea why! I’m static IP too, which makes it awkward

  • July 11, 2008 - 1:24 pm | Permalink

    I’m afraid I can’t help you with that Kylde — might want to talk to the TWiT team or stickam to get your banning problem sorted.

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  • July 11, 2008 - 2:04 pm | Permalink

    Works great-less filling! Thanks so much!

  • John Woods
    July 11, 2008 - 2:44 pm | Permalink

    Dude Air applications like totally ROCK. Always have.

    John
    Ultimate Anonymity

  • July 11, 2008 - 5:38 pm | Permalink

    Great Apps Peter :)

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  • KB
    July 11, 2008 - 7:10 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for the nifty app! Well done.

  • July 11, 2008 - 8:05 pm | Permalink

    This seems to be amazing app.

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  • July 13, 2008 - 8:45 pm | Permalink

    Great job! Love the app.!

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  • July 28, 2008 - 12:33 pm | Permalink

    Cool nice application. Really liked the application. Great work.

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  • JoelH
    September 24, 2008 - 2:05 am | Permalink

    Help, I get Error# 2032 when trying to install your app on a fresh Air installation.

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