An open source app for the 'Gentse Feesten'
Every year, my hometown Ghent, hosts its annual festival called the Gentse Feesten. 10 days - actually, 11, if you count the unofficial pre-friday day - the city will barely sleep.
One of the hardest things is to actually figure out where you want to go during one of these days. There is the official website and there (was) also an available, but we decided, for several reasons, to write our own, open sourced and native application. The data is grabbed and available at http://data.gent.be. Open data and open source, a perfect match.
After a couple of brainstorms and iterations on the design, we released the first versions so you can start planning your events and have them available at any time.
You can install the Android version from Google Play.
Features include:
- Built with speed in mind: native written application.
- Works offline after initially downloading the program (around 2.5MB).
- List of favorites: handy list so you can easily see what todo on which day.
- Free text and facet style search.
- Share functionality: integrates with installed applications on your platform.
- Maps integration when online.
- Location - what's going on around me
- Parking availability
In case you have an Android device, the program will be downloaded in the background on the first start. On iOS, you can start browsing immediately.
Collaborate
The code is freely available on GitHub, so anyone can easily send bug reports, interface translations or create pull requests to make the applications even better. The services are currently our own, so you need to setup those yourself first. Note that there are also some implementation differences between the platforms.
- Android: https://github.com/swentel/gentsefeesten
- iOS: https://github.com/TimLeytens/Gentse-Feesten-2013
- Firefox OS: https://github.com/jyve/GF-FxOS
- Windows: https://github.com/Depechie/GF13
Proudly built by @swentel, @TimLeytens, @leenvs, @janyves and @AppCreativity.
So, who will make the Windows mobile (done!) and Firefox (Done too!) version ?
Comments
Thomas Vander … on Tue, 25/06/2013 - 11:28
Good job!
Maybe an idea for the next one - use phonegap/Cordova and have it for blackberry/windows/... with roughly the same effort?
swentel on Tue, 25/06/2013 - 11:33
Though about that, but we figured that native is the way to go because my experience with phonegap is not a good one.
Haven't tested Cordova yet, that's for this summer :)
Edit - so apparently that's freakingly the same, anyway, bad experience, anyway IMHO nothing beats native applications.
Pieter on Wed, 26/06/2013 - 12:34
Love the speed and responsiveness (certainly when compared to the official app).
Only reason I haven't deleted the official app is because of the "cash dispensers" and "bicycle parkings" point-of-interest, something to add for next year? ;)
swentel on Wed, 26/06/2013 - 13:48
We're still trying to get that in in two weeks though :)
Ben on Thu, 27/06/2013 - 10:54
If I have time i'll have a look into a windows phone app.
And I use Xamarin for cross-platorm stuff.
swentel on Thu, 27/06/2013 - 11:06
In case you want the designs and all slices we used, just sent me mail!
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