PawPrint.net Forum

I have been looking at various ideas for ways to take Versaverter and carry on with development for some time now - I concluded a while back that there were several things that must be in place for that to happen:

1) Web based community unit management (like a units wiki)
2) Development to produce a cross platform client
3) Retain speed and efficiency in the client
4) Build a web-based version that uses the same unit database
5) Code in a modern framework/language

To meet all these criteria I have elected to re-create Versaverter in the Adobe Air application framework. I selected this for several reasons, but mainly because I am already familiar with it and because it is so nicely tied to the web.

I know the next question people will ask is, what is the time-line for this - and the answer is simply that I don´t know for sure. I do plan to start addressing it in my spare time starting today. Versaverter´s internal structure is actually quite simple and I already have some of the web-based version built and operational so most of the effort will surround the community unit wiki and controls for that.

I will keep everyone up to date here as development proceeds and as soon as I have even an alpha copy available I´ll make it available for anyone wanting to play with it.

It´s finally here! released the first Alpha for Versaverter 4 this morning.

If anyone on a Mac or Linux system would care to forward along a screenshot of how it looks I would love to be able to include that on the application page for people to peruse. You can grab a copy from the Versaverter homepage
The current 4.0.a1 is shown here on Windows 7 64 bit.

To give a brief update on progress: I have completed the initial User Interface design under Adobe Air that I´m going to call Versaverter 4. Some of the underlaying logic to perform the actual unit conversions is also complete and the new application is starting to take shape. I will be able streamline and enhance many of the functions from Versaverter 3 and improve the automatic unit updates and application updates significantly.

I have attached this initial interface framework screen capture just to give you an idea of how the new interface is going to look. Observant users will immediately notice the large search unit database field at the top of the interface. I expect this will be the most significant initial enhancement allowing you to type in something like ´m´ and jump straight to the length category with the metre unit selected or type ´area´ to jump to that unit category. I am hoping this will be able to be fast and intelligent enough to have it jump as you type - but that remains to be seen.