Here we go guys... just over 6 months ago I signed up for buzztouch hoping to recreate my CSV based "locator" type of apps in an easier to manage format. I soon found that no plugins existed to handle online databases. Well, now there is! http://www.buzztouch.com/plugins/plugin.php?pid=96D61CB58A55CD94F4F20E2 Instant Database App is truly that… an entire app in a single plugin. It connects to any CSV database and displays the information in a variety of labels, photos, videos, map pins, and so many other things. Records of the database that you point it to can be used for anything. Sample databases are included so you may use them as a template. This plugin truly is a game changer, as it’s the first and only plugin that can connect to online databases and display your data however you want to. It’s perfect for those wanting to create a restaurant locater, travel app, or any other app that is based on of thousands of records that can’t be hand entered. Instant Database App takes all of these records, sorts them, and displays them in whichever way you want, since the drag and drop objects on all of the XIB’s are fully movable and editable. Built in features include: - Map thousands of locations at once! No longer are you limited to 3 pins, 10 pins or any other amount. Our built in CSV powered map allows for unlimited pins displayed at once! Show a few, or thousands… it’s up to you. - Built in user reviews allow your users to leave a full review with what they thought about the location. They can even attach a photo with their review if they like! Want to read the next review? Swipable review reading makes it easy for your users to navigate through the reviews for that location. - Star Rating System allows your users to rate the location based on a visual 5-star scale, and reviews are averaged from all the reviewers of that location, showing a graphical representation of the star average. - Complete photo image gallery allows you to display an unlimited amount of photos, or have the users upload their own! Double tap the image to have it automatically rotate to landscape mode and stretch full screen. - Full youtube integration lets you simply add a youtube video link to the locations record in your CSV database file, and the plugin handles the heavy work of instantly displaying it in the apps screen. Paste one link and you’re done! No more adding an entire control panel screen for each video. - CSV database fields can be anything you want, but we’ve included samples that by default display the locations name, street address, city, state, phone number, latitude, longitude, item number, youtube video, photos, customer reviews and star ratings… all tied into every location! Your CSV database that you point to can use comma delimited files, or any other delimiter that you want to use. Want fields other than the ones included? No problem, it’s easy to add more or delete the ones that you don’t want to use. - Smart display buttons. What is a smart display button? If the location has photos, the photos button appears on the screen. If it does not, there is no button. Same with youtube videos… do one of your locations not have videos yet? Why show the button to an app user if it’s not going to go anywhere? If there is no video link for the location, no video button is shown. - Overhead satellite view for each location. This automatically shows the location at street level… you can almost read license plates on the cars in the parking lot, lol. Well, not quite… but close! Instantly shown at the tap of a button. - Easy to make it your own… simply add your logo to the header areas, and put whatever background and text you want. Everything is fully editable and drag and drop! - Each location has a feature for your user to check off if they have visited or not, and the app keeps track of all the places your user has visited. This is not some converted piece of open source either. I personally paid to have this original code developed in India several years ago to use in 3 different full production apps that are currently in the app store, at a cost of over $3,000 for the original Xcode project. The apps of mine using this code if you want to see what it does is “TV Trips - Diners Drive-Ins & Dives Edition”, “Strip Clubs”, and “Ghost Hunter”. I originally signed up for Buzztouch so that I could recreate these apps using easier to program plugins, but found that nothing existed for connecting to online CSV files to display thousands of records. Finally… I was able to convert my entire private CSV retrieving code into Buzztouch Plugin format, and was able to include all the bells and whistles that came along with it. It truly is an entire app in a box! You can create one Instant Database App screen, set it as your home screen, and have an entire app with tons of screens and functions, with just a couple of clicks! Or… for those really packing in the features, use it as an add-on to your existing app, and blow away your customers with the sheer volume of content! There are a few files to upload to your server, but full instructions are included along with the required scripts and sample databases. Minor knowledge of single line editing of a php file and changing the file permissions (CHMOD) is required, but guidance is provided in the document that comes with it, plus I’m always here to answer your questions. People have been asking for a plugin to connect and display thousands of records from an online database for years now… and finally… it’s here. Truly a one of a kind game changer that brings the Buzztouch platform to a whole new level. Just check out the screenshots for a small percentage of the features available.

I also see Android Version of this plugin in BT market, does this plugin really have an android version?

Ooops, sorry about that Kennedy. No, iOS only. I just updated to reflect the correction.

Pretty cool plugin. Just a question, you say 120 files, but how large in the plugin when in an Xcode project?

They are not large files. A plain BT project with this plugin included weighs in at 3mb. Most of them are text based code files... .h, .m and .xib... Which take hardly any space, and compress nicely. :)

3MB = pretty good. .m and .h files can get quite large, but even with 120 it doesn't seem to add up to a lot. Have you heard of something called Add-Ons. It's something that me and Susan are currently testing. You might be interested.

Nope, haven't heard of it. Feel free to pm me any info on it and I'll take a look. Yeah, I intentionally kept the file size down on this plugin, knowing that it will be included and bundled with other plugins as well, even though it wouldn't need to be. I have 3 apps in the App Store running this same code as their own independent apps, and they all sell pretty well. I basically took that code that I used for them and made it into a plugin so I could easily rewrite those apps in buzztouch and use it as a template for other database locator style apps. :)

I'm certainly getting this plugin... that is once I plead myself to top-up my account.

Holy smokes!!! This is awesome, congrats on this plugin Ninja!!

Like the sound of this one, happy days indeed. Looks pretty darn comprehensive. Good man. Well done.

Thanks guys, I'm sure it will come in handy for a lot of people. It seamed like connecting to a remote database was the one thing that was missing from BT. :)

Very cool. I think some folk get scared of DB's, weird since it's all DB powered. Again sir, good job. May well grab this for current update I'm working on.

Mighty awesome! Keep on trucking ...

This looks really great - Thanks @AngryNinja! Question: Is the data CSV file local on the device or does the plugin reference a remote .csv file on a server somewhere? I think a screenshot of the control panel view for this plugin would help me understand things. -William

great job!

Dave -- In the Plugin's description, a suggestion to make a strong statement about this being a plugin that requires one's own PHP Server. And then repeat it in the middle and at the end. That will help the quick readers. :-) -- Niraj

Sweet.

@Angry Ninja Do you have this in a live app on App Store? Or can you do a sample video so I can see it how it works?

Great! Is it iPad-friendly?

Nice Plugin! For the maps function, does it use the native ios apple map or can it use a google map? I'm looking for a way to easily use google maps in my ios app. Dave

@Kozmoweb: It is a remote CSV database that you store online, not a local bundled file with the app. @MackiMack: Great idea. I'll put together a sample video. @FusionSCH: iPad XIB files are being worked on as we speak for an update, but by default the plugin looks nice when iphone app is stretched on an ipad (some don't turn out well, this on e does). Native iPad XIB files coming soon though. There are already additional separate XIB files for 3.5" screen and 4" screens included, to make the best and highest resolution layouts possible, instead of always using 1 xib file and stretching it's appearance. @Calypso Kid: It uses apple maps. The mapping part of the code is so highly integrated, we figured it was best to keep it that way. We use the hybrid view as the default for everything, giving it that crisp clean look, but the user can change it in the app to flat map or satellite.

Thanks, buying it tonight. Looks very useful and it's a good reason to learn new tricks!

Thanks a lot for the future XIBs for iPad! Eager to test your plugin, I guess it's amazing!

Video has been added, so you can see it in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMhdeG_N-PQ&feature=youtu.be Towards the end, it shows the CSV file format, where I uploaded them, and the file in xcode that you need to set your server details. It's all pretty easy.

Did you build your universal studios app with this plugin? If so, maybe a free download code for all of us that buy your plugin so we can see what we can do. I just bought the plugin. Wink, wink. LOL. ;-). No really. Dave

Hey Dave, Actually, i didn't use this code for Universal Studios. I wish I had. This is one of the reasons I created the plugin... the Universal App took me over 6 months to create... with this plugin, it would have taken 1/10th of that time! The plugin was created out of necessity so that future apps like the Universal Studios one could be created quickly. The code that is used has actually progressed over the years, as I added more features to it every time I would make and release a new app... the original code started with "Ghost Hunter" in the app store, then I added some features for "Strip Clubs", then added the star rating system and a few other things for "TV Trips - Diners Drivins and Dives" in the app store. I really wanted to be able to manage all of my apps with Buzztouch though, and make creating new ones even quicker, so I created the plugin to do all the dirty work. I'm not creating over 1,000 screens again like I did with Universal Studios app, lol I just redesigned my website, and the last thing I have to do is add all of my apps from the app store (12 total), but some of the apps that are using the same code as the plugin are located here: http://angryninjas.com I just need to add the other 9 apps to that page. Been busy on the plugin and not my website content, lol. Ghost Hunter and Strip Clubs arn't up there yet... just click the "view all our apps in the app store" button at the bottom of the apps page to see those two that also use the same code as the plugin.

Nice. I'm gonna check them all out tonight. I'm downloading the the universal app just because it looks sweet!

Awesome Ninga! I am wrapping up my first app (which was intentionally regionally based) by the end of June. Knowing that the next version will be much larger, this Plugin will be a great kick-start!! Purchased your Instant DB tonight, and although I dare not look at the code over the next six weeks while I finish my current app- wanted to give you a quick purchase/thank you. Looking forward to using it for my next app.

Wow I gotta get this!

Angry Ninja - Does this work without the map aspect? I don't have any need for a map in my apps but have a huge need for the reviews and ratings. What I would need is a menu, content screen and the ratings and reviews. Is this doable with this plugin?

Hi Becky, It would require a little modification. A few different screens refer to the mapping aspect, which you could simply delete the referring buttons off of the appropriate xib file... The only issue I would foresee would be that the starting screen is in fact a map screen. You can simply remove the map object from the main xib file though, but you'd want to replace it with something fairly large, like a big logo or image of some sort, so that the empty space that the map occupied has something else in its place, so the opening screen doesn't look naked. You'd then simply comment out any map related code from the opening .m file.

This just may be a dream come true. Thanks, Angry :)))

Thanks Ninja! Just what I have been looking for! Bought it but cannot fine the zip file. Where do I find it? Thanks Tyrone

Get the plugin into Xcode and the zip is there. Dave

Yep, exactly. It will be the first file listed in the plugin. It's called: "0-REQUIRED FILES! UNZIP ME.zip" I put the "0 -" in the filename so it would be the first file you see in the when going to the bt_plugins/AN_Database folder or loading the files into xcode. You can remove the zip from your xcode project.

Very nice! LA

Thanks LA. People really seem to like it so far :) Just a reminder for anyone thats already gotten it... reviews are appreciated :)

Just purchased this plug-in I think it will do just waht I need.... While I can install it on my Buzztouch account I am having problems with setting on my self host. It will not let me load the zip file, comes up with an error. I have tried to FTP and it comes up saying it needs index.php This is not in th ezip I have, on the profile it says file size 6.2 mb, zip I downloaded is just 4.9 mb... am I missing something. Any help appreciated. Thanks

Hi Phil, I sent you a message a couple of hours ago about this. The plugin is 3.0 compatible, and if it's looking for an index.php, then you're probably on 2.19. One fix for this (other than updating your CP), is if you unzip the plugin, you'll see a folder called "source-ios-3.0". Copy all of the files inside that folder, and create a new folder called "source-ios-2.0" and paste those files in there and zip the whole directory back up and install as usual (zip the root folder AN_Database, not just the stuff inside it). The only reason I didn't include it when I uploaded the plugin was that it made the file size over 8mb, which is the limit for BT plugins. It wouldn't upload with both in there, the BT server rejected it for the 8mb file size limit. The difference in file size that you are seeing is because of the high resolution screenshots for the plugin market, which obviously don't get downloaded with your project in the zip, but accounts for the extra space that the plugin reports as in BT. When downloaded with your project, it will be even smaller yet... The project will be 3.2mb total I believe when installed as the only plugin in a project Another option, if you don't want to mess with zipping up the plugin and reuploading it, you can do the same as above with creating the source-ios-2.0 folder and pasting in the files, then ftp into your plugin directory and upload the entire AN_Database folder into the plugins folder, then refresh your plugins from the admin menu. It will do the same thing as installing from zip. Hope that helps. :)

Thanks for that. I am upgrading to 3 now. Great to know you are there to help. Looking forward to getting something happening with this plug-in looks awesome indeed