GMC Extension 2.7 Release

Version 2.7 of the popular GMC Extension has been released today. Many of you associate the browser add-on with Karma, a system that allows users to add or remove ‘karma’ points for posts on the GMC forum.

Some of the new features we have included are:
– PM Archiving
– Forum Skins/Themes
– Firefox 3.0.1+ compatibility

Although archiving and skins were available previously, since the GMC had it’s major overhaul a lot of work had to be put in to restore these features. We are also planning on releasing some new features in the coming weeks.

The browser extension can be downloaded here!
It can also be updated using Firefox’s built-in ‘Find Updates’ feature.

If you have any problems, please refer to the support forum.

Special thanks to GMC Extension’s project manager and programmer, ari_aaron and the rest of the beta testing team.

iPlay works for 1 day, now obsolete

Sandy and GMC Administrator Chronic had only just finished announcing the release of a Firefox 3.0 compatible Instant Play plug-in when the Mozilla team decided to update its browser yesterday to version 3.0.1. For users still using version 3.0, they will be constantly reminded (in the form of a corner pop-up message) that they should upgrade to 3.0.1. Pretty soon most users will be up to date, and will be without a working Instant Play plug-in yet again.

The plug-in in its current state was not designed to install on future browser versions. It’s very unfortunate that just hours after YoYo Games took time to release the plug-in, it had already become obsolete. For users looking for temporary/work-around solutions, see below. At this time, there is no statement from YoYo Games to indicate if an when a new version of the plug-in will be available.

Chronic used this method to override compatibility of the plug-in:

Download the addon (YoYo.xpi, right click, save as.)
Rename from YoYo.xpi to YoYo.zip
Unzip to a new folder
Open Install.rdf in Wordpad
Find this line: em:maxVersion=”3.0.*.*” />
Change it to: em:maxVersion=”3.*” />

Once you’re done with that close and save the file and rezip all of the files in the folder and rename it to YoYo.xpi then drag it in to a firefox window to install it (uninstall the previous version first).

Now, I’m not sure that this will 100% fix the issue, but its working for me. So do this only if you must, otherwise wait for an official solution.

For users with the nightly tester tools add-on, you shouldn’t have to make any modifications, a simple press of the ‘override compatibility’ button should do the trick.

Firefox 3 & InstantPlay

For those of you who use Firefox, you may be aware that Mozilla just held a world-record-breaking 24 hour download marathon for the newly released Firefox 3. This means about 7 million people are now running Firefox 3, many of which are trying to use YoYo Game’s InstantPlay system.

The problem is, InstantPlay is not yet compatible with Firefox 3, and this of course is causing some concern amongst users and game authors. What is even more concerning is the fact that Firefox 3 users can neither InstantPlay nor Download a single game from the YoYo Games website.

What we find strange is the fact that the plug-in itself appears to be fully compatible with Firefox 3. When you use additional Firefox add-ons to override compatibility of the plug-in it appears to run flawlessly. The only problem holding back the plug-in seems to be the fact it hasn’t been approved for secure updates. New Firefox extensions now require either an SSL secure certificate or an approval from the Mozilla team. Apparrently the extension has neither.

According to a new glog post, Sandy Duncan has announced that they are working on the problem and in fact they had requested a change (did not specify what) to Firefox earlier on in the beta to help ensure compatibility in the final version. Apparrently this change was not made, but as far as we can tell from our view-point, this should not have prevented the YoYo Games team from adding the required security measures to make the add-on compatible.