RumpelstiltskinRSS is a web based RSS reader for your Gengo Jobs RSS. After some one-time steps, you can use any browser on any device to alert you for new jobs. As a bonus, RumpelstiltskinRSS does some filtering for you so you will only be alerted if the size and level of the job meet your preferences, taking the time of day into account.
I optimized RumpelstiltskinRSS for my own needs, but tried to make it so that it can be used by all translators. You can find RumpelstiltskinRSS at http://rumpelstiltskin.appje.nl/rss/. For a description how to use it, follow the Introduction link.
Note that you can set the refresh interval to either 31 or 62 seconds. Use 31 for optimal chances to grab a job, without breaching Gengo's demand to access your Jobs RSS at most twice per minute. Or use 62 to test if RumpelstiltskinRSS suits you, while still running your current RSS reader (set to check at most once per minute) on another device.
336 comments
RumpelstiltskinRSS now marks jobs for which you are a Preferred Translator with a star and the code PT. Also, you can now set separate preferences for jobs for which you are a Preferred Translator.
Hi!
Thank you very much indeed for the amazing RSS reader! This is the very reader I've been looking for!
I have one question. When I use this on my iPhone, it does show new jobs but doesn't make any sound.
Is it possible to let me know by sound??
Hi Hemehemekukohi,
RumpelstiltskinRSS is supposed to produce a sound when it sees a job matching your preferences, no matter which browser you use. I run it without problems on an old iPod (iOS 2!) and on a MacBook with recent software (OS X 10.7, Safari 6).
I think this is either a trivial issue with the settings on your device (low sound volume) or a subtle issue with the iOS/Safari version you use. If more people report this problem, I'll have a closer look at it.
Hi Alexander,
Thank you for your quick and informative reply.
Although I checked every setting which comes to my mind including sound volume, it still doesn't produce any sound.
It would be very grateful if you could have a look at it when you have time.
When it sees a job on my iPhone, it shows a music player (?), which I've attached the photo of.
I use iPhone 5c (iOS 8.3/Safari 8), just in case.
Thank you.
IMG_0341.PNG
The music player should automatically start playing. Perhaps Apple disabled this possibility for some reason in Safari 8. Very unfortunate, because the whole idea is to be informed about jobs without having to stare at the screen the whole day.
On the bright side, modern browsers have more possibilities to play a sound. Perhaps I can use on of those for a workaround. I'll see what I can do in the nearby future.
Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to it!
By the way, Alexander, thanks a lot for this great little piece of job you did with this program. But me too I have no sound on my iPhone 3 while refreshing the rss data.
Cheers
Martin
I added 2 buttons "Test sound 1" and "Test sound 2". Each reloads the page and tries to play a sound. "Test sound 1" uses the current way to play a sound, "Test sound 2" uses a different way that should work on modern browsers.
On my iPod, "Test sound 1" works fine and "Test sound 2" just reloads the page but does not play a sound. On my MacBook, both work fine. My hope is that both Hemehemekukohi and Martin will hear a sound after pressing "Test sound 2". My fear is Apple built in a limitation in recent versions of mobile Safari and I will have to add "Test sound 3", "Test sound 4", "Test sound 5", ... before hitting on a solution.
Hemehemekukohi, Martin, please let me know if "Test sound 2" gives you a sound. Others, if only 1 of the 2 buttons works for you (or even none at all), please let me know which browser (+ version) you are using and which button works for you.
Nope, unfortunately none of these two sound systems work at my iPhone.....
Sorry, I forgot the version info. It shows 6.1.6 (10B500).
Thank you so much for putting your effort so early!!
Unfortunately, both of them don't play a sound. Also, as for Test Sound 2, the player image (which I showed you earlier) doesn't show up.
As for my Safari version, I am not sure how to check the version, but my iOS is 8.3 so I guess my Safari version is 8....
I hope you have all information you need.
Mamiko
Hi Mamiko,
Thank you for helping with the test. For Test sound 2 I used a feature of modern browsers to play without showing a player, so in that respect your observation meets my expectations.
Meanwhile, I found a statement in Apple's documentation (Safari HTML5 Audio and Video Guide) that "In Safari on iOS (for all devices, including iPad), where the user may be on a cellular network and be charged per data unit, preload and autoplay are disabled".
In other words, Apple wants to protect users from automatically starting a stream that will drain their wallets. I can sympathize with that, but I regret there is no way for a user to tell Safari that for a particular site it's okay to start playing. The current sound in RumpelstiltskinRSS is 125 KB. I don't think this would have a noticeable effect on your bill.
From other sources on the internet I understand this restriction was first included in iOS 6. Also, I didn't read anything about a similar restriction on other systems, like Android. So I believe this problem is specific for devices running iOS 6+.
The bottom line is that my current approach will never work for you. But perhaps another approach will. The restriction seems to be on the download of the sound only. Once the sound is in the memory of your device (e.g. triggered by the user pressing a button), it can be reused from within the software.
So perhaps I could make it work by refreshing only parts of the page rather than the whole thing. I'll try to make something along these lines within the next week.
Hi Alexander,
I really appreciate your effort to find a problem and solution!!!
And thank you for your detailed explanations about the reason why my iPhone doesn't produce a sound. Now I understand.
I'm glad that I still have a hope!
Also from my side a big thank you for your effort to make things work for all of us who use your excellent tool!
All the best
Martin
Hi Mamiko, hi Martin,
Thanks for your kind words about the usefulness of the software. They are an extra stimulus to solve this issue. But most of all, I find it annoying that a core feature is broken. Being alerted or not being alerted via a sound makes a huge difference. That's why I am determined to fix it, one way or another.
While I don't have a device with a recent iOS version, I was able to reproduce the problem in the Xcode iOS Simulator. The current version sort of works in the iOS Simulator, so it may also work for you.
Tap the Preferences button. On the Preferences page, scroll down to the new block "Alerts". Check "Use alert mechanism adapted to iOS 6 and later". Tap "Start checking for jobs" (make sure "Save preferences upon Start checking for jobs" is checked, or tap "Save preferences" before you tap "Start checking for jobs").
Near the top you should now see a link "Play sound". Tap it for the initial download. You should immediately hear the sound. From now on, it's available in the memory of your device for reuse when RumpelstiltskinRSS sees a job.
That's the theory. In practice, I have found that sometimes the sound still isn't played when it should be. I guess it is erased when memory gets low. In particular, this may happen if you switch tasks on your device. Therefore, whenever you use the device for anything else and then switch back to RumpelstiltskinRSS, I advise you tap the "Play sound" link again.
Hi! I really like the concept of your app, but i keep getting an error when i try to register a new user. It always says that my username is alrealdy taken, no matter what i write.
@Diego Cavalcanti - Fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Thankyou! Register option working fine now, but when i try to add my rss link, even though i just copied it from the rss link, it says it's a invalid rss (it happened with a few other rss readers as well).
It's is possible to automatically open the job page when a new job shows up on the rss?
@Diego Cavalcanti - From the creation time I could guess which account is yours, and I see your rss link ends in a slash (/). I modified RumpelstiltskinRSS so it accepts this. For other rss readers I suggest you remove the final slash to see if that solves the problem.
As for your suggestion to automatically open the job page, I tested this in the past but was not happy with it. With the current version, if I'm not in the mood for translating at that particular moment, or if I'm already working on a job so I can't pick a new one anyway, I can simply ignore the alert. But if the software opens the job page, it halts there and needs a manual reset to resume looking for other jobs.
Many thanks again! The app is working fine now and i just got my first job (a very nice one) thanks to your app. I'm really happy at the moment, hahaha! Got really shocked about the "OH OH OH OH" sound and i was frozen for a moment, but still got the job, hahaha. When i clicked the link, it showed an error message, tough:
{ "items": [ { "name": "id", "error": "@", "path": "id" } ], "resourceName": "default", "resourcePrefix": "", "count": 1, "replacer": [], "isPrepared": false }About my suggestion, it is a feature that i don't find in any rss reader. As for my language pair, there are not many jobs at a day, so we need to be always super ultra fast and concentrated to get a job - like, clicking on the rss alert to show the job page, then running to click on the start translating button. With an automatically page open system, people wouldn't need to worry about running to the notification to open the page and then click on the button, and could concentrate on what you doing at the moment (i work as a webdesigner and get gengo jobs whenever they are avaliable. It could work as an option. Like a checkbox to show or not to show the page automatically. Thanks one more time!
@Diego Cavalcanti - Good to hear I made you happy. The sound is intended to raise your adrenaline level, as on Gengo's system you have to react quickly.
I don't understand what caused the error message. The link should bring you to the workbench, which is http://gengo.com/t/workbench/12345678/ (with 12345678 replaced by the collection id). When you open the workbench, under the hood there is some extra communication between your device and Gengo's server, involving so-called JSON objects. This error message looks like such a JSON object (albeit without collection specific details). RumpelstiltskinRSS itself doesn't send or request JSON objects, though.
If your suggestion is to automatically accept the job, I'll never include such a feature since it's against Gengo's terms. Accepting should involve at least one manual step, like pressing the Start button in the workbench. In the current approach, after the alert you have to perform two steps: opening the workbench and then pressing Start. In my experience, automatically doing the first step to save a few seconds is not as useful as it might seem, but I could include it as an option in a future version.
Hum... That's strange then.
About the suggestion, it would be used just to open the workbench page automatically, you would still need to click to accept the job as usual.
Well, thanks again, hehe.
About the error, the system got all of the job info correct, even the payment converted (very nice function btw), just the link didn't work.
I'll include automatic opening the workbench as an option in a future version.
If the problem with the link persists, or if other people report the same problem, I'll have a better look at it. For now I consider it a one-off issue.
Thanks you!
I just got three notifications, all of them with the same error. When i clicked the link, it change the url to http://gengo.com/t/workbench// with two slashs at the end. And one more detail here, this were not workbench jobs. They are open in an url called https://gengo.com/t/jobs/. Could it be the reason?
Thanks for your detailed observations. That's very helpful. The two slashes could mean that the collection id is "" (empty string), in other words the feed was not interpreted correctly. I added code to log some details whenever a job is seen under your or my account.
Jobs with an attachment have their own environment other than the workbench, but the system is smart enough to redirect from the workbench style link to what it should be, so I don't think the second part of your observations is related to the problem.
Hi Diego,
To figure out the collection id, RumpelstiltskinRSS looked in the feed for a URL that starts with "http://" (without s). However, in your feed it starts with "https://" (with s). I modified the code to look for both possibilities. This should solve your problem.
Hi! Thanks for all the help! As soon as a new job arrive, i will test the link and inform to you. Sorry about all these problems, hehe.