[Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Hello,

i' am here to announce a program that i have written a few weeks ago. It's now in testing and i need feedback for the quality process [1] :)

KFZcheck is a small program written in python and uses the gtk toolkit
It searches for car (in german kfz) license plates shortcuts and the citys according to
the searchword - german example: S for Stuttgart. A german, austrian, swiss and poland license plate
list is till now included. It works in portrait and landscape mode :)

KFZcheck displays a emblem from the state (Example Stuttgart is a city of the state Baden-Württemberg in Germany), the license plate itself, the name of the city and the state.

In the window menu you can scroll to the start, middle or end and select the right country for searching. The last selected country will be saved in a config file.

When you write lowercase it will search for the correct license plate or when no exists for the citys that will match. When you write uppercase it will you show all license plates that starts with your searchword, not only the correct. You can read the same at the about dialog of the application.

Last but not least a image of the application :)

http://wiki.yourse.de/lib/exe/fetch....307-214708.png

http://wiki.yourse.de/lib/exe/fetch....307-215957.png

http://wiki.yourse.de/lib/exe/fetch....307-215944.png

http://wiki.yourse.de/lib/exe/fetch....307-215932.png

When you have created a country pack i am interested to integrate it in the offical release - please mail me :) More Information in the README of the program and in my wiki [2].

KFZcheck is licensed under the GPL3 license

with kind regards

Patrick

[1] http://maemo.org/packages/package_in...fzcheck/1.6-4/
[2] http://wiki.yourse.de/doku.php?id=python:kfzcheck

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Augsburg is always the first :P My motorbike has the proud A :D

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Hum i think 0 is the first :D A is the third - sorry :D It's only after alphabetical order.

Hum i see my screenshots are a bit old. The license plates 0, 1 has now a image, too (the german emblem).

with kind regards

Patrick

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Nice and useful.

The only complaint I have: Make the search case insensitive. Actually the first letter case must match so that it finds anything.

Example:
L finds Leipzig and others, l does not find anything.

Should not be a big deal to change ;)

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

That was a feature that i have build in after a user has the idea that it will be usefull to search after a special license plate when you only know the first character. For example you are searching for LB (Ludwigsburg) but you know only the L. The uppercase writing will you show all license plates that starting with L.

The normaly usecase is, that you write lowercase (it' s easierer) and then only the right license plate will displayed (you have not to search in a long list when you only looking for Leipzig (L))

with kind regards

Patrick

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Looks like a cool and useful application. The name of the application looks a bit strange to me, though.
If you tell your friend: "Hey, check out this new app, called KFZcheck" he might think it is related to displaying KFC restaurants nearby or something like that ("KFC" & "KFZ" sound very similar).
I also believe that using German abbreviations for app names might confuse a whole lot of people.

So I'd suggest you reconsider the name of the app in order to make it more popular (maybe something like LPcheck).

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Quite honestly, I don't think the app should be renamed. Those who use this app are probably German speaking people anyway.
I instantly understood what this app is used for once I read the name KFZcheck.
I would have never understood what "LPcheck" stands for. (Does it refer to vinyls?) ;)

So please, keep the name ;)

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Why do you think so? People in Poland or Switzerland do not necessarily speak German. And the list of countries for license plate lookups could be expanded any time. I don't see why only German folks would use this application.

And what would you say if the app catalog of your N900 was cluttered with French, Chinese and Arabic application names? I wouldn't quite like it.

I get your point. This was just a 1:1 translation to English. I am aware of the fact that it is not completely possible to avoid ambiguities and I agree that LPcheck would not be any more fancy or less confusing than the original name - I just wanted to point the author to a direction (English app name).

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

The name of an application is rarely an indication what the programm do. That the app has a german background, is because it was first developed for Germany alone. With the Maemo version (a Openmoko version also exists - a earlierer version with less features) i haved added country support and a few nice new features.

So it's not a new software and i think it will be not a good idea to change it after such a long time. The second reason is because i like the name. Nobody will know what Firefox do, without any further information. So it's the same with KFZcheck. Thats the reason why i have started this thread to show people that a license plate finder exists and it's possible to add new countrys to it.

with kind regards

Patrick

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

I agree with Patrick on the naming of the application. There is probably no abbreviation which would identify the purpose of this app in any language (even with the current name it's not immediately clear for German speakers that the app is dealing with license plates). A nice and clear description should do the trick :)

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

I hope that the description is good enough ;)

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

I think KFZCheck is a useful application, but it keeps crashing on me every time i start typing to search for a shortcut.
I already tried reinstalling but that did not help.

When i start from terminal with i get two Gtkwarnings. As soon as i start to type it crashes caused by an invalid pointer.
and a lot more backtrace and memory map output.

Any suggestions?

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Hello Duke,

i know the problem. It's perhaps a bug in gtk itself. After fixing the crashing a other problem with the input exists. At time i looking into pyqt and search for a new solution.

The problem is new and exists since the PR1.2 update.

with kind regards

Patrick

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

A new Version is now available in extras-devel. It's a complety rewrite in Qt, but with the same gui. I hope you like it.

with kind regards

Patrick

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

After kfzcheck, a new package => kfzcheck-extras was released.

It should extend the lists in kfzcheck itself. kfzcheck has only license plates for a few countys included. kfzcheck-extras includes till now:

• E-Numbers - ingredients in foods
• Molkereien_de - german dairy companys with name out of a number
• ISO codes - german version
• Top level domains
• IATA airport codes

The new lists can be found in the normal kfzcheck dialog for changing the country.

I hope anybody can use and like it :) I'm open for new ideas and lists, please help me :D

with kind regards

Patrick

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Thanks for Your good work! The extras are very useful.

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

After a long delay with the switch to Qt i think it's time to promote it to extras. Please vote for the applications kfzcheck and kfzcheck-extras :)

http://maemo.org/packages/package_in...fzcheck/2.5-1/
http://maemo.org/packages/package_in...-extras/0.2-0/


Thanks to all contributors :) Please help me in the future, too, to add new lists, find bugs, improve it with new ideas and of course use it :)

with kind regards

Patrick

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Any chance this might become useful to North American people? :p
Other than that, great work on a very original app :)

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

When you send me a list with license plates, i will integrate it :)

with kind regards

Patrick

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

I don't think it would be useful in USA or Canada, where every state/province makes up its own rules and in general there's no correlation between the number and any geographic area. I don't know about Mexico license plates.

Check out wikipedia for more detail:

USA: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiped...serial_formats
Canada: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiped...serial_formats

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

KFZcheck still needs your help to get into extras.

http://maemo.org/packages/package_in...fzcheck/2.5-1/
http://maemo.org/packages/package_in...-extras/0.2-0/

Please vote for the apps or say me why it not should go into extras ;)

with kind regards

Patrick

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

Can anyone tell me how is this usefull ?

Re: [Announce] KFZcheck - the license plate finder in your pocket
 

@ danx,

KFZcheck is a lookup tool for license plates. Especially it's useful in countrys where the license plates has a reference to the region.

So for example in Germany: S stands for Stuttgart so you know where is the car driver from. On long travels it can be a game to guess the right town/region the car is from.

With kfzcheck-extras, kfzcheck can lookup on lists with special information, too. For example on e-numbers (ingredients in food) or iso codes, etc.

In the core it's only a lookup tool in a csv-file.

with kind regards

Patrick