Airbob – Better Overview on Builds

We, developers use Cruise Control as a continuous integration tool to make sure that our project build and that all Unit tests are successful. Let’s see what Martin Fowler has to say about continuous integration:

Martin Fowler: Continuous Integration is a software development practice where members of a team integrate their work frequently, usually each person integrates at least daily – leading to multiple integrations per day. Each integration is verified by an automated build (including test) to detect integration errors as quickly as possible.

There are lots of 3rd party tools available that in some way interface with cruisecontrol servers. Tools like CCTray and JCCTray are used to monitor the build status of your projects. But all of them have stuck into the look and feel of boring desktop applications. When I first wanted to try out Adobe AIR, this seemed like a perfect fit. Now you can use the power of Flash and Flex to build an attractive desktop application. So I developed the application using Flex and Actionscript 3.0. My colleague Kristof created the skin and designed the application. I have my limitations, because in the end I am only a developer.

The application is hosted on Google code so if you are interested you can check it out. At the moment it is still a work in progress. The beta 1 release has only the core functionalities like listening to (for now only) one cruisecontrol build server.