I'm glad to announce the first public release of the tool named QL Buddy.

It is for those, who don't want to miss cool QuakeLive servers, which are currently online, but also don't want to spend time at quakelive.com, keeping eye on serverlist or buddylist.


The tool is actually a Google Chrome Extension. It's not necessary to be logged into quakelive.com from Chrome, because it gets data anonymously (but actually, if you log in, the browser will provide cookies, which may influe results a bit).
While the QuakeLive site can display only one search filter at once, it allows you to keep eye on several searches simultaneously.
Also it can produce sound notification, if some of specified buddies are detected on any server, found in search results.

Manual

Open this webstore page in Chrome and install it. The extension's icon immediately appears, and you are ready to use the tool. It uses Chrome Local Storage to save your presets, and at first, they are obviously empty.
So now you have to open the quakelive.com (refresh the page if it was already opened in any tab), click "Play online" and do some server search (it would be better, if you do the search with non-empty results – it will be easier to learn, how this tool works). After that without going away from current page click the extension icon and then the button "Add current search filter to this list". Less than in 10 seconds you'll see results if click the icon again. You may add up to 10 searches, but keep in mind, that it may cause network lags each 10 seconds, if you have not enough wide connection.
You may "DELETE" any search – the last one will take its place instead. Also you may click the button "Details" which is similar to when you move mouse onto server at quakelive.com to see details. The extension icon displays a 'badge' – a number, saying, how many servers are currently found by all filters. If you want some search results to be excluded from the counter, check the checkbox "Don't count" next to search filter.
If you see some bug, try to reproduce it, to ensure, that it's not your fantasy (for example, search list changes need up to 10 seconds to take effect). Then click the button "debug", copy contents of the tab that just opened, and send it to cases@qlbuddy.fogbugz.com with nice explanation, what went wrong.
P.S.: try not to search with parameter "In your vicinity" – the extension works anonymously, so it's unable to determine your location, so you'll get USA servers, unless you are currently logged into quakelive.com in Chrome.

About authors

Idea and extension itself (JS) – Victor Maslov aka Nakilon
Design (HTML/CSS) – fraggedICE
Betatesting – URAZ, Enonatan

Links

Email for techsupport, thanks and feature requests – cases@qlbuddy.fogbugz.com
Webstore download/install link – plgmlnocppdoaolgkklhnomfbofjbepb
Wiki – https://qlbuddy.fogbugz.com/

UPDATE (17 Jan 2013)

Since first public release, there are new features in v.0.5.0:
– finally the 'buddy detection', which highlights servers and makes extension icon green;
– showing ip:port, team scores, each player score;
– nicknames are now clickable;
– each search filter is now titled with automatically generated description.
Screenshot has been updated.