Straight from me!

It has been a long time since I worked on my project Ping.fm Widget, or even updated my blog for that matter.

However winter break has come upon me and I have found a new motivation to work on it. The new release of the Ping.fm Widget consists of several updates, some of which I’ve been meaning to do for a while. A brief review of the new updated widget reveals a faster, better looking, and better preforming Ping.fm Widget.

First off one of the major updates of mine was to clean out the application’s database used for user account data, as it is starting to get pretty crowded. As a result I will be deleting any account that is not used in the next month. Now this should not be too much of a problem as people can just recreate an account if needed. Also, another was major change the enabling of compression. Now all pages should load a bit faster for you all.

The only really noticeable change would be that of the home page. The home page now has a themed submit button, as well as a better character counter, new ability to switch to posting to blog (making the title box appear).

The only down side about this new look is that I have somehow broke the recent updates function, now it is displaying the same error as custom triggers (when I tried adding it during my session of coding)

Now there are more changes that have happened and there still will be more coming. There are many ideas I wish to implement. However since the year is coming to a close I find it fitting to show how far the widget truly has come.

Old Interface:

New Interface:

As you can see the widget has come a long way , however there is still a lot more I will be adding in the future.

Here is a sneak preview:

- Geolocation Support

- Custom Triggers Support (Thats a big one that I need to get working)

- Photo Support (Got it partially working on some alpha releases, it may even include pixelpipe support)

- Ability to use other shortening url services (other than ping.fm’s automatic shortening through posting)

- More Platforms

…. and much more!!!

Lastly  user will now be able to start to create their own themes for the widget. There will be two options:

1. Developer Themes

Theses will be themes that are created by a developer and just consists of modifications of a css file. After a developer modifies this css file and is satisfied, they may submit their theme for review. If accepted the theme will be available to all users of the app, and credit will be given to theme author (under my copyright link) on pages that are using that theme. So if a user switches to a developer’s theme credit will start showing under the copyright data for that user until the user changes their theme selection.

2. User Customization

Just as you can easily customize your twitter page by selecting colors, you will be able to select colors for different items and save them. Allowing you to customize the app’s appearance to your preference.

Now the downside to both of these is I am not finished completely with implementing both of these things. At this time user customization is unavailable to normal users, but developers may email me or use the feedback page under more in the widget to contact me to get a CSS template to use for designing. They may then email their design back to me for review and incorporation. Once I am down I will just have a page where the CSS may be downloaded and new themes may be uploaded for review.

Now I can’t get to all of the new changes in the Ping.fm Widget but you may go check it out for yourself. To make an account visit http://pingwidget.com or if you already have an account but need to just simply re-download the app visit here (Don’t worry I will clean up all those pages next , and make them look pretty as well). I hope that the Ping.fm Widget is of continued good use.

You may comment below, or use the new feedback page in the widget under more to provide me with ideas, comment or problems with the widget.

You may also follow me on twitter: @gamers600

All the input I get will be all read and responded to so your ideas will likely be included (and very fast).

Early Happy New Year and a late Happy Holidays to all those using the Ping.fm Widgets!!!!!!!

- Anthony

me@anthonykosednar.com