OMG! Puppies!
Yes, it's Puppies!
Ran across what appears to be some new help entries at Blogger for some as yet unannounced (not on the Buzz yet) new feature that seem pretty cool. You can create html/javascript widgets that can be shared with other beta users (using Layouts) with just a click of the button. Or 3rd parties can create beta compatible one-click widgets. Not too shabby.
How do I create new widgets for other people to add to their layouts?
How do I add third-party page elements to my layout?
In essence what it appears to be is a way to make forms that can post to Blogger and add to your blog. At first glance it appears this would be the equivalent of adding html/javascript widgets to your blog (I don't think it would apply to other type of widgets, although I could be wrong on that.)
Anyway the breakdown is if you follow the format you can get a button that looks something like this. The sample widget takes a Flickr badge that loads in recent photos tagged with "puppies".
After clicking the button you are taken to a Blogger page (I'm assuming if you are not logged into Blogger it will prompt you to login, I haven't tested that yet. If you are logged in you'll got right in) where you can choose which blog you want to apply it to or inspect the contents of the widget (gotta trust the code or it could be bad).
Accept the widget and it's added to your Layout. Puppies!
I've went ahead and added both the completed widget and it's add button to the sidebar here for the moment, but don't be surprised if they are gone quickly. In reality I like cats much better.
And Ramani has adapted Annie's random quote generator and made it a one-click widget! Nice job.
Ran across what appears to be some new help entries at Blogger for some as yet unannounced (not on the Buzz yet) new feature that seem pretty cool. You can create html/javascript widgets that can be shared with other beta users (using Layouts) with just a click of the button. Or 3rd parties can create beta compatible one-click widgets. Not too shabby.
How do I create new widgets for other people to add to their layouts?
How do I add third-party page elements to my layout?
In essence what it appears to be is a way to make forms that can post to Blogger and add to your blog. At first glance it appears this would be the equivalent of adding html/javascript widgets to your blog (I don't think it would apply to other type of widgets, although I could be wrong on that.)
Anyway the breakdown is if you follow the format you can get a button that looks something like this. The sample widget takes a Flickr badge that loads in recent photos tagged with "puppies".
After clicking the button you are taken to a Blogger page (I'm assuming if you are not logged into Blogger it will prompt you to login, I haven't tested that yet. If you are logged in you'll got right in) where you can choose which blog you want to apply it to or inspect the contents of the widget (gotta trust the code or it could be bad).
Accept the widget and it's added to your Layout. Puppies!
I've went ahead and added both the completed widget and it's add button to the sidebar here for the moment, but don't be surprised if they are gone quickly. In reality I like cats much better.
Updates
It appears the Hoctro and I were looking at this at the same time. What are we doing in Blogger help files so much? We need to get out more.And Ramani has adapted Annie's random quote generator and made it a one-click widget! Nice job.
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11 comments:
Hahaha, ok then, i will play along...
How do you manage to find these unannounced stuff!! Looks like a step towards the right direction. In their help pages, they don't seem to say that this is only for HTML/Javascript page element. But right now, it doesn't seem to recognize other element types (I did some experiments). If it accepts other elements like Label, Archive etc, people could come up with nice widgets that can be easily added without editing HTML.
@ramani
I just stumbled on it. Happened to be looking at the help files and noticed the new ones sticking out like sore thumbs. :-)
And I'm glad to see that others are confused about the help pages. On one hand they seem to imply you can use other widget 'templates' which says to me other widget types, but then they say only the globally available tags are usable, and then I gets confused. It almost seems as if the terminology they are using there and in other places aren't matching up, in any event I can't figure it out. Maybe someone will crack the code or Pete may happen by somewhere and give us the encryption key.
And making all the widget types besides html/javascript would seem to me to be problematic. Even if only html/script are what's allowed still kinda cool. Could help especially with 3rd parties for newbies to add stuff.
phydeaux3, This feature is more useful than adding html/javascript code directly from Layout editor only if the widget content is dynamically generated, ie. some third party website gets inputs from user and generates customized html/javascript for his blog.
Hi Phydeaux3,
Just follow the trail from Avatar announcement & got here :) I guess I need to add your blog to my watch list like others of my favs so we don't discover and post @ the same day :) Honestly, I'm glad I'm not the only one who read/watch the tutorials on a daily basis. Great post! I still hope one can add beta tags though, too good to be ignored by Blogger, and it's completely doable.
Cheers!!
@ramani
Well, I don't think we are the target audience for this (not as users anyway), but the average blogger user is. So whether it's dynamic or some other type of content that someone might want it could be very useful for them.
@hoctro
Heh, yeah I noticed that you had saw that too when I came home today. What are we doing looking at help files? We should get out more. :-)
And if it helps either of y'all or someone else, I think I finally understand the help files.
And if my understanding is complete than it is an HTML/Javascript widget only. And taking them on their word you can only access the globally available data tags.
I finally understand what they mean about the widget.template input, you basically have to create what would normally be the content of a widget with includes if you want to grab any of the blog data.
I made a very simple test widget that grabs and displays all the available blog data if you wanna take a look.
Add Widget Tester -- Note...very very basic only for testing purposes.
In reality, I don't see that being used a whole lot. Although there could be cases where some of it might be useful. Most of the action is going to come from the widget.content part I suspect. Although who knows what some of you guys might come up with. :-)
Phydeaux3,
You're the Man! The widget tester you created is exactly what I'm looking for, that is missing from the tutorial. You show me how to get out of the data.content sandbox, by ingenuously wraps the main includable around, thus I can see my code inside the expanded template code. Combining with the suggestion from Ramani (asking users inside the our installation form data to assemble some code,) I can see many usages already. For example, my Google Search hacks could be now implemented, or the "Table of Contents" (using Java coe to clone existing div) and some others. It's clear now since the code is inside the HTML widget, none of the label or posts data are available.
You make my day today!
Contrary to your thought, I think the majority of the activities are going to be on the template code, where a hacker can see and toying with it. widget.content might be very, very useful for storing xml data, for example, for the javascript outside to manipulate.
Cheers!
Heh, glad it helped Hoctro.
Once I finally understood what they were talking about it clicked into place. But it took quite sometime before it did, then it all makes sense.
And yeah, who knows what all sorts of ideas people will come up with. I got one already to get some functionality out of it that at first I didn't think was possible.
More stuff for us to play with.
Kirk, what can I say except to say again, you da man!
You guys are simply awesome! I love reading your blogs...I learn so much. Some of it sticks and some of it I'm still scratching my head :-)
Auto creation of widgets somehow has taken a lot of scope of hackery out, hasn't it? ... small things like the latest post update widget, and other things now can be so easily achievedm that it seems stupid to try something fancy pants to get the same thing done!
Shame on Blogger! But I guess its good on the people who don't code, and who want the functionality before someone codes it and releases it! :|
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