Picasa Web Albums with JSON
Along with Google's recent announcement of providing feeds in JSON format for Blogger, Base, and Calendar it appears at least some of their other properties are gearing up for it as well. I tried requesting feeds in JSON and received a nice response from Picasa Web Albums, it worked.
So of course I couldn't resist working up a quick Flickr-like badge for displaying images from Picasa Web. Having the data provided in JSON format makes things just so much easier to work with. Even for dummies like me.
I have seen some Google Gadgets before for displaying photos from Picasa Web, but between you and me, Google Gadgets are kinda, well, clunky? I mean technically they are cool I suppose, and I'm sure there are some things that really can take advantage of the service Google provides with that. But the technical details with the module syntax etc. are a bit more than I want to delve into, especially for the end results achieved which appear to me to be, well clunky. At least for most of the gadgets I've seen. I'm sure there are some nice ones out there, somewhere.
I haven't seen the Picasa Web Albums JSON support mentioned anywhere but considering the recent developments I would guess that it's not just experimental. As long as Google keeps providing more JSON it will make many people happy.
My Picasa Web JSON badge full of Vipers is in the sidebar. I thought about making it usable into a customizable one-click widget for Blogger, but I don't know that there is much of a call for such a thing. I don't know of many Bloggers using Web Albums yet, as it's still a completely different animal than say Flickr. If anyone really wants such a thing, well ask and I may whip itout up, unless someone else does it first.
And a sidenote on Picasa Web Albums. Has anyone else used it with Firefox and noticed any issues? For me, in both Firefox 1.5 and 2 it acts like it NEVER caches any of the images for PWA. But I don't get that behavior out of either IE7 or Opera9. Those on broadband may not notice, but on dialup Firefox loading each image each time is very noticeable.
So of course I couldn't resist working up a quick Flickr-like badge for displaying images from Picasa Web. Having the data provided in JSON format makes things just so much easier to work with. Even for dummies like me.
I have seen some Google Gadgets before for displaying photos from Picasa Web, but between you and me, Google Gadgets are kinda, well, clunky? I mean technically they are cool I suppose, and I'm sure there are some things that really can take advantage of the service Google provides with that. But the technical details with the module syntax etc. are a bit more than I want to delve into, especially for the end results achieved which appear to me to be, well clunky. At least for most of the gadgets I've seen. I'm sure there are some nice ones out there, somewhere.
I haven't seen the Picasa Web Albums JSON support mentioned anywhere but considering the recent developments I would guess that it's not just experimental. As long as Google keeps providing more JSON it will make many people happy.
My Picasa Web JSON badge full of Vipers is in the sidebar. I thought about making it usable into a customizable one-click widget for Blogger, but I don't know that there is much of a call for such a thing. I don't know of many Bloggers using Web Albums yet, as it's still a completely different animal than say Flickr. If anyone really wants such a thing, well ask and I may whip it
And a sidenote on Picasa Web Albums. Has anyone else used it with Firefox and noticed any issues? For me, in both Firefox 1.5 and 2 it acts like it NEVER caches any of the images for PWA. But I don't get that behavior out of either IE7 or Opera9. Those on broadband may not notice, but on dialup Firefox loading each image each time is very noticeable.
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11 comments:
Where's the tutorial to add it to the sidebar? What about a slideshow?
also can you check into this digg story button for individual posts?
http://diggtheblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/integrating-digg-within-your-website.html
thanks for the label cloud works well on http://ps3mods.blogspot.com
Gr8 info again! Picasa widget's got cool effects and looks nice but it occupies a lot of space. I have a hack request for you. I see that the comments in your comment pages are enclosed in css boxes and look cool. Can you tell us how to do this.
Yes, me! I'd like to try it out!
I was looking for a widget like that to present my picasa web albums, but now I am using slide to present the pictures in my sidebar (check it out here).
The problem is that it I have to enter all URLs manually, so although I like the fancy effects, I'd prefer a more automized solution.
Awesome!
"Even for dummies like me."
Way too humble!
I really wonder why my name is invisible above my comments in your blog. This happens only in Firefox. It shows up fine in IE. I have noticed this for quite some time and have been ignoring as a small thing. Today, I couldn't resist asking. I know you are not doing anything to make it invisible ;-) It must be firefox.. bad bad.
@ramani
Yeah, that's a problem on my end, and with Firefox. In the comments section visited links turn the same color as the background. I haven't quite tracked down my error there, as you noticed it doesn't do that in IE.And I haven't looked very hard, as I'm still not happy with the current state of this template as I've been kinda slashing my way through while checking out all the beta goodness. At some point soon I hope to have the time to work things out properly.
@ken
I'll check it out if I have time, which lately has been at a premium. :-)
@vivek
That's just pure CSS. If you peek at my stylesheet the last section is labeled /* Recent Comments */ and the CSS is there. It's fairly easy if you give each entry it's own class, and I used some Mozilla only settings for rounded corners. It was quick, and see above answer to Ramani I'm not totally happy with it. But time time time....
And since a few of you say you want it, I'll try to work up a widget for adding the PWA feed to Blogger. Again the time thing kept me from doing it up proper, and I wasn't sure if anyone would want it. :-)
I tweaked your picasa thingy a tiny bit to make it display my web album listing, and not the photos from an album. This causes the feed to have slightly different syntax, but it was just a minor tweak (iterating over links until the text one is found, not the feeds).
I put it up on http://thefinbergs.blogspot.com
but left everything else the same. If you don't get to the widget I can try and look into that as well.
Thanks for the hack!
Widgetized at
http://thefinbergs.blogspot.com/2006/11/fooling-around-with-blogger-beta.html
Thanks for the info. I guess I can look into a slideshow later if I have some time.
Nice dave,
I actually got a widgetized version about to go up (probably later tonight) myself.
Although I still haven't tweaked it for album listing rather than inside the album. I may or may not get around to it.
The widget is up, and tweaked for album display also.
Blogger Beta Widget for Picasa Web Albums
THANK YOU. I've been looking for a Blogger/Picasa bage system for a year. Soon adding this to www.Hammerfel.com
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