AJAX

A couple of days ago, I decided that I needed a way to offer a subscription to my blog’s content for the non-RSS, non-LiveJournal crowd.

I had heard mention of an email marketing tool called Zookoda, which is a free tool that hails from the Great Down Under (that being, Australia). It’s an interesting tool that allows one to set up a mail list that can mail daily, weekly, or monthly updates of your weblog’s content in a fairly easy manner.

You’ll notice that on my sidebar, I now hold a subscribe box, as well as a chicklet to show how many subscriptions there are to my content on Zookoda. My feeding it will be slow for the next few weeks, as I start work, but it was remarkably easy to set up.

There are a few things that drive me a bit nuts, including the prolific usage of stuff we don’t really use in XHTML (<b> for example), and some code missing things that are important (alt attribute on images :)), but other than that, it’s really not bad at all. In a month’s time with Zookoda, I hope to be satisfied with the way it works, get many people interested in subscribing to my list there, and have everything the way I’d like it.

I’d like to preface this entry with a short note to Ryan Boren:
It’s not you or your fault, Ryan. You just happen to have posted the relevant entry to my rant in your blog, and the comment submission form there has some kind of unfounded hatred for me.

I’m logging in earlier this evening to approve a comment, and double-check a few settings that I wanted to change in WordPress, and on my dashboard, I see “In the Trunk“, coming from boren.nu.

Of course, being the kind of person who usually grabs WordPress from Subversion instead of the release tarballs, I go to have a look.

Before I continue, I should mention:

• I’ve had to use a ‘dirty hack’ (read: an outright file replacement of a core file that is guaranteed to be overwritten almost EVERY TIME I upgrade WordPress) to get Atom 1.0 support for Eau Salée Lunaire.
• I’ve been AdBlocking this new AutoSave script that WordPress uses while writing my entries. I don’t really like it, and would rather be able to just flip a switch to kill it.
• I like, and I dislike all the AJAXy features being added in to WordPress. While it’s nice to be able to reorganize the bar to the right of my entry box, to get things put in the sequence I like them (cats on the top and expanded, post slug underneath and expanded, post status following that, with the rest of the stuff folded, because I almost never use these and wouldn’t object to hiding at least the post timestamp when composing a new entry), and it’s nice to be able to reorganize the Sidebar widgets in a convenient way… There is still room for things to be desired.

I go to read this list, and find myself ticking off on my fingers every thing that I’m thinking about the new trunk changes:
* TinyMCE 2.0.9
– I’ll switch that off in a heartbeat in my profile. Raw XHTML or bust.

* Prototype 1.5.0
* script.aculo.us 1.7.0
* jQuery 1.1.1
– Lovely shiny AJAXy things. Will they make WordPress work faster? I’m living in a cloud of doubt, but we’ll hope.

* WP XML-RPC API (WP-specific API for working with pages, authors, and categories)
– I’m hoping to see an explanation of this, since I’m not entirely sure what this happens to be.

* Atom 1.0 Feeds
– IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME! (I actually said this one out loud. Very loud.)

* Atom Publishing Protocol support
– Won’t affect me adversely. I don’t have any clients that I use for this, and I doubt I’ll even find a client worth my time to use for it, either.

* Better MySQL UTF-8 support
– Yay!

* User cache streamlining
* Improved options caching
– Caching sounds good, especially when it works.

* Plugin sandboxing
– “O RLY?” I’d love something like that. YEARS AGO. There are plenty of broken plugins out there that won’t work for everyone. One might have a hidden PHP5 dependency. Another might require a blood sacrifice gained from a smashed coffee cup to the forehead.

What bothered the hell out of me on this whole list is, there’re two things that should have been implemented no later than WordPress 2.0, and one that should have followed right up or been on the list for 2.0, and yet these things won’t hit the table until WordPress 2.2.

Atom 1.0 should have been a major priority for WordPress, if they are such a major blogging/cms platform. After all, just how long ago did they deprecate Atom 0.3? (Here’s a hint: Mid-September 2006 = 1 year.)
It’s bad form, and a bold lie to claim that “WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability” (quote taken directly from wordpress.org homepage) when it takes SEVENTEEN MONTHS to get Atom 1.0 FINALLY into svn trunk!
I can understand a month, to give them time to solidify any other changes they might want to offer, but seventeen?
How much longer do the regular end users have to wait to even get this particular development!?

While we’re AJAXing up the place, it’d be nice to have a built-in mouse-over menu for all the stuff at the top, rather than relying on userland fixes (plugins) for this.

For users who have numerous plugins installed that offer options, or a small number of long-named plugins (Google Analytics, CC Content License being a pair of long-named ‘offenders’), clicking on “Options” and waiting for it to show that list of plugins is a bit slow, and not so friendly on the screen real estate. My monitor is 1280 x 960 pixels. I run with my fonts slightly larger to help my eyes, since I read text on screen all day. The result is, with the number of plugins I have, on top of the general Options that come with WordPress, the options bar actually wraps over to two lines. Aesthetically, it does not make any sense.

With all the nifty slide-a-block, fold-a-block AJAX that’s been thrown into WordPress, one would hope that they would actually add something that can prove itself to be genuinely useful, and add a toggle switch for those who could care less.
As much as I like being able to reorganize the bar of crap to the right of my post here in the WP Admin center, I do this perhaps once every few months! The order of these blocks could have been set on the options page, allowing me to set it and forget it, going on with my day to day life.
This is the kind of stuff that makes me miss the old admin interface — the one without alll of this browser-based detergent.

I have the distinct feeling that I will be adding to this in the future, once I feel like ranting on what else in WordPress is making me hate it.

Well, while I was digging around on [tag]HARTline[/tag], the local bus system’s website, I was offered a link to one of [tag]Google Labs[/tag]‘ projects.
It seems that one can now use the power of Google to plan out a bus trip here in [tag]Tampa, Florida[/tag].

It’s a rather useful tool. Just put in the two addresses or intersections nearest your destinations, choose a departure or arrival time, and Get Directions.

The service is laid atop [tag]Google Maps[/tag], and uses authoritative data from the Testing regions (there are a total of nine cities testing out Google Transit at this time) to show routes and scheduled times. They may or may not cover routes on detours, so be advised that this is only to be considered as a general guide on riding public transportation.

One of the nicest things about it is, although you are looking up bus routes in general, you can also switch it over to driving mode, should you choose to change your mind and drive or get a ride from point A to point B.

[tag]Google Transit[/tag] is the name of this new tool.
Hopefully, we’ll see more cities adopt it — I’d love to see PSTA jump on board, too.

Well, I was going to log in and blog a disturbing little animation, when I noticed on the dashboard that WordPress 2.1 is finally available to the rest of you.

I’ve been running it from Subversion for quite a while, because I like to live dangerously on the edge, and things like that.

So, I chose to jump on the WP2.1 banner and point it out instead. ;P

Okay.

It looks like I’ve been volunteered (drafted, ror) to try writing a WordPress plugin that would allow us Posties to (semi-)automate the process of disclosing our compensation per post. Sadly, I barely know enough PHP to get by.

I’m thinking that if one were to write a plugin to work with WP, they’d want it to slurp data from the post’s meta fields. Fields appear to not show in the loop if you prefix them with an underscore (_sponsored_post? for example, would not show up, but Music does), assuming you show each entry’s meta information. So, if one were to write a plugin that made it easier to add information like this (perhaps an AJAXed form right under the post’s entry fields here in WP, just above the uploader form).

Of course, if someone who actually, y’know… knows PHP, would like to tackle this task, I certainly wouldn’t object.

I’m feeling a little frisky, and a bit bored.
I like to review software and web based services.
Unfortunately for me, there’re not enough of those opportunities on PayPerPost (I seriously enjoyed the GroupLoop and List’d opportunities, because that’s where my real energy shows, I feel). I LIKE to try out software and would dig talking about it.

Interestingly enough, I’ve only JUST noticed that I never did add an official ’software’ category to this blog.
So, I added it. Should add a Hardware category eventually.

What I like is anything that’s new and shiny, preferably runs on Windows 2000 at minimum (since I don’t have XP — Donate that, too, if you’d like… :)). If it runs in a browser, it has to run in Firefox or Opera in addition to Internet Explorer.
.NET is fine. So is GTK+, as long as it either has its own DLLs in a standalone directory (so that it won’t interfere with, or take settings from Gaim). Qt? Sure, as long as it runs.

I also do hardware, if you have one to loan to me…

just a note for you all. i just got a cellphone. more when i get home.

I posted that message from my phone a couple of hours ago. I finally caved in and got a cellphone, after the events that happened with mom the other week. I have this pressing need to be reachabel in some shape or form, and if I’m in transit, or on a break, I can’t be reached!

So, Sprint hooked me up with a pretty nice plan. 200 Anytime minutes, Free nights and weekends, starting at 7 pm, for just $29.99 + tax. I can add on 300 text messages for $5. I also get wireless internet, but that’s $15 a month, and something I may do away with for now, since my phone model doesn’t handle EVDO.

Those of you who want it, and I care enough about, you know how to reach me to get the number.