Screenshots!

Hey,

I realize I have disappeared from the blog for a long time, but I swear I have been hard at work on the web app itself. After getting the basic functionality done (adding links, searching, etc.), I have spent way too much time on the look and feel of the interface.

On the one hand, I've learned a lot about ajax and dynamic web design. On the other I might suffer a stroke if I find one more bug in Firefox or IE.

At this point I will switch over to working on the rating system. For R2 to work, users have to be able to weed out bad links, and approve of useful ones. We also need to add a way for users to flag spam.

-Ben

Firefox Extension Progress

So I've begun the Firefox extension. Writing an extension in XUL and JS for Firefox is likely one of the least pleasant programming experiences I've had. My main problem with it is the lack of decent tools for debugging. As far as I can tell, unless you have a glaring syntax error somewhere in your code, you never hear about any problems from the browser. Rather, your JS thread just exceptions out silently and stops execution.

Despite these difficulties, I think we've beaten down the hard part of the plugin. You can now pull up a sidebar with a keyboard shortcut and it will notice what track what page your eyeballs are on. All that remains now is to yank data with the API and show it in a snazzy way. As proof that the extension is somewhat functional, enjoy this screenshot.

If anyone has any experience in building extensions like this please drop me a line and give me some hints :) I'm spending more time looking at example code than I am writing my own, but more information will help. Also, Ben should post sometime soon with a screenshot of how he's prettied up the web interface.