November 4th, 2010 Anyfeed Slideshow: One Week After Launch
A week ago yesterday, I launched the Anyfeed Slideshow plug-in for WordPress. There were a few bugs, which I tackled as soon as I could. It’s been a little over a week now, and I’ve averaged about 1 revision per day since then, each resolving little bugs as they popped up. I checked the statistics on the WordPress site, and wanted to share them here, because I can barely believe them!
That is not a small number!! Wow! They like it! They really like it! :D
Plans for version 1.1
As the bugs appear to be mostly worked out now, I plan to release version 1.1 in the near future. The new major version will include a number of requested new features:
- The ability to leave the title bar up, even when the mouse isn’t hovering over the plug-in
- The ability to change the color of the loading text
- A color picker instead of just text boxes in the widget configuration menu
- The ability to select the target window for slide show item links
- The option to enable (browser side) image scaling within the slide show
- The ability to show more then one concurrent widget instance
Do you have a feature you’d like to have added? Please feel free to ask below in the comments!
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This is a very cool plug-in with multiple uses. But more importantly, the developer is active, listens, and provides quick and complete solutions to those of us who may not be fully WP or script literate. She worked with me on an issue that I inadvertently caused and the plug-in now works without a hitch.
I'd like to be able to have more than one slideshow active--stacked in the sidebar or one in the sidebar and one in a bottom box, but my efforts so far have resulted in a confusing mixture of titles and feeds--and never more than one.
Thanks Jim!
That's something the original purpose for this plug-in didn't require, but I could definitely add that to a 1.1 release. I have a few bugs to work out yet with incompatabilities with some RSS feeds, but I Will add this to my list of new features to implement for version 1.1.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Hello.
It looks like this is exactly what i was looking for, but after showing "loading..." for a while, nothing shows up.
i am trying to pull photos from here
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sfbayareadogcat/
and the rest of the setting is default. your plugin is at the bottom of the sidebar.
any idea?
thanks!
Hi Hiromi,
I just had a look at your site, and the slide show worked just fine for me. What browser are you using?
I also noticed the following error:
swfobject is not defined
<script type="text/javascript">swfobje...ow/media/playerProductInstall.swf" );
http://incircle.server268.com/
Line 42
Javascript errors like this one can cause other Javascript to halt. This might have something to do with your problem.
Oh, and my site is
http://incircle.server268.com/
thanks!
i am using firefox 3.6.8. it just shows "loading..."
i also tried to look in IE8. same problem. pictures do not show up.
fixed "swobject is not defined", but still not images.
so you can see images at the bottom of right sidebar? i know flash flickr photostream (just below About) is working, but cannot specify a group, so i was hoping your plugin would work.
Hi Hiromi,
My apologies- I thought that was my plug-in at first.
The problem here is you've given the slideshow a feed which is not XML based. It can't pull photos from HTML, only XML. The URL you should use is the RSS link at the bottom of this page on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sfbayareadogcat/pool/
That should get you working. Sorry for the confusion!
Great!!! Thank you sooooooooo much! this is exactly what i wanted.
i appreciate your timely help.
Glad that worked for you! :)
Take care!
Great tool. It really enhances my website.
Could you put into the next version?
a. support of two or more Anyfeed widgets/feeds in sidebar
b. feedburner feed support
c. Javascript into sidebar instead of in head section
c. Formatting options e.g. padding around the widget
Hi Ape,
Sorry for the delay in response! I plan to add multiple widget support and as a result will likely add Javascript to the sidebar in the next major version (1.1), but Formatting is a great idea. I will add that to the list as well.
The plugin should already support Feedburner feeds, though there are a number of them that have malformed XML in them; I've added some PHP regex to the plug-in that should help correct that as of 1.0.10.
Let me know if you have any trouble! Thanks!
Hi Soleil,
Great widget! Keep up the good work!
First I couldn't get Google's Picasa to work. Only per album, but I wanted the latest additions to show. And the RSS button at the mainpage of Picasaweb doesn't work. After some searching I found the correct RSS feed to show the latest additions: http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/<your username>?kind=photo&alt=rss&max-results=10
Of course you can change the max-results value to whatever you like. Hopefully other people find this information useful :)
I have one small problem, when I want to cache the XML file it won't load any pictures at all. Probably file permission problems.
Any plans to make a "normal" plugin of this widget? It is so easy to use, I would love a plugin version of Anyfeed so I can add specific Picasa albums into my content!
Hi Sander,
Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you were able to get the plug-in working properly. :)
The Caching system should work if it allows you to enable it; but troubleshooting that particular issue is difficult. I would be willing to do what I can to fix it, if it's something you want desperately enough to troubleshoot with me.
I would like to make a version of the plug-in that could be used outside of widgets, but that would take a lot of work to do right. I do plan to do it eventually; it will probably be the headline for the 2.0 release.
Thanks!
Just updated to v1.0.10, when I enable the XML cache I got a "Failed to write XML." error instead of the widget. Disable the cache "solves" it. Can I check some directories/files for permission problems?
Sorry to bug ya : /
I just downloaded the plug-in and everyone seems to have it working fine so I think i'm just doing something wrong here (totally new to this)
Ok so it's downloaded, and activated, but when I go to my "Widgets" page to add it to the side bar the page is almost completely blank. I see the box for "Anyfeed Slideshow" but the rest of the page is totally blank. There's no sidebar areas to drag it to or anything. And when I deactivate Anyfeed Slideshow from my plug-ins and go look at my "Widgets" page again it's back to normal, with all the options and sidebar areas to drag and add them to.
So idk what i'm doing wrong : ( If ya can please provide some very elementary lvl steps I can take to get it working. Looks like such a great plug-in, I wanna start using it! :)
Hi Allison,
Sorry for the delayed response! Could you tell me what version of Wordpress you're using?
Thanks!
How is the development of 1.1 going?
Hi Ape,
I have not yet begun working on 1.1, but plan to start working on it after the holidays. I want to make sure all of the bugs are ironed out before I start building new features. :)
There will be an announcement here when it has been released.
Thanks!
Looking forward to the new version. Definitely need the ability to leave the title bar up, even when the mouse isn’t hovering over the plug-in.
Would be nice to have different backgrounds behind the images. You could sell those. Offer a white frame for free to addict us and want more variety.
Hi Lou Anne,
I have considered offering a very simplistic frame, but decided not to as most side bars do not provide much space for one; The image is more important in my eyes. Such a thing could be added to the new version at some point when it becomes possible to embed sideshows within one's posts.
As for selling frames or backgrounds; I don't have any interest in making money from this plug-in. I've been neglecting it recently as I work a full time (plus) job and have a frequently busy social life. Puting enough work into this that I would feel it worthy of charging for bonus features or the like would require me to restructure my schedule to a configuration with which I'm not presently comfortable. Charging for features in a product comes with the added burden of liability; When one pays for a product, they have a different and much more strict set of expectations. I have no desire to take on that responsibility at this time in my professional life.
Thanks for the suggestions; I will do some thinking about how to provide people with the ability to add their own frames and backgrounds in a later release (1.1 seems to have a good selection of features to start with, so I think I'll leave it there for now).
Thanks again! :)
Any news on the next version? I have a site I'm building and the owner loves this plugin, but wants to display 3 widgets.