donnacha's dashboard

Yes, in terms of workflow, this would make a lot more sense then having to open up each link in my browser and save it using the Instapaper bookmarklet.

Absolute must have.

That's for the suggestion Dave. Unfortunately, there's no way I can communicate that method to people who are searching for me without contacting me first.

What we need is user search that works, surely it can't be so difficult?

Ah, I see, I was searched the word Thai - by the way, the currency name is Thai Baht, because a couple of smaller countries use the term Baht too, in the same way that different countries use the term Pound or Dollar.

Anyway, that's great, thanks!

Well, what sources are you using to decide? The Thai Baht isn't on that list despite being more used than 80% of the currencies you have included. Seriously - the Lebanese Pound? The Tenke? The Ugandan Shilling? The Aruban Guilder?

I recommend xe.com as a good source of currency info.

Based on the fact that this is obviously an oversight, I will go ahead and recommend Convertbot but please do make a note to include the THB, so that we don't have to wait for yet another update.

Thanks.

Paul, thanks for the response - could you please confirm that the Thai Baht will be one of those 100 currencies, so that I can go ahead and recommend the app to my Thai friends working here in the UK, and to my UK friends living in Thailand?

Does this mean that we will be able to select, via prefs, any of the world's official currencies OR only the dozen or so that Tapbots have guessed will be popular?

As I've mentioned in another thread, the Thai Baht has been overlooked in favor of less used currencies. The ideal solution would be if you would just allow us complete freedom to select and change at will the currencies that appear.

Mark, in terms of use, you should have included the Thai Baht in your second batch of currencies.

Thailand has a bigger population that the UK and the Baht is seen as the most stable currency and, therefore, is used as a default business currency within S.E. Asia.

There are a substantial number of Thais working in Western countries and constantly interested in the exchange rate. Millions of tourists visit Thailand every year and several hundred thousand expats have settled down or retired there.

I would appreciate it if you could let me know if the Thai Baht will be added? If you tell me that it will be added at some point, I will buy the app straight away.

Oh, c'mon, there's nothing suspicious going on here, they simply haven't implemented an account delete feature because it isn't something that the vast majority of users will never need or ask for.

Apart from the fact that now, with the arrival of potential-drenched plugin platform, is a strange time for anyone to be leaving ID, why not just do this guy a favor if it means so much to him and delete his entry in the database?

Given that he can already remove all his personal details, deletion is pretty meaningless but, Hell, this is the sort of odd issue that sorta, kinda, from-a-distance looks like a privacy issue, you don't want that to grow legs and have some sort of Automattic-are-evil-and-want-your-data meme to start floating around.

I totally get why you have included a quick-n-easy deletion button, far more people would use it accidentally, but you could probably do this as a one-off for this guy.

Okay, so, I have some excellent news: it seems that this new plugin system will, indeed, allow us the features we feel we need to make the most of our blogs and reach out to new audiences.

Before breaking out the champagne, I had to get some answers to some technical questions, so, I made the followed comment in the announcement's comment thread:

Okay, this is pretty mind-blowing stuff because, this very day, I was finally washing my hands of IntenseDebate and, following their big announcement yesterday, preparing to move to Disqus.

I have read through all the plugin documentation but am unclear on a few things:

1. Will we pretty much be able to use plugins to adapt comments in the same way we use plugins to adapt comments in our own installations of WordPress? Will we be able to make the same range of changes?

2. Will this allow the holy grail we've all spent the last three months whining about: Facebook Connect integration? Big things are happening over there this week and I believe it is vital that we be able to hook into their new broadcast-oriented features.

3. If we submit customized plugins, will they become accessible to everyone via the public directory? Is there any way to submit a plugin, heavily adapted to our own needs, and use it just on our own blogs, saving everyone else the trouble of having to work out what it does?

4. How long, roughly, do you expect the plugin submission and acceptance process to take?

5. Will ID be pretty open in terms of what they take i.e. in cases where the plugin is in no way malicious or harmful, will ID reject plugin for strategic business reasons?

6. Will companies such as, say, Viddler be able to come along and offer an alternative to, say, the Seesmic plugin, or have you made exclusivity deals?

But, yeah, it looks very promising.

All we need now is a way to replicate the new "Social Media Comments" feature on Disqus and that could probably be achieved outside of IntenseDebate, using a regular WordPress plugin that hooks into the UberVu API - although, of course, it would be pretty cool if they were an integrated IntenseDebate feature :)

... and, to my surprise and delight, I received the following, very detailed reply from the lead developer, Jon Fox:

Glad to hear it!

1.) Pretty close, but not quite yet. We're working towards this goal. Right now you can apply filters to the comment text as it's being submitted or when it's output as well as a few other filters, and then hook into a wide variety of actions. We've got quite a bit now, but this will be expanding with time and the requests of developers. The idea of plugins, though, is to open it up to developers, so there's not a lot of reason for us to cripple it.

2.) I think this could probably be done w/ the current plugin API, but if not and someone wants to develop this but needs some new actions/filters please let us know and we'll do what we can.

3.) We do review the plugins that we put in the directory. This is primarily for distribution to others though. If you want to have custom plugin code on only your blog you can by using the plugin editor (available here: http://intensedebate.com/pluginEditor )

4.) This will vary, but I'm hoping to keep it pretty low. A few days is the target, but obviously this will depend on volume, the complexity of the plugin, etc.

5.) We reserve the right to reject plugins from being added to the directory. This is primarily to prevent malicious / misleading plugins. We've opened this platform up with the goal of our community expanding our platform, so we don't plan to reject plugins arbitrarily. If we do reject the plugin, however, you can always add a plugin via the plugin editor or by adding the JS to the blog directly.

6.) These plugins were provided as examples of what can be done with the plugin API. There are no exclusive deals here and we welcome alternatives.

And yes, the last item could also theoretically be done with plugins if any of you are feeling ambitious

So, that's the answer we've been looking for, it seems that we now have a basis from which we can do almost anything, IntenseDebate intend to do all they can to facilitate us and nothing to stand in our way. They've made their commenting system as open as a distributed commenting system can be and we should applaud them for that.

Oh, and, yeah, ... I take back all that nasty stuff I said when I was frustrated and, after six months, despairing of ever seeing any movement from IntenseDebate. I guess they weren't sitting on a beach, drinking Margaritas all that time!

Of course, we won't have Facebook Connect until someone writes the plugin (or converts the exiting WordPress plugin - the structure of ID plugins is pretty much the same) but the real subject of this epic, three-month thread has been what many of us saw as a lack of action, ambition and vision on the part of IntenseDebate. We were clearly wrong about that and, as far as I'm concerned, this thread can now be marked "Solved".

AWESOME!!

Now ... who's going to code the Viddler plugin ;)