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Starbuck asked a question in drop.io on October 17, 2009 23:38:
Miscellaneous drop page issuesNot sure if these notes have been posted recently. On Drop pages, some changes to an image aren't reflected until the browser page is refreshed. For example, rotate an image, and after the progress animation the image isn't rotated. Rename the asset, the original filename still appears in the tooltip. Refresh the page and it's all OK. This was with IE7, haven't tried with Drop.io yet and it will be fine if this issue is unique to the older browser.
I also note there are delays in page loading, probably due to chat being updated. If we're not using chat for a page can we disable it? (Sorry if I missed a flag.)
Finally, the chat doesn't report file name changes. Omission or intentional?-
Starbuck replied on October 17, 2009 08:49 to the question "Upload files via FTP" in drop.io:
I just wrote a utility to copy or move assets from drops to an FTP site, and similarly to move files from a directory in an FTP site to a drop. I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet so suggestions for specific functionality are welcome.
An application I can see for this is a background process that watches drops for new files and then pushes them off to a desired FTP site. If the site contains files for a website, this means you can essentially update images and other content for a website simply by posting files to your drop. Of course that also means you can email files to your drop, which then get pulled out to the website, or you can have voicemail and other assets displayed on some website other than drop.io, you can even get inbound faxes posted to some other site.
Conversely, let's say someone posts a file to an FTP site. This will pull it out to drop.io, and from there rules can be applied for emailing, tweeting, or performing other standard Drop.io operations on the data.
This is one step away from a similar utility where you just put files into a local directory to have them pushed out to a drop - or similarly anything that gets put into a drop can get extracted back to your PC.
This utility is currently a Windows Forms (thick client) app written in C#. It can and will easily be re-worked to a tray app, a windows service, or incorporated into any other application. As a Windows app, this needs to be running somewhere in order to work. (Um, duh?) It can get run from the Task Scheduler, run in the background, or it can be triggered by some website operation. If you want the functionality to work without your PC running, the utility will need to run on a hosted Windows box somewhere. I can host this if there is demand, but as always (with me anyway), such a service can't be provided for free - maybe a buck a month or something close. I don't see a need to port it to Mono for Mac or *nix any time soon but if anyone really prefers to have this running outside of Windows I don't anticipate any issues.
Comments and suggestions are welcome. -
Starbuck asked a question in drop.io on October 05, 2009 00:50:
What do you do, or what would you like to do with Drop.io and Twitter?How are you using Drop.io and Twitter together? As a developer using the Drop.io API as well as the Twitter API (and many others) I'm wondering if anyone is looking for a new way to integrate Drop.io and Twitter. Of course there is Tweet.io. But is anyone still saying "gee I wish I could ..."?
People go to websites to "do stuff" all the time, and they have desktop apps that "do stuff". So what "stuff" can't you do yet? Would you like something delivered to your drop that you see mentioned in Twitter? Want to somehow tweet a file to people? Want better filtering of what's dropped or tweeted? Twitter is getting Geo location data soon for mobile users - how about getting a map, local weather report, or real-estate guide sent to your drop (and thus email, fax, etc) when someone you're following tweets from some specific area? Hey, I can think of a lot of unlikely applications but the possibilities are endless - and who knows what people will actually find useful these days?
Let your imagination run wild - it's very possible that the things you think are impossible are really only a couple hours of coding away... -
Starbuck asked a question in drop.io on July 21, 2009 00:17:
Missing assets? Activity log?I created a drop a couple weeks ago and added assets. I know I added assets because I commented on them in my "Can't see asset comments" note here. Today the drop is empty. OK, it's possible, even probable, that I wiped it out myself, but unlikely. Is there any way to create an activity log? Auto-email activity to an admin address? (Cool if that was another drop.) Any way to see full RSS activity for last couple months?
Anyone else find assets missing? -
Starbuck replied on July 21, 2009 00:07 to the problem "Can't see asset comments" in drop.io:
I appreciate the thought process but there's a usability issue when someone looks at a UI and can't figure out what to do without being told.
I'm not looking for a new feature. I want to point people to a web page and get them interacting with it without me having to point them to a separate page of documentation.
Try this usability experiment. Create a drop with a couple assets. Add a comment to one asset but not to another. Now ask some people who have never seen drop.io before to comment on the assets in the UI. See how long it takes for people to figure things out without you telling them where everything is. If you need to tell the user anything, the test fails. If it takes them more than (arguably) 5 seconds of mousing around, it fails. If they can't find help to tell them what to do, it fails. If you consistently point people to a page and they "get it" without any wasted time or extra instructions, then I'll have to re-think about how much faith I put in the average website user.
The bottom line is that no UI should have too many hidden ways to access primary features. In some ways I think drop.io was designed to be a little too clever - designed for "us", not for "them".
I'd love to see people post results of the above test here, and please include some indication about the type of person doing the testing: younger/older? developer? internet savvy? complete noob? occasional surfer? ... -
Starbuck replied on July 13, 2009 00:58 to the question "Completely branded custom drop?" in drop.io:
Ben - I had lengthy exchanges with Drop.io management about this topic as well. After a while I came to the conclusion that it may be better to give full credit to Drop.io and acknowledge them as providing key components of a value-add infrastructure. These days is sort of in-vogue to associate one brand with another, which is why so many sites have API links to Twitter or Facebook, or Google widgets and other such plugins. That's the nature of mashups.
I have no idea who you are, what your main product or model is, or what your goals are, so I hope none of this offends you.
If you intend to provide the exact same services as Drop.io, with no value add, then your clients don't have a lot to gain from coming to you versus going direct. If that's the case you're going to have a hard time with the whole venture. If you want to sell voice mail services (without the branded "welcome to Drop.io" message") or provide a way for people to share files that they email to a host (not @drop.io), then you should probably look elsewhere.
However, if you do provide unique value-add and the Drop.io services are merely a part of what your clients/visitors get when they come to your site, then I don't think you have to worry about people wanting to cut out the middleman or go directly to the source.
So my advice is to consider embracing the brand, and figure out a way to make people feel good about coming to your site to make use of Drop.io services. Provide some way to make use of the files and transport tools that compel people to come to your site - and if they go direct to Drop.io, many/most will realize that they simply can't get there what you offer. If people do go direct and find what they want, let them go. Competing with free and low-cost services is tough enough as it is. It's even more difficult to try to make a profit in the process. -
Starbuck reported a problem in drop.io on July 02, 2009 01:43:
Minor image issuesIn System view, the video thumbnail image isn't displaying as the icon, a "missing image" placeholder displays. The thumbnail is available since it's displayed in other views.
Image http://drop.io/images/iconDelete.jpg seems to be missing. It should display to admins in the comment viewer. You probably want http://drop.io/images/cross.png. -
Starbuck reported a problem in drop.io on July 02, 2009 01:25:
Can't see asset commentsI have a Note and a Movie. Both have a single comment. Neither guest nor admin can see comments by default in any view - Blog, Chronological, Media, or Page. To see a comment, the user must know that they need to mouseover the asset, pull down the list, and select Comment. They must further be educated that if there is no quote bubble over the asset that there are no existing comments. It didn't used to be like this.
Preview mode doesn't show comments either. The user must essentially go to add a comment, or use the Go To File option before they can see existing comments
If I email an asset to a drop, the subject and body of the email are used to explain the asset. If all someone sees is the first frame of a video they have no idea what the asset is about, and I don't want to require people to go through a multi-step action on every asset just to see if they're interested.
What can be done to show one, all, or some pre-defined number of comments by default for each asset?
Thanks! -
Starbuck replied on July 01, 2009 23:53 to the question "Is there a way to view a drop in the blog mode in reverse order?" in drop.io:
Was just looking for the same thing... And I'll add here as well that it would be nice to have a Sticky option. I just created a drop by posting content first, then I decided it would be good to have a Welcome message to let people know what the drop was about. Oops. So I deleted the assets and added a Welcome note. But in blog view it falls to the bottom anyway. Double oops. What I want is a sticky welcome, then an admin default and guest option to toggle LIFO or FIFO under the stickies. Sticky items should remain at the top even if changing view from media to blog to chronological.
Thanks as always! -
Starbuck started following the question "Is there a way to view a drop in the blog mode in reverse order?" in drop.io.
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Starbuck replied on June 15, 2009 23:49 to the problem "Cannot paste text under Linux." in Balsamiq:
I'm seeing the same thing in v1.6.13 over Windows.
- Copy from an external source.
- Open a label, ctrl-v or use the context menu and Paste.
You don't see the text in the box but if you press Enter (or click away from the control, you'll see the text actually did get pasted in there ... multiple times if you kept hitting ctrl-v because it didn't seem to work. ;) -
Starbuck started following the idea "Support for creating and using templates" in Balsamiq.
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Starbuck started following the idea ""Projects" that bundle multiple mockups." in Balsamiq.
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Starbuck replied on June 15, 2009 23:33 to the problem "Second undo doesnt work" in Balsamiq:
This seems to be a good place to make a note of ctrl-z / undo issues.
Ctrl-z as Undo, and ctrl-y to Redo, only work at the control level, not with text.
Enter text into any control, then ctrl-z. There doesn't seem to be a way to undo text being entered "right now". I know the next question is "undo to where?" What do you think about undoing text back to the last punctuation, or since the last carriage return? This sort of thing even works in browser text areas. Right now I'm tempted to create text for listboxes and accordions in a separate editor and then paste the final version into Balsamiq. That's just silly.
Same goes for ctrl-y, which of course if you can't ctrl-z you can't ctrl-y either... -
Starbuck replied on June 15, 2009 23:20 to the idea "set styling defaults" in Balsamiq:
As another example, I prefer to accentuate data rather than the labels which precede them. The default 'Label / String of Text' BMML is bolded which means I need to use the default once, duplicate it, modify it, then use my version rather than the Balsamiq control selector from that point forward. That's sort of a waste... I also add Search buttons next to many fields. Balsamiq has Help buttons but no search buttons. The list can go on, and of course every designer/developer has different preferences.
I think it's very important that the software allows users to add and remove controls from the control selector. The only way I can think of to easily use custom controls now is to create a BMML file of frequently used controls (oh dear, what an awful acronym) and then copy/paste them as required.
An alternative to modifying the top selector bar would be to add another selector at the top where you allow a shortcut filter for Common, Containers, Layout, etc. Add "Custom". Then when that item is clicked, import the BMML from all files in a defined directory-1. When we click on that item in the control selector, paste in the BMML from a file with the same name in directory-2. The reason for this is that there is only so much space in the control selector, so we can use dir-1 for "thumbnail" BMML and have the real BMML, maybe downloaded from Mockupstogo.net, in dir-2. -
Starbuck started following the idea "set styling defaults" in Balsamiq.
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Starbuck shared an idea in Balsamiq on June 05, 2009 16:45:
Office or Skype IntegrationI create extensions for Outlook and Excel, and sometimes Skype. I'm posting this here in case someone else ever says "gee, I wish I could click a button and have Balsamiq launch from this Office app or Skype chat..." I'd like to know what you'd want to do there.
This might be an example, you're collaborating with people on a design and using email to discuss it. Heck, this could be an effort conducted through Google Groups where you get your feed via email. Rather than passing the BMML around in email you just have a reference ID in your emails, something like "Mockup#123". When Outlook sees that it puts a button in your toolbar that says "Open Mockup" or "View Mockup" (just for the PNG). The BMML itself can be centralized to avoid having a different version in everyone's mailbox archive. The mechanism can be coded to only allow edit access to authorized people, and everyone else just gets a PNG reference - or maybe people can get read-only access to specific files.
For Excel, maybe you're tracking projects in a spreadsheet and you want to see the spec for one of them. Select the project number cell, click the Open Mockup button in the toolbar, and Balsamiq opens.
Another idea from the "why would you want to do that?" department might be integration with Skype. Examples:
- Launch Balsamiq from text in Skype chat.
- Push BMML or PNG through Skype file transfer into the system of someone who has the same plugin/extension.
- Setup a Skype bot that allows people to request a mockup just by entering its name in chat.
I don't know how you guys collaborate but you might be using these tools on a daily basis and have no idea that you can exchange files like this. If you don't like the ideas, cool, I'm not fond of them either, but maybe this will get the creativity flowing for something more useful. Post ideas here and let's see where it goes.
For Peldi and the Balsamiq Studios crew - I'm thinking the above would be done via the command line interface. If there is a better way to drive the software, please point me to some documentation.
Ciao! -
Starbuck replied on June 05, 2009 16:14 to the question "integration with PM tools like BaseCamp. GoPlan, ActiveCollab, or Issue Trackers like Fixx, FogBugz, Unfuddle, Redmine, Lighthouse ?" in Balsamiq:
The more of these inquiries I see for support for various "otherware" the more I think it would be better for Balsamiq to have a published API, or simply good documentation for integration - maybe just a couple more options in the command-line. The FOSS market is pretty good about doing its own integration when there is something to plug into.
As I understand it, the basic functions require Balsamiq to do the following:
- Accept request for New mockup
- Accept existing filename
- Save BMML/PNG to specific paths and perhaps filenames provided at launch
If the response to that is "there are more things that need to be done", then just document it - that becomes the beginning of an API.
From there it would be up to product-specific developers to add their own mechanisms to supply Balsamiq with what it needs during launch and to embed results in their UI when Balsamiq closes.
Personally I'd prefer to see more development on the core product than on extensions into other products which are subject to break as soon as some of those other products have a new release or change their API, etc. Let each team work on their own specialty.
But if you do continue down this path, plesase add to the list : WordPress, Simple Machines Forum, and Mantis bug tracker. LOL -
Starbuck replied on June 03, 2009 18:33 to the idea "Add Lorem Ipsum text to UI controls available" in Balsamiq:
I've read recently in web pages and books on good design that Lorem Ipsum can be a bad idea. This short blog entry has an excellent alternative idea, and it links to another very popular page at 37signals.com, talking about why Lorem Ipsum is bad. I'm no purist on the topic but I think the advice should always at least be considered. -
Starbuck replied on June 03, 2009 18:26 to the idea "UI element transformations" in Balsamiq:
I dunno if Peldi would be interested in adding that into the product but as a developer I can easily see an external extension where you select a BMML file, tell it to change specific controls like that. If the file is open you'd get a notice that the file was changed and you can simply OK to reload and see the new controls. I don't think Balsamiq is "extensible" so I don't think guys like us on the outside can do this as an addon to the product. But if you don't mind a separate executable then I don't think this would be too tough.
Any thoughts from anyone about similar extensions or other "gee I wish I could zap my mockup" ideas?
Peldi, I have ideas of how to allow Balsamiq to be extensible without many changes on your side. Interested?
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