Fence 0.8 rc3
It feels like 0.8 is really coming together. Alot of the rough edges have been smoothed out and I'm quite happy with myself. This release candidate includes some notable changes to the UI.
I have Wiley to thank for the nice icon. It fits perfectly.
The bugs in the preferences and login windows have been fixed and all around it should be very close to feature complete for this release.
Download Fence-0.8rc3.zip
Comments
So what is Fence?
I can do a better job of explaining, but bear with me because its early.
A growing number of services, much like TypePad and Vox, are using an API known as the Atom API. In a nutshell it was a way to interact with a server (or service) using an extensible language called XML. Atom is a flavor of that language which has been standardized and accepted.
Fence is a proof of concept application that allows users to interact with there blog on TypePad or Vox from there desktop using the Atom API. It started off as a small tool for me to test TypePad's Atom API implementation, but over time it has evolved into something that (I consider) really usable.
I will put on my marketing hat to answer the same question. :)
Fence is the easiest way for Mac users to get content like photos from their desktop to their blog. Whether you use TypePad or Vox, putting new photos on the web is as easy as drag-and-drop, and Fence takes advantage of all the features of Mac OS X to make blogging even more simple, fun and personal.
This is why Anil is in the marketing department now!
Glad you liked the icon.
One thing though, the icon doesn't tell you much when you have the actual app open. Seems like at that point it should show either the vox or typepad logo depending on what you picked. That way you could possibly one day have multiple instances of the app open for different services. This would be especially helpful if the app ever got opened up to more services beyond typepad and vox.
I agree with having the TypePad/Vox icons but the ones I have area makeshift. If someone wants to send over a 128x128 of the Vox logo and TypePad logo that'd be great. Until then I'm going to stick with the pretty Fence icon.
Hot icon!
Nick,
I finally installed Growl and understand what that's all about. Those notifications are what I was suggesting for the Fence UI - show some feedback about what it's doing. If you don't have Growl, you have no idea what it's doing. Actually, even if you do have Growl, you don't know what it's doing. You just get notified when a photo has been uploaded.
So, my two feature requests remain - (1) Show status in the window, when you drag something onto it - e.g. Uploading 1 of 12... and (2) Allow the window to go behind other apps. I can't leave it running because I don't have the real estate on my MacBook.
Are you interested in adding these two features? :-)
I still have objection to adding more uni elements. Like I said a few times before: If I can find a way to give active feedback as to what is happening in the background then I might do it. Until then I want to just keep it very minimalist and clean.
Also, like I said before, I don't know how to prevent the window from sitting on top. Once I do figure it out, I'll add it as a feature.
I'll consider the second one for the 0.9 release, but 0.8 is feature complete and I'm only doing bug fixes right now.
Hey nick, I'll send you some vox and typepad png's tonight when I get home.
I understand the minimalist idea. The problem is, try using it without Growl and it's toally in the dark. Even with Growl, you can't tell that it accepted your drag and drop or what it's currently doing. In terms of software design and usability, that's a huge no-no if you can't tell whether the product is working. It's certainly your app, and I'm happy to help test and use it. Just trying to help you create an intuitive application.
Hmmm... I was able to pull a good vox icon from the main page, but all the typepad logos I found are kind of small. Maybe anil has access to an illustrator version.
I don't know if this is relevant or if I'm going to the right place, but I tried out Fence and had a problem.
Nothing uploads for me. I don't know if it's something on my end, but I'm running on a 20" Intel iMac, if that matters. I'll drag a photo to the icon and Growl will let me know it's been updated, but for some reason it's not...actually there!
I love the idea, though. It's amazing and easy. One suggestion. When you drag stuff to other applications, a little green + bubble pops up. I think it'd be helpful if this was included, because at first I didn't know if I was doing the trick by dragging stuff over until Growl let me know.
Great stuff, though! If there's a known fix to allow me to upload stuff, I can't wait! Otherwise, I'd be happy to answer any specifics! :D
I think I found the issue: I enabled debugging output and took a look at the reponse text and found that I was getting a 404 - Not Found when posting to the service.post link. I'll let the proper people know what is going on and we'll see if we can get it resolved soon.
On a side note, I'm starting to think that I need a real place to file bugs and keep track of development.
xxx. jpeg is successful. But xxx. jpg goes wrong. to VOX. uuuu...
Thanks for this!
Especially since y'all don't fully work with webkit based browsers on any platform. :(