NewsGator Technical Blog

New Version of TapLynx Released Today

The new version of TapLynx has been released, and it includes a number of bug fixes and new features (mostly based on requests that we received from our TapLynx developer community). We're still looking towards much more stuff on the horizon, mostly from the input we receive in the Google Group and on the Roadmap.

Download the SDK here (it's free to evaluate): http://www.taplynx.com/download/

Here are the official release notes:
- Fixed a crashing bug that could happen with feeds with bad XML.

- Fixed a crashing bug getting a password from the keychain. (Which won’t affect you yet — but in the future it will be important for some apps).

- Added a new feature for programmers: a custom delegate class. It will get called at various times and have the ability to affect different parts of the app. Specify the class name in your NGConfig.plist file as TapLynx_DelegateClass (Only one instance of that class will be created). Right now the only message it gets is applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application (Whenever possible, it will get the same messages that the application delegate class gets. But it will get other messages too).

- Added support for folders. We haven’t documented this yet, but we will. Quick how-to: inside a Feeds array, create a Dictionary item that has a Title instead of an xmlUrl. That title will be the name of the folder. Then create a Feeds array inside that item. Those are the feeds that will appear in the folder.

-In NGConfig.plist, specify the color of the folder title text as NewsItemList_FolderTextColor.

TapLynx has landed!

What is it?

TapLynx is NewsGator's answer to iPhone app development. Our SDK allows you to create content based apps with very little effort (you actually don't even have to know how to program anything). The platform also allows for a great amount of customization, including the ability to add elements that you have coded in Xcode.

Why would I want to try it out?

There are several reasons, based on where you're coming from:

You're a front-end web designer
You have extensive experience in CSS and HTML, and you have a knack for displaying content in an appealing manner. You may or may not have programming experience.

With TapLynx you can create applications for your clients without having to program anything. You supply feeds (which can contain news, images, and audio/video), graphics, and define color schemes and HTML display elements. From that point, you have a full-fledged application to submit to the app store. Simple, huh?

You're an iPhone app developer
You already develop iPhone apps and are familiar with Xcode and the app framework.

With TapLynx, you can cut down a huge amount of dev time: a lot of the work has already been done for you. The framework also allows for custom tabs, where you can include Xcode developed classes that perform any number of functions. This can greatly enhance content based apps: say you are supplying news and images about a sports team, but you'd also like to show a scoreboard that you've coded as well.

You want to publish content based apps simply and easily
You have a good idea for an app, or you'd simply like to create an app based around some of your favorite content, such as news feeds or image feeds.

Honestly, pretty much anyone can easily start using TapLynx to achieve this. In the interest of full disclosure, I've only been a programmer on Windows machines, almost exclusively in VB.NET. I was able to jump on a Mac and create an application in less than an hour. It's amazing how much TapLynx opens up possibilities for you.

I can't wait to try it out!!! Where can I find more info?

You can sign up for the TapLynx SDK on the TapLynx homepage here: http://taplynx.com/

But we've also started a Google Group so that we can focus on having TapLynx be community based. The group will allow everyone to share their ideas, and I also like the fact that the NewsGator team can directly respond to feedback and bug reports. We also really want to see what kind of cool apps you can come up with. Sign up for the group here: http://groups.google.com/group/taplynx

And as always, I'll be posting releases, updates, and tips here on the technical blog.

Widget Quick Tip: Modifying the number of articles at runtime

When you embed a widget script block, there are a number of parameters in our framework that let you adjust the appearance of the widget at runtime. The maxPosts parameter lets you set the number of articles:

<script src="http://nmp.newsgator.com/NGBuzz/buzz.ashx?buzzId=12345&apiToken=99999999999&maxPosts=50" type="text/javascript">
</script>

What's great about this feature is that it allows for a greater maximum than can be set in Editor's Desk. In Editor's Desk, the maximum number of articles is 20. With maxPosts you can set it to something greater.

Templated or Cobranded widgets: Changing the look, feel, and content of widgets at runtime

Suppose you'd like to design a widget that would only have a few minor differences on different pages of your site. Or suppose you'd like to launch a cobranded widget campaign, allowing users some level of design (such as providing their own logo and colors) with which they can brand a widget containing content from your site. Either way, you can create widgets that accept parameters that can be passed into it when it is loaded onto a page.

A great example of cobranding is the Discovery News Science and Technology widget. You can display Discovery content on your site, but with your own branding. Sign up for it here! http://dsc.discovery.com/widgets/newsgator/signup-page.html

We've got a couple of built-in methods for implementing this. The first step is to decide which one to go with:

ExtraArgs
http://developer.newsgator.com/wiki/index.php?title=Advanced_Configuration_Using_ExtraArgs
Only one widget is created for the campaign, arguments are passed to the widget via querystring parameters on the script block that is placed on your page.

XMLConfig
http://developer.newsgator.com/wiki/index.php?title=Advanced_Configuration_and_Using_xmlConfig
Separate widgets, so reporting is gathered for each cobrand. Arguments are defined in the Advanced Configuration UI. This is a great approach for when you have a Flash widget that uses XML config.

Once you've got that decided, you can set up your unique widgets using our framework. Both methods are tremendously simple.

AdBurner Step-by-Step

AdBurner is NewsGator's integrated solution to online advertising. Put simply, we make it really easy to put ads into your widgets, which can then be distributed via social networks and other websites.

For some background, here is the AdBurner page on NewsGator Widgets: http://www.newsgatorwidgets.com/webinars/adburner/default.aspx

And this blog post talking about some of the benefits of the service from the widget blog: http://blogs.newsgator.com/newsgator_widget_blog/2009/01/newsgator-annou.html

And this post is how to use it! It's so easy I could cry.

Right now we've got it set up for Ad Meld, Technorati, and generic HTML ads (like a GIF with a link).

When viewing a widget on your Manage page in Editor's Desk, click on our neat little AdBurner icon.

Add a new item, and specify the values as given to you in the ad script. For example, if I have a Technorati ad that looks like this:

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript"
   SRC="http://ad.yieldmanager.com/st?
   ad_type=ad&ad_size=234x60§ion=123456">
</SCRIPT>

It can be specified for the widget like this:


And now, in the widget code, here is how you call your ad (are you ready?!?):

${ RenderAd('ng_ad') }

That's it. As you can tell, this allows you to change the ad info and ad provider without changing anything in the widget. Pretty cool, huh?

New Wiki Article - Dynamic Content in Widgets

A new wiki article has been published that explains how to dynamically pass content into a widget:

This is a particularly useful feature if you would like to use a widget as a template, and have that widget present unique content on different areas of your website.

Check it out here; it's very easy to do! http://developer.newsgator.com/wiki/index.php?title=Using_Dynamic_Content

Totally useless... but awesome

I was recently clued into this neat Cornify easter egg:

http://paulirish.com/2009/cornify-easter-egg-with-jquery/

That does nothing more than place unicorns, rainbows, and happy words on a web page. So naturally I embedded this code in a widget so you can take unicorns with you when you visit social sites.

Try it out, or share it!

Release Notes for Today's Load

Widget Builder - New content type: "Topics & Keyphrases Only." The widget will only return the topics, keywords, and keyphrases for an article page that the widget is residing on. This feature can be found in the content area, on the "Other" tab.

Facebook Wizard - Updated wizard to reflect changes on Facebook's side.

Keyword search - Improvements made to the infrastructure to return better results:

• Searches now use inflectional stemming on inputs. For example, a search on counterfeiting would also include results containing counterfeit, counterfeited, or counterfeits. This works for basic dictionary words, so it won't attempt to perform this function on searches like "swimmingly," "Qwest," or "Jenny." Search terms in quotes will not be stemmed.

• Searches now return the top results by relevance, sorted by date. So it finds the top N most relevant posts, then sorts that subset by date.

Conditional Ad Placement

Say you've got a viral (or better yet, cobranded) widget, and you'd like to control when the ad shows up. How do you go about this? Right now we're working on building this functionality into our Editor's Desk, but in the meantime we've got a new Wiki article that explains how to do it:

http://developer.newsgator.com/wiki/index.php?title=Conditional_Ad_Placement

For some background, here's how to put ads into your widgets:

http://developer.newsgator.com/wiki/index.php?title=Putting_Ads_into_Widgets

And while that's all fine and good, we can do the work for you with our AdBurner utility. Sound interesting? Contact sales@newsgator.com.

Cool New Feature in Editor's Desk Lets You Search for Topical Feeds

If you're a regular reader of this blog, I hope a lot of the articles have empowered you to make the snazziest widgets possible using our highly-configurable framework. One thing I find myself struggling with, and something that I haven't touched on much before, is the best possible way to find the richest and most relevant content for your widget (or your reader).

When considering Related Content (see the how-to articles here and here), to make the most effective widget is to have a robust whitelist of blogs and other feeds that contain similar post items. How to find the best ones though? Well, now Editor's Desk features a utility that lets you search for a topic and find feeds that we've found to contain it.

In Editor's Desk, under the Utilities menu, go to "Related Content Search." Now enter a topic, and we'll return a list of feeds. From the results list you can have a closer look at the RSS, or you can add it to a whitelist.

There are two ways you can take advantage of this utility:

1. You're building a related content widget, but haven't found enough content for your whitelist.

For the related content widget right here on this blog, I searched for "web syndication," "RSS," and "widgets." These were all topics that feeds in my whitelist returned anyway, so I just wanted to include a greater breadth of content to share through the widget.

2. You want to find feeds that focus on certain topics to put into a widget, or to put in your personal reader (like FeedDemon or NetNewsWire, right?)

I searched for "monkeys" and "coen brothers" and found some cool feeds to put into FeedDemon.

Now go forth and topics search!