08 December 2006

Blogger post notes! #

There are people who are constantly running the need to post and post and post! My example comes from Avatar, who, everytime I speak to him, tells me how he has tons of drafts saved in Blogger, and more pointers and reminders in GMail and Word. His misery, and now my experience with the posting fever prompted this little idea into my head that Blogger has lacked since day one. So I dedicate this one to the hard working Avatar! :)

We cannot remember all the time what were thinking when we started writing a post. And if you leave posts half way through, to come back and finish them later on, you'd have faced the situation that you've forgotten half the points you had in mind that you wanted to make and/or elaborate upon. If you've added them in the content as points, it can get a little annoying to constantly scroll up and down to remove points as you elaborate upon it. Wouldn't it be cool to have a PostIt for your editor?

The solution

So now I give you the Blogger Post Sticky/Annotations/Notes (grab it here) or whatever else you want to call it! It's basically a small PostIt Notes type box which floats to the top right of your post editor, holding the points that you add to it. You can actually write out your whole post there, and it'll save it. Yes, it saves it automatically, and associates the points to the post's title. Which means that if you come back to edit the post after you've published it, your sticky will return with it, with all the points intact! :) Now ain't that wonderful?

I've not really bug tested this to glory, so if you run into any problems while working with it, please leave a comment with the exact problem (explained as well as you can) with a way to reproduce the problem if possible. I also don't know if this will work with the old Blogger, since I use an appendChild function to add it to the parent element of the posting form, which might have a different name in Beta. Also, take care to not change the title once you've finished adding the points. If you do, your points won't show up next time. To get them back, revert back to the old title, and then reload the post editor. Then put in the new title, and change your points. It'll save it again associated to the new title.

In any other case, you know what to do if you hit a spanner in the works! :) I will try and fix it as soon as my exams permit me to (yes, they are going on again! A pain I tell you!) Enjoy! :)


11 comments

Archit said...

hey aditya,

I found a glitch in your super cool template...

In this post notice that the "Avatar link(link to http://bloggeratto.blogspot.com) cannot be clicked or the text around "The Last Words Beta" Banner cannot be selected. I think there is a problem with the Header Graphics. Please check it out.

BTW, Nice Blog Template ;-)

Aditya said...

Thanks! :)

About the problems, umm... I can click on the Avatar link, I don't know why it isn't working for you. What resolution are you on? The template doesn't work properly for anything other that 1024x768.

As far as the selection problem goes, I know. It's not really a problem, just that since the image is floating above the text, with a higher z-index, it gets precidence, and hence gets selected with the text underneath! It's a necessary CSS error! :P

Thanks for dropping by!

Anonymous said...

I am not a fan of this kind of template design, but i reconize the creativity and the hard work, and honestly you rdesign is SOLID!

Aditya said...

I am not a fan of this kind of template design

Too bad then! :P Hehe!

Thanks! I did put quite a bit of time in it. Is there is any good specific reason you don't like it? I might consider it! (a big might!)

Anonymous said...

Cool idea. I'll have to try 'er out.

Although I must confess, I never put much thought into my posts to need notes. But that should be evident. :-)

Aditya said...

Hehe! Maybe this will change something! :P Do tell me if you run into any problems!

Ekta said...

hehe, i like how it took till the third person to actually get a comment on the *content* of the post..
but yea, awesome idea!....r u hinting at something tho? i get the sneaky feeling u are...! lol
but...it shud be resizeable and maybe a color that's not beige...lol (i know ure not surprised)
anyway, i installed my first ever userscript for this! :D u shud be proud!

Aditya said...

Ah! It's not Beige, it's a light yellow! :)

And if you're looking to resize, I don't really know the proper coding for it, so I'll recommend this extension! :) Hope this helps!

And why do you think I'm hinting at something? What could I hint at? :P

Deepak said...

I just checked my post-it notes at my desk. They say that the color canary yellow is a trademark of 3M.

Hehe..
Better pay some royalty. :p

Avatar X said...

Hey aditya, i can´t click that link either.. and it´s a shame since it has my name.. :(

and about the userscript. it is cool-cool

Aditya said...

@Deepak: Haha! I'll be watching for them knocking at my door then! :P

@Avatar: I really cannot duplicate that problem, since it works for me perfectly! Hence, can't do anything :(