Left on the Web

Twitter + Lifestream + Ma.gnolia Roots = Left on the Web 4.2.0

I just did a quite big update of the software running this site, adding some new features. Some are as easy as putting a little script on a page, others are quite a bit harder. Let's have a look at what I added.

Twitter

This is only a minor feature, and more something purely for promotional purposes, but as I post a new message, this is automatically being posted in my Twitter account. Just a nice and easy notification service, really. I didn't even re-invent the wheel by writing my own Twitter code, but used the Twitter interface class by Nick Beam. I love simple and clean.

Lifestream

This was the biggest feature I implemented. The Lifestream is basically an aggregated list of things that are happening in your online life. Short, easy, but works nicely in creating an overview of what you are doing, listening to, etc. I shamelessly stole this idea from Horst, who in his turn got it from implementations by Manuela Hoffmann and Jeff Croft. Under the hood, I am using my self-written sfFeedAggregatorPlugin and sfLifestreamPlugin for the aggregation and presentation. Both plugins are not releasable yet, but I hope to come up with the actual plugins in the future. 

To accomodate the Lifestream a bit, I've done a slight re-ordering of the homepage as well. I am quite happy with how it's currently set up. 

Ma.gnolia Roots

This is the Ma.gnolia icon you now see in the right sidebar. It was also the simplest feature to implement, as it was truely as simple as copy/pasting a short piece of code from the Ma.gnolia site into my site template. The icon will show how many people have marked the current page into Ma.gnolia. 

Left on the Web 4.2.0

Aside from the above issues, I've added some small bugfixes and improvements that are hardly noteworthy but still important to include. If you encounter any problems with this new version, please do contact me to report them.