July 21, 2009

Recent Comments and Recent Posts Gadgets for Blogger

Since Blogger updated the API for gadgets, I've been hard at work creating new and useful gadgets for Blogger users.

My first two successful gadgets made use of the google.blog function in order to retrieve and parse post and comment feeds for the blog in which they are installed. These gadgets are now available for installation through the Blogger gadget directory and have even been featured on Blogger's official Featured Gadgets blog!



These Recent Posts and Recent Comments are very easy to install: simply follow the links for the gadget you would like to add, and choose how many posts/comments you would like to display:


When you press "Update" you will be presented with an example of how the gadget will appear in your blog, and can then proceed to save your gadget.


Recent posts with thumbnails

Aneesh from Blogger Plugins has created a wonderful "Recent posts with thumbnails" widget which displays the media:thumbnail for each post.

This is a wonderful and very user-friendly gadget which even includes details of comments! Install the Recent Posts with Thumbnails gadget by following this link.


Known Bugs

As the API is still rather new, there are a few minor bugs with my gadgets. These are the issues I'm currently aware of, which will be updated with new information once it's available:

Need to press "Update" to ensure preferences are configured
This is an issue with all gadgets which should be resolved quite soon.

Some gadgets don't display in Chrome

Several people have emailed me about this, and to be honest I don't know why this is happening. I'm pretty certain the Blogger team are aware of this issue and hope for a fix soon.

Gadgets may "spill over" in customized templates
The width of gadgets is determined by the width of the sidebar, and sometimes ignores any padding/margins applied to the "widget content" section. I've tried many ways to fix this, but so far my only solution would be to apply margins within the gadget, making it narrower (and unsightly) for those who use regular templates.


Any bugs/other issues?

Please let me know if you have any other problems with my gadgets by leaving your comments below.

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All existing posts are still available to view while I'm working on the site, albeit seen in a much simpler interface. Feel free to browse through the archives to find tutorials, templates and articles to help you build a better blog:

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