I Am Alpha

Subject: Big Changes
Time: 7:59:50 AM EST
Author:  alphablogger
Mood:  Happy
Music:  Fruit Bats - Mouthfuls

We finished a gigantic update to AIM Pages yesterday.   You should notice a lot of minor tweaks and a few major new features, none of which should really affect module developers.   The first thing you'll likely notice is that when you go to aimcreate.com, you don't get the uber-sexy drag and drop interface.  Don't worry, it's still there!  There are links to it from the "wizard" and in the footer of the page.

There is also a new default template.  It has two columns instead of three, which should give modules some more breathing room.  Hooray for breathing room!

There are still a couple kinks to work out, but things seem pretty stable and now it's time to celebrate and then get some sleep!




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Subject: Non-Breaking Space Bug
Time: 10:07:09 PM EDT
Author:  alphablogger
Music:  Watching Big Brother UK

Kevin says: We found a bug today in AIM Pages that affects modules in Internet Explorer. If you've created a module and you get an error about being "unable to load the default interface" in IE, it's most likely because you've got non-breaking spaces in your module.

We'll have a fix for this soon, but for now, the only fix is to remove all occurances of:   from your module and re-upload.   Remember, you don't need to change the module's name.  Uploading a new version will just overwrite the old one.

In other news, I'll be presenting at Mashup University next week.  If you're there, say hi!   I'll be at the AOL booth when time allows, handing out shwag (we got shwag!!).

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Subject: Checklists Galore
Time: 4:45:55 PM EDT
Author:  alphablogger
Mood:  Mischievous
Music:  The Bens

Do you like lists? We like lists too! Wow, I didn't know we had so much in common. That's amazing (like Sam on Big Brother UK - yes, I know no Americans get it, but it cracked me up every time she said it in her charming Scottish accent). But, we're not here to talk about trans-Atlantic reality TV. We're here to talk about lists!! And here they are:

 
• The Module Checklist - Don't like reading a lot of documentation?   Here are all the steps in one handy list.
 
• Module Validation Checklist - Everything we could think of that would make your module blow up in the validator or when you upload it.

Enjoy the lists.   If you find anything missing from them, please let us know (the lists came out of some feedback today that there wasn't an easy checklist for creating modules...  and two hours later...  here's the list).

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Subject: Javascript Skeleton
Time: 4:48:44 PM EDT
Author:  alphablogger
Mood:  Hopeful
Music:  Zero7 - The Garden

Sorry we've been incommunicado, but we've been very busy. But we're not writing this to complain... we're writing to announce a new feature on I Am Alpha!  What is it? You know how we have the Module Maker? Well, now it has a little checkbox at the bottom that also creates a javascript skeleton. It's brand new, which probably means it has bugs, but I used it to create a new module, and it was groovy.  It saved me a couple hours of hashing things out and gave me a good starting point for writing the code to get data from the view into the edit pane, and back out of edit into view.  And because IE is awesome, it tries to run the javascript even though it's returned as text/plain.   IE, why don't you believe me?

There's other new stuff on the way, so stay tuned.

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Subject: I Am Alpha Gets a Makeover
Time: 2:30:47 PM EDT
Author:  alphablogger
Mood:  Mischievous
Music:  Sufjan Stevens: Illinois

Kevin says: On top of launching AIM Pages, we've gone and redone I Am Alpha. We're still working on content, but all the content that was on the old site has been ported to the new site and a lot of it has been tweaked and/or improved, and we're working on a lot more (in our copious spare time). Some of my favorite new stuff:

 
• The Module Maker: Generate your module with a handy form instead of having to do it all by hand.
 
• The Module Workshops: We had some folks write these for us.   Pretty cool little tutorials on creating different types of modules.
 
• The Buzzword Bucket: Get all your Web 2.0 definitions in one handy place (personally, my name is the favorite bit).

Big thanks go to Valli for helping us out with the design, and Christina and Cher for fixing all of my grammatical errors and helping us organize things.   The original was gorgeous, and I didn't do it justice (a combination of lack of time + working with Drupal's templating system).

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Subject: A blog about modules
Time: 2:32:51 PM EDT
Author:  alphablogger
Mood:  Ecstatic
Music:  The sounds of Kevin's keyboard

This is Joe - another of the Alphabloggers.  I've got another blog dedicated entirely to modules - both the cool modules that I find, and tricks on writing modules.  It's at http://journals.aol.com/drdzoe/ModuleMania.  Come on by and read it.

Or check me out at http://aimpages.com/drdzoe.

And create your own page already!  What are you waiting for?

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Subject: AIM Pages Is Live!
Time: 1:24:03 PM EDT
Author:  alphablogger
Mood:  Ecstatic
Music:  The New Mastersounds - The Vandenburg Suite

We're live!!!!!   Go check it out, create a profile, and then tell us what you think!!

We're all going to go take a nap now.


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Subject: Debug Help
Time: 11:00:23 AM EDT
Author:  alphablogger
Mood:  Loopy
Music:  The Rosebuds - Boxcar

We've updated the playground again, and it's a whole lot more stable.  But, that's not why I'm blogging (finally - I've been busy).   I'm blogging to tell you about a new module called debug-window.   What does it do?  Oh, not much, which is the beauty of it.  If you drag it into the playground (it's there now if you want to go look), it allows you to turn Dojo's debug flag on or off, and creates the div that Dojo uses to spit out debug messages.   That way, you can use dojo.debug() in your module and you don't need to worry about creating the div or writing your own debug functions.  Pretty neato, huh?

We're also working on updating the documentation on I Am Alpha, so if there's anything about building modules that confuses you greatly, please let us know so we can fix it.

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Subject: Big Update to I Am Alpha
Time: 12:22:05 PM EDT
Author:  alphablogger
Mood:  Loopy
Music:  Flight of the Conchords - Business Time

We made a big update to I Am Alpha yesterday that should fix the problems folks were having uploading modules, and fixes a lot of appearance bugs you may have been having.  Publishing pages is a little wonky, and so is styling your page, but we're working on that. 

The work continues... and it's still very alpha.  Enjoy!


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Subject: Big Changes
Time: 5:04:03 PM EST
Author:  alphablogger
Mood:  Happy
Music:  Some free CD from SXSW

Hey, you!   Go check out I Am Alpha!   Big changes afoot over in the playground.   We're working on some new stuff for the documentation, but we just rolled out our first major update of the playground, and it's kickin' all sorts of behind.

Like I said before, you'll need to upload your modules again, but it's a small price to pay for all that awesome goodness.

We're still really alpha, but we're getting a lot closer to something people would actually use. I love the smell of progress...

Some modules you should check out:

• backgroundManiac - Joe's gone a little crazy...
• flickr - enter a tag and watch the pictures roll in.
• kevin-rss - grab an RSS feed and display the results on your page.
• kpreview - you can write a movie review, and it saves it to the page as an hReview.
• mini-search - put a functioning search engine on your page!

We know there are things that don't work quite right (like the whole style section), but if you find weirdness with your individual modules, please let us know.

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