Tag Archives: Announcement

Announcing: SuccessWhale version 2.0!

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Ladies and Gentlemen of the Internet, I am pleased to announce that SuccessWhale version 2.0 has just been released and is now live on SuccessWhale.com.

SuccessWhale is a web-based client for Twitter and Facebook, written in PHP, JavaScript and MySQL. It offers a multi-column view that allows users to merge together information from all their connected accounts and view it at a glance from any web browser.

The big changes between version 1.1.2 and 2.0 are:

  • Facebook support
  • Support for multiple Twitter (and Facebook) accounts
  • As many columns as you want
  • Columns that combine multiple feeds
  • Lightboxed images from Twitpic and yFrog
  • New themes
  • Numerous bug fixes!

You can see a screenshot of it in action below:

SuccessWhale Screenshot

I would particularly like to thank Alex Hutter, Hugo Day, Erica Renton and Rg Enzon, whose help in finding bugs and suggesting new features has been instrumental in bringing SuccessWhale up to version 2.0 today.

SuccessWhale is an open source project, and the source code is licenced under the GPL v3.

For the Discerning Lady or Gentleman, SuccessWhale version 1.1

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The sudden proliferation of peoples’ syndicated tweets from sources such as Foursquare and Fallen London annoys me far more than it should. Any more sensible old grouch would pick up his pipe, don slippers and write a strongly-worded letter to the local newspaper about how this ‘checking in’ business is corrupting society.

Instead, I made my Twitter client block them. Also, you can now do it too!

SuccessWhale users will now see a link at the top-right of the interface called ‘Manage Banned Phrases’. Clicking it will take you to a page where you can specify a semicolon-separated list of things you don’t want to see, such as “4sq.com;fallenlondon.com;bieber“. Once confirmed, any tweets in any timeline that are sucky enough to contain one of these phrases will be hidden from your view.

Twitter: now 12% less full of shite!

An extra feature has been rolled into this release, which is the ‘Reply All’ button. It looks like this: It only appears where two or more people are having a conversation (three or more if you’re included too). Clicking on it starts a reply to everyone mentioned, not just the tweet’s originator. So if @Alice is talking to @Bob, and you click ‘Reply All’ on one of her tweets, your entry box will then read “@Alice @Bob”.

So that’s version 1.1. Share and enjoy!

SuccessWhale is a free, open, multi-platform web-based Twitter client. It’s hosted at SuccessWhale.com, and you can find out more about SuccessWhale here. It’s GPL-licenced, so you can download yourself a copy too if you want one.

a thousand words: First Sketches

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With the main browsing UI for a thousand words up and running, it’s time to bore the world with more pointless trivia before moving on. Today: design sketches!

Pretty much every software project I undertake these days begins with a sketch of the user interface and an initial structure for the database. Labouring under the cruel ‘no whiteboard’ conditions at home (maybe I should get one?), I drew these out on paper. Passing the UI sketch over to Eric after about 5 minutes’ work, she described it as “awesome”. I think that’s the first time that’s ever happened; the general response at work is along the lines of “but where are you going to put giant-ugly-element-X that I’ve just thought of and wasn’t in the spec?”. So that was that, and I’ve coded it up pretty much as it was on paper.

The database hasn’t changed much from the original design yet, but it will have to soon — as designed, the vote (‘stars’) system doesn’t record each user’s vote on each story, so it can’t support users changing their vote. Sometime during development I’ll have to devote a few hours to figure out the best way of handling it, though that probably comes down to a few minutes as someone on Stack Overflow has inevitably asked about it already.

a thousand words UI Sketch

UI Sketch


a thousand words Database Design

Database Design

Next up on a thousand words is coding the first few forms that will allow users to register and log in, submit photos and submit stories. That should be done within the next few days, and will allow me to play with actually changing the contents of the database, rather than just showing views of it.

a thousand words: A New Timesink has Arrived!

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Somehow unable to cope with actually having free time of an evening, I have taken on yet another project which will doubtless push me deeper into the dark, untamed wilds of the internet, the land stalked only by the mysterious beast known as the “web developer”.

Eric has come up with the idea for a fiction-writing community known as “A Thousand Words”. The concept is simple:

  • Users submit photos or other images that they find interesting
  • Every week (or other suitable period of time), one of these is chosen by the site staff
  • Users then write short stories, of around 1000 words, inspired by the picture
  • Users rate, comment etc. on each other’s stories

I’ll be coding up this site in my spare time over the next few weeks, and you can check out my current progress on the live site at a thousand words.  Currently, the database design is done and I’m partway through the UI of what will be the main page.  My todo list is roughly:

  1. Finish the main page and story page UIs.
  2. Add bare-bones pages for all the GET/POST functions, e.g. registering accounts, submitting stories, submitting pictures.
  3. Test all the functions.
  4. Work on their UIs.
  5. Start closed beta testing for anyone interested.
  6. Liberally apply jQuery to improve user experience.
  7. Add commenting, possibly via DISQUS.
  8. Add proper user profiles, gravatar support etc.
  9. Get everyone I can find to try and break it.
  10. Release!  Open the flood-gates, and despair at the dribble I receive.

As I go I’ll be posting updates and hopefully-interesting insights here, and you can always check the site at athousandwords.org.uk to see how I’m getting on.