I've finished writing the code for the latest Live Writer plugin. It lets you grab images from Flickr, annotate them with ink and then post them back. It also has a few image processing feature, including a "wild" thing which is quite fun. You can find out more here.
I've fixed a couple of issues with the plugin. It now responds sensibly if you use it on a machine with no network connection, or a non-tablet device.
Groovy!
This is the first post from the new Flickr Inkifier Live Writer plugin. I've added ink annotation and a smidgeon of image processing. Oh, and local file upload.
Just got the setup project to write now......
I've been playing more with my Flickr inkifier and it is now nearly ready for release into the wild. By that I mean that I've solved all the technical problems, but now I have to deal with the "social" ones.
These are the ones which give you the most grief as a developer because there are no hard and fast answers. When I wanted to add my plugin to Live Writer this was easy. Copy the example, read the documentation and away you go. But now I have to deal with users.
To post a picture to Flickr you have to login to the service. Fair enough. There is a lovely mechanism for this in Flickr which means that once a user has authorised my plugin with them they never have to do it again. But the plugin also has to remember some stuff about the login. So questions start to arise; "Where to I store the information?", "What do I store?", "How will the user interact with it?", "Do I store the data on a per user basis?". Ugh.
So, wrestling with all these issues has slowed me down a bit. That and marking all the programming resit exams and coursework. Double ugh.
I've just made a plugin for Windows Live Writer which lets me easily post my Flickr pictures. There is a proper plugin available as well as mine, but mine does exactly what I want, which is quickly find the images and then add them to the post in the correct size. And anyway, I wanted to write my own to see how easy it is. So there.
One thing that I have learnt from the exercise is just how darned easy it is to string things together these days. Figuring out how to write the plugin wasn't too hard, and writing a .NET program to pull pictures off Flickr turned out to be much easier than I expected. So, without further ado, lets import some snaps:
This is one of the dancers at the Imagine Cup party in Agra
This is outside the hotel lobby. I just love those white cars
And this is your room, after the room tidying faries have been round..
I've put the files for the plugin into the Downloads area of this site. I'll post the source later, once I've tidied it up a bit.
The source is now available too. Enjoy.
The new ink enabled plugin is now available here. You need a Tablet PC (of course) and there is no installer yet. But it does work....
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
A proper developer conference in Hull. Find out more here.
