Today I want to show you the next update of our QUOTE.fm Read Demo, but first I want to say thank you for your feedback last time. Some things really got us thinking.
As planned you can now change the font-family as well as the color themes. All three themes are finished and we like them very much, although minor changes could always happen. The fonts are by no means final. I also replaced all the generic avatars with real ones to get a feel for how it might look in actual use. Furthermore I updated the text view with an image which resizes according to the text’s width. We changed the icon for the social reading mode to match the one the app will feature. A new feature is the “Reset” button which sets everything back to the defaults. There are a few more little tweaks and changes here and there. Just have a look.
The list of todos is still very long and new ideas pop up everyday.
It really is very exciting build this ‘web app’.
Not to long ago I showed you the status of my work on QUOTE.fm Read. I also said I wanted to show you my progress along the way. So today I have a pretty nice update for you, I think. And yes, in the meantime I also did some other things.
So let’s get started with what’s new. The comments are finished and look mostly like the ones you already know from QUOTE.fm.
Furthermore I replaced the standard OS scrollbars in the social reading mode with JavaScript scrollbars. They look and behave almost exactly like the ones you might know from Mac OS X Lion. They looks nice and if you don’t need them they are simply out of your way.
Today I started working on the functioning of the customize buttons. You now can change the font size, line height and width of the text. Up next are the fonts and color themes.
Have a look, click a few buttons, resize the browser and so on and let me know what you think. However, I have to say that everything is work in progress and only tested in Safari and roughly Firefox.
Start QUOTE.fm Read Demo.
Marcel Wichmann:
We’re happy to announce that, starting from now, you’ll be able to embed recommendations on your websites. Whether it’s your blog, your tumblr or your self-hosted collection of knitting tutorials, everything’s fine.
Today we released embedded recommendations for QUOTE.fm. We hope you like them as much as we do. They look like this:
As a designer Marcel often shares screenshots of the designs he is currently working on. I thought about what I can share with you guys that’s more than a screenshot of the pages in a browser, because if I do my job really good it looks exactly like the designs you already saw.
Our process at QUOTE.fm
After Marcel finished his work in Photoshop I take over the PSD files and begin working on the frontend. This means I craft all the HTML and CSS with dummy content and every possible state of every element. I also do all the animation stuff in JS and things like that. When I finished my work, it’s Philipp’s turn. He takes my stuff and integrates it in QUOTE.fm. He makes sure that everything works the way it should. From time to time he discovers minor bugs or needs some elements I forgot to implement. Then it’s my turn again. Sometimes we have to go back even further and do some design changes. We repeat this process over and over again until we are completely happy with the result.
What I am currently working on
The last couple of days I worked – with short interruptions – on the new Read section. As you might know we are building a read later service into QUOTE.fm. But that’s not all. We are also upgrading the read section with some social components.
For example you will see who recommended the story you are currently reading, what they said about it, which paragraph they marked, etc. You will also be able to comment on the article and engage in discussions right from the clean text view.
It’s all far from completion and everything could be changed any second, but I want to share my process along the way. So go ahead and try the QUOTE.fm Read WIP Demo.
Marcel Wichmann:
The Kindle is a great device and since we love it so much, we’re starting our Send to Kindle beta today. You’ll be able to register your device and have every article sent right to your Kindle.
If you’re a registered user, simply visit the Dashboard to sign up and join the beta. We’ll be in touch via e-mail as soon as the feature is available to you.
Seit ein paar Tagen könnt ihr euch im Dashboard für die “Send to Kindle” Beta anmelden. Wir freuen uns auf euer Feedback.
Marcel Wichmann:
Das hier ist tatsächlich eine ernst gemeinte Stellenausschreibung. Wir suchen bei QUOTE.fm eine/n iOS Entwickler/in. So richtig, mit Anstellung und hier mit uns im Büro sitzen und an den iOS-Apps arbeiten und Martin dabei beobachten, wie er CSS besiegt, oder Philipp, wie er irgendwas über Technikkram brabbelt, oder mir beim Singen zuhören.
Wir suchen Verstärkung für QUOTE.fm. Alles was ihr wissen müsst, findet ihr drüben bei Marcel im Blog. Wir freuen uns auf euch!
Marcel Wichmann:
Außerdem ist das hier ein erster Test unserer eingebundenen Recommendations. Aktuell noch hardcoded durch Martin, aber bald schon für alle nutzbar, man bekommt den Embed-Code direkt auf QUOTE.fm und kann dann Leseempfehlungen hübsch auf seinen eigenen Webseiten einbinden.
Wir haben drüben bei Marcel zum ersten mal eine QUOTE.fm Recommendation eingebunden. Da seht ihr schon mal was euch in Zukunft erwartet. Wir finden es ziemlich cool.
Ab Sommer werden wir in einer Kirche arbeiten. Kaum zu glauben aber wahr.
Sven Giegerich:
Da Quote.fm so wieso genial und total hip, entschied ich mich ‘GiegQuote’ zu coden, ein API-Wrapper in PHP für besagte (Fork it on GitHub). Generell ist sie, ebenso wie die API noch im Aufbau/experimentell, besitzt aber alle Möglichkeiten, welche im Moment möglich sind. Die Installation ist, wie von PHP gewohnt, ‘dead simple’ (duck).
Das ist so cool. Ich freue mich riesig, dass Leute anfangen etwas mit unserer API zu machen und dieser API-Wrapper macht das sogar noch viel einfacher.
Wenn ihr Interesse an der QUOTE.fm API habt, euch nicht so wirklich mit JSON auskennt, aber mit PHP etwas anfangen könnt, sollte euch GiegQuote weiter helfen. Ich bin begeistert. Danke Sven!
Das dazugehörige GitHub Projekt findet ihr hier.
