I see the Google plus article format returned by their Python API has changed
again. You will note the sidebar over on the right there only shows images and
no articles now. Iām getting really tired of fixing this every month.
Probably Iāll just not bother soon, and remove that whole sidebar altogether.
February 24, 2012 @ 16:12
Since I seem to be logging my Google bug reports here, Iāll add one to the list.
Android bug 25936 -
ādraw9patch should start file->open in the current directory, or the last used
directory.ā
Oddly enough, this bug was actually looked at the day after I submitted it,
unlike most of my other
bugs
which seem to be completely ignored for months.
February 22, 2012 @ 16:16
I was trying to be clever, using the filename portion of the image URLs fed by
Plus for the thumbnail images. Yeah, should know better. Now Iām just
generating a filename from a UUID, ignoring what the Plus service provides.
So the images are showing up in the right column again. Huzzah!
February 16, 2012 @ 16:55
Google, Iām getting really tired of you.
The perceptive reader will note that some of the images in the G+ column at the
right there are now broken. I havenāt changed anything in the code, so itās
definitely something on Googleās side.
Iām really tempted to just remove that entire G+ feed and be done with it, itās
far more hassle than itās worth.
I have a similar issue at work: I have been trying to get people to pick a
single calendar system, and since our email is done via gmail now, we figured
that Google Calendar is the answer. But of course, itās almost perfect, yet
doesnāt do what we need (allow printing calendars with a custom template to add
our company logo and contact info), and thus is almost completely useless to us.
I submitted a bug for the Google Data Python API today too, apparently
you canāt actually delete calendars
without it throwing an exception. Nice.
Today thereās a new Google Reader upgrade,
and (probably due to popular demand) theyāve included the ādisplay densityā
options that they put in Gmail. I approve, obviously, since if youāve read my
previous post on this topic, youāll notice
that this looks a lot like the stylesheet I created.
But since the size tweaks are no longer necessary, Iāve updated the stylesheet
to just include my color and border tweaks.
You can get it here.
November 23, 2011 @ 15:04
As you can see, the right column of this page is actually full of stuff again.
I decided to just deal with the Google Plus API as
is, and instead of using their image URLs, Iām just locally caching all of the
images (and thumbnails) and hosting them here, rather than linking to broken
links.
It works decently, I suppose. Though I noticed that Plus is weird about what it
considers to be the ātitleā of a given post - most of these donāt actually have
titles, itās just guessing. So theyāre a little weird sometimes. Better than
nothing though.
The problem
Google has been revamping all of their user interfaces lately. Lots of people
are not happy with this, myself included. Iāve got a whole bunch of complaints:
- Far, far too much white, the lack of contrasts and heading/section colors
makes it hard for your eye to pick out logical divisions
- Lack of easy-to-see separators, which does the same thing
- In the case of Google Reader, WAY too much use of whitespace
- Scrollbars (in Chrome at least) are way too skinny, which makes those of us
who donāt use a scroll wheel (thatās a separate rant) have trouble grabbing
the scrollbar and moving it.
- In Gmail, the use of transparency on buttons makes them very hard to see when
one uses one of their āHD Themesā which has an image in the background
- In Docs, the menu bar is no longer clearly a menu bar. Iām not sure why
thereās this trend of screwing with menu bars lately (Iām lookin' at you,
Microsoft), but the Common User Access guidelines are a GOOD thing.
- Various UI elements donāt show up until you mouse-over them, or do some other
action. I understand why theyāre doing that, but it makes things a bit
awkward when you want to say, delete an email, but donāt realize that you have
to select it before the delete button shows up.
The fix
Iāve started making some custom stylesheets for all of the Google tools I use.
So far, I have the following:
Youāll need a tool that lets you apply user stylesheets to sites, such as
Stylish for Firefox
or Stylish for Chrome.
If you do a better job than me, let me know. Thanks to Rachyl for some of the
styles.
So now thereās a Google Plus API for Python. You will notice Iāve added +1
buttons.
However, the sidebar on the right is gone for the moment, because thereās a
rather major bug in either the Plus API, or the image resizer Google use for the
thumbnail images. So right now I canāt actually pull thumbnails from Plus, Iād
have to pull them down myself.
Iām pondering that, sure, but it seems the wrong way to do it.
Anyway,
hereās the bug Iāve submitted
to the Plus bug tracker. I suspect thatāll languish there for a year or so in
the ānewā state, and by that time, Iāll have stopped caring.
You know, like most of the Android bugs Iāve
cared
about.
Google need to hurry up and release a G+ API, so I can replace the sidebar there
-> with my G+ feed rather than my Buzz feed.
Sorta feels like Buzz is irrelevant now, doesnāt it?
You may have noticed the word ābuzzā at the top of the right column on my site
here. Yes, that does link to my Google Buzz account. Most things I post there,
will also show up on this page.
This is actually quite easy to do.
The first thing you need is Googleāz Buzz client library. Iām using Python, so
I use this one here.
The docs explain pretty well how to use it, but the basic code looks like this:
buzz_client = buzz.Client()
buzz_client.oauth_scopes=[buzz.FULL_ACCESS_SCOPE]
buzz_client.use_anonymous_oauth_consumer(oauth_display_name=g.buzz_name)
buzz_client.build_oauth_access_token(YOUR_API_KEY, YOUR_API_SECRET)
That will get you an active buzz client. Hereās how I fetch a list of my own
posts:
try:
for post in buzz_client.posts(type_id='@self', user_id='@me', max_results=10).data:
except buzz.RetrieveError, e:
The things Iām most interested in are the photos I post to my Picasa dropbox
(usually taken from my phone while out in pubs and such). Photos are found in
p.attachments
, youāll have to check for one with the attribute type
equal to
āphotoā (videos are unsuprisingly, āvideoā). Then you have attachment.preview
and attachment.link
- these are what show up on my page here.
Also interesting is attachment.type
āarticleā.