[h]Xippets, what’s this?[/h]If you haven’t seen it yet, Xippets is a code repository designed solely for Xojo developers. It’s so easy to use and has had fantastic feedback to date. Go and have a look now and get registered - www.boxedbyte.com
[h]Version 2[/h]We have released the next version of Xippets, we like to call it version 2. The response to Xippets launching was fantastic, we had a lot of feedback which was really positive. We have tried to add as many feature requests to this release as possible. If you have requested a feature and you can’t see it yet, don’t worry it will be on the list for next time or will appear shortly.
[h]Add Xippets[/h] This was where the bulk of our time was spent. You can now request a Xippet. Don’t be worried however small or large your request, get it listed and someone will help. On the other hand if you see a Xippet request and think you can help, please do.
[h] RSS Feed [/h]There was a lot of discussion and thought about email notifications. Email notifications may still happen but the concern is that an email every time a Xippet or Xippet Request is posted may become frustrating.
What we have done is added an RSS feed. You can subscribe to the feed at https://www.boxedbyte.com/feed/. The feed is updated every time a Xippet is added or a Xippet request is added.
[h]Better User Interface[/h]We have tidied the menus a little and removed the links to user account. You now get to your user account through your name on the top right of the screen in the menu, this is available when you are logged on.
The screen colours have been changed slightly, a more mature look we think.
[h]And so much more[/h]My fingers are aching now so I won’t tell you everything. Log in or register and have a look round. We think its fantastic.
Access denied for RSS feed. Permissions error 403.
Peter, appologies, should be ok now
What browser are you using? Have you got an RSS reader installed?
‘Request a Xippet’ - I’m not exactly clear about what this is all about. From the updated website I’m not gaining more clarity neither: Can I upload a sample project and request to have it listed, or what?
Oliver, sorry perhaps I haven’t made it very clear on the site. It is to request help i.e. say you require a function to do something and you are not sure about how to do it, you ‘request a Xippet’.
Click on the ‘Request a Xippet’ link on the left hand side and put a subject for example ‘Parse and XML file’. In the description give details of what exactly you require for example ‘Parse an XML file and list the contents of all child nodes in a listbox’.
Your request is then listed on the main page and users can post responses to your request i.e. they post Xippets which are linked to your request.
Have a go, post a Xippet request and you will see how responses are linked to your request. Think of it as a Q and A for bits of code you need.
Safari.
Strange I am on MAC with safari. Get RSS bot from the MAS, and when you navigate to The Xippets RSS Feed it will automatically configure it for you.
Neat. I definitely like the RSS feed, but couldn’t the feed give us more information? I’d like to see the actual posted code (or a snippet of it), or at least a better description.
For posted Xippets I don’t even get a link to the site, so all I’m really getting is an alert that something’s been posted and I have to go search for it.
You should definitely get a link it is coded in. You will get a title, subject, link, date published. Have you tried with an alternative RSS reader?
The reason it does not post all the code in the RSS feed is two fold. 1st the RSS feed is open to anyone i.e. non-members and members and at the moment the policy has been that you must register to view Xippets. I know this has been causing a problem for some people but our view was if you were registered you were more likely to submit code and not just use the site as a source of code without contributing.
2nd, Xippets can be very large indeed so the feed could become rather too big. The idea was you get a notification and a subject line and then click straight through to the Xippet. The link (if you get it working) will basically take you straight through to the specific Xippet without the need for digging around for it.
All I get is a link to the main site (http://www.boxedbyte.com/), the title, the date, and the category it was posted in, which doesn’t tell me much. For instance, I was looking at the “Saving Preferences / Preference File” Xippet because I was curious what method was used, but the RSS feed tells me so little I don’t know if it’s worth the trouble to look at the Xippet.
I guess it could be my RSS reader (I’m using Vienna, on Mac OS X). I don’t use RSS that much, but I’m not too excited about switching readers just for such basic functionality. Seems odd that the reader would make a difference.
I guess that makes sense. I’d still like a snippet of the code or a better description: something to let me know if it’s worth clicking through. Sometimes I’m actually needing the Xippet, but other times I’ve already got a similar solution and I’m just curious if the posted Xippet is using a different (and possible better) implementation.
I have just tried Vienna and it works for me. Double click on the item in the list of subjects from the site. It opens a new tab which links directly to the Xippet. You have to be logged otherwise you just get the Xippet summary but it still only shows the Xippet you double clicked on in Vienna on the site.
Ah! My bad. Sorry about that. In Vienna, it’s the gray title bar of the post that’s hot-linked – I didn’t even realize it was a link (I was looking for a link within the body of the post). That does work, so that’s good!
This is precisely the reason I don’t use the site at all. I’m not interested in creating another account just to determine wether or not the site has any content of value to me. By locking it all away, I have to reach my conclusions without all the facts.
Ok, there seems to be a general consensus that the site should be open to views without membership. We have had lots of comments back to this effect. Maybe this is the way we need to go. Posting and requests will still remain by membership. What are the thoughts on this?
I actually have some rough data on this for the general Xojo community for 2013. So this would comprise about 1/2 time pre-Xojo and 1/2 time in the Xojo era. This comes from my own Xojo source products, each of which has a free component and a paid component.
Let X be the number of users who buy the paid component. If the free component requires registration, about 3X people will sign up to get the free component. If the free component does not require registration, about 10x people will grab the free component. X doesn’t vary much by whether registration is required.
To give you an idea of the “free” stuff I offer… a royalty free database server and all Xojo client library, a comprehensive workaround for the historically problematic “Session” global. Really useful stuff, and I don’t begrudge anyone who just wants the free version.
My bottom line recommendation is this: is you deliberately want to exclude the free loaders (and there are very reasonable reasons for wanting to do this), by all means, require registration. If you want more reach into the community (push your name, brand, etc.), you probably need to accept that most here who want to use your stuff don’t want to pay you for it and don’t want to tell you who they are right away, if ever :-).
Personally, I wouldn’t sign up for Xippets unless it had a paid subscription model similar to YouTube. I’d be more than happy to share revenues on some code with you Mike. But absent a revenue stream, my best stuff is shared on my site, and people pay for that.
Sounds perfectly sane , I wouldn’t expect or desire anonymous posting.
I like the concept of the site and the community outreach/involvement. I don’t like forced registration. I also don’t like that its so closely intertwined with your consulting business BoxedByte. I think its perfectly fair to show it off as portfolio piece, demo it, link to it, talk about it, etc. It could be misleading that the contributors are BoxedByte staff.
For example would StackOverflow or Trello be as successful as it is if it had a “Fog Creek Software” banner at the bottom and top?
It’s also not immediately obvious who owns the snippets. What license are they under? Does BoxedByte now own them since its on your site? Is there a Terms of Conditions? Am I safe to use xippets in my projects without being asked for royalties later? This would be less of a concern if it were a separate site ‘sponsored by BoxedByte’ as opposed to directly embedded in your business site.
My two cents. Keep up the awesome work!
+1