FFolio Blog
A blog releasing news and updates on the FFolio application.
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CSS beta finished
The beta testing we were running on the CSS editor is now closed. We got some great feedback, a lot of which we will be rolling into the finished version of the app.
Many thanks to everyone who took part.
Call for Beta Testers
We’re running a series of user tests for FFolio. If you can write a little CSS and are interested in helping us out, shoot us an email at info@ffolio.net.
The switch to Rails
Due to the announcement of the merger between the merb and rails frameworks (and some frustrating issues with bleeding-edge software), we’ve had to make some difficult decisions.
The decision was made to completely port the application from merb to rails.
The unfortunate downside is that this pushes our release date back a little further. Although, as far as we’re concerned the benefits of switching to rails far outweigh the negatives, so we believe it’s the right decision.
Here’s a little taste of what we’re currently working on for the edit mode layouts.
We’re in the process of beta-testing some of this stuff now.
December
We thought it was time to give an update on ffolio’s progression, as it has been a while between updates. The last few months have been pretty crazy, with not a lot of free time to work on the app, but we’re looking to rectify that.
Ben’s been pretty tied up with the intricacies of merb-cache (and the inherent difficulties of using a bleeding-edge framework) and trying to make everything on the backend nice and clean.
While he’s been on that, I’ve (Anthony) been pushing forward on working up layouts, markup and javascript for the ffolio edit screens.
Our plan is to hit it hard and make up for it all in January, getting the private beta out and getting 1.0 on the streets.
Renaming Flickrfolio to FFolio!
After recent discussions with the Flickr team, we’ve decided to rename the application to remove potential ownership confusion.
We’re still in the process of moving everything over to ffolio.net, but everything should be finalised soon.
Big things coming in January…
Flickrfolio V1 and beyond
We thought it was time to release a bit more information on where the project is at and where it’s heading.
How it works
The whole thing is based on a kick-ass caching system (which we will detail a bit more in a future post) to ensure that the site doesn’t run like a dog. Making API calls can be really really slow. It also minimises the amount of bandwidth used by both us and Flickr.
So, faster for you, less of a headache for Flickr.
Version 1.0
This will be a templated, synced version of your Flickr account.
No Flickrfolio interface, no backend, everything is managed through Flickr.
But, we’ve added a few little niceties:
- Microformats integration
- Meta descriptions and keywords pulled from Flickr metadata
- Clean, semantic markup (so, Google friendly)
- Basic project sorting (based on Flickr’s photosets)
- Machine-tag-based image and photoset exclusion (something like ‘flickrfolio:exclude=true’)
Version 1.1
With this release we’re planning to add a backend interface to Flickrfolio.
The specific details of this release will potentially change based on the feedback from our beta-testing program.
The features we want to focus on:
- Google Analytics integration
- Custom CSS
- Custom domain hosting (you bring your domain, we serve a pretty site)
So we’ll launch with V1, release V1.1 as soon as we possibly can after that and move forward from there. (Agile, baby)
Merbing it up
Some may be interested to know that flickrfolio is built with merb, others may be interested to know that its currently being tested, tweaked and prodded with the merb 1.0 release candidate.
Most will be interested to know that we’ll be launching a beta program to iron out any remaining issues and take on some feedback very soon!
Stay tuned or sign up for e-mailed updates.
Flickrfolio Static Demo
There is now a static version of the Flickrfolio Template demo and a link to it’s corresponding Flickr account.
Flickrfolio Teaser Site Launch
We’ve launched a small teaser site for flickrfolio, which you can check out at http://www.flickrfolio.net/
In the meantime, while we’re getting ready to launch the full application, we will use this tumblelog as a space to keep you all updated with our progress.