Snippage AIR app
by gabo
I’ve been playing around with the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) for the last week or so, and came up with a little app. It started out as just a test to teach myself the ins and outs of as3 development in Flex Builder and AIR, but I’ve shown it to some friends and they seem to like it. Basically, it lets you easily make widgets out of parts of *almost any web page. You do so by opening “snips” which are little web browsers you can crop down. It’s a simple concept, but it’s surprisingly powerful. I keep finding new uses for them. They also have options like auto refresh, and linking out to your default browser. Obviously, it’s early in development, and it’s built on AIR witch is currently in Beta, so it might behave unexpectedly. If you’re OK with that, go check it out.
*AIR doesn’t support embedded Flash in HTMLComponent yet. I assure you, the irony does not escape me. But Adobe said it will be releasing new versions for this year’s MAX, so I’ll update the app once it’s out.
Comments
Great stuff! I’ve been thinking of a similar application myself. Any chance that you’ll share the source with the community or make it available for sale? I can think of a few derivate works I might make based on this outstanding start…
Great tool takes Windows active desktop, which they abandonded by the way, to the next level. One tweek if possible and this will be used all throughout my dept.
Is there any way that Form post can open to another page. You have the link ability but most pages that this would be useful for me are Form post, seaches & lookups.
Also the refresh will this work for logged accounts. I have 2-3 sites that boot you after 5 mins which really annoys me will the refresh keep that from happening, FYI if I keep refreshing in browser of these sites it will keep me logged in.
Final ask Mutliple Snips in one page with tabs or slides. This way I can have one Snippage with all 5 of the sites that I search at work for instance.
Thanks Amador,
1) Currently, only GET forms are supported for external linking. Forcing POST forms to open in external windows is a bit trickier but I’ll look into it.
2) I set the shortest refresh timer to 10 min because I didn’t want people using this app to hammer on sites. But I guess there’s plenty of other ways to do that. I’ll add the 5 min option to the next release.
3) Tabbed or multi-page snips kinda go against the “At a Glance” functionality I was originally going for with Snippage. But I feel your pain. My desktop is currently covered with snips so I might need to come up with some way of managing them. Maybe a snip docking system?
Been a fan for years. Great work!
[...] http://pixelbreath.gabocorp.com/?p=26 [...]
great AIR tool, but has a small shortage:
it can not keep the specific section(such as the middle part of large page) while refreshed automaticlly. Instead ,the cliped widget just show the top section of the page.
Did i miss something?
Hi, firstly, it’s great AIR app, congrats. Next, i got 1 bug report… when you set your “snippet” with scollbars usage (use scrollbars to find you area), after refresh positions of scrollbars are not remembered. it refresh area but scrollbars position is 0 (page is in 0,0 pos) I hope you know what I mean
Once more, great app Gabo
hi,
this app looks awesome. fyi, i just tried installing it with the new air beta (posted on labs today) and it generates this error message:
This application requires a version of Adobe AIR which is no longer supported. Please contact the application author for an updated version.
I was intrested in researching this tool and you plug-in but when I went to install System Access: lists as unrestricted: This application may access your file system and the internet, which may put your computer at risk.
I work internet security for a living and this level of access is concerning. I’ve been trying to find if there are any tools to change this security concern?
Wow…very nice program. You never cease to amzze us. Keep up the great work. The only tweak I would add to this program is to lock the scrollbars in please once a snipet is made. The problem I have had is that some pages auto-refresh and scroll to the top of the page instead of leaving the snipet where I orginally placed it. Otherwise amazing man…Thanks for the great tool.
Just posting this to reiterate Liwenzhi’s and Franto’s comments before me. I just would like to know when this is going to be fixed or if ever…:) Great tool btw! Love it.
Thanks everybody ^_^.
I am aware of the scroll bug and I’ll try to get it fixed as soon as I have some time. Probably around the beginning of next week. Next, I’ll try to add some new features I’ve had in my head for a while. Might even change the layout a bit. I don’t really want to complicate the app too much by adding stuff as it’s simplicity is a big part of it’s appeal.
@TekQ: I’d think any AIR app would cause these security issues. I’m not familiar with System Access, so I can’t say what it’s testing methodology is, but Snippage does access the internet (obviously) and it does save configuration files in your local machine. Regardless, both Snippage and AIR are beta applications and I would not recommend installing either of them in an critical or sensitive environment.
@Gabo re TekQ
It is indeed something you will see with any AIR based application install. The message is deliberately slightly scary – this is a desktop application you are installing, and so is not constrained by the same security sandbox model that is apparent in browser based Flash Player content. The warning is there to make that explicit. As with *any* desktop application, if you don;t trust the publisher, don’t install it. Application built on AIR *are* potentially malicious, or rather, if the auther were malicious, they would be able to compromise your security. Hence also the ability to have the application signed by a certificate from VerisSign.
Best
Pete
Hi,
snippage is really great but it’s not working with deezer.com, is there a way to fix that ?
cheers,
Alex
I made some snippets, and saved those to the desktop as a .snipset file.
I assumed when I double-clicked that, the snips would be opened.
However, I am getting the default Snippage brown screen, am I missing something?
I would not want to reconfigure snips every time I start the snippage app, and for a number of reasons, i do not want the snippage app running continuously on my desk.
Raj
[...] clipped from pixelbreath.gabocorp.com [...]
Hello Just provide me how can make a desktop widget?
Awesome app! however, you can’t run it if you’re running AIR beta 3 (released Dec 2007). Do you have an updated version of it for B3?
Great jobe done! Congratulations!
Some issues:
When i request the update to 10 minutes or any other time, during the refresh it opens a insntance of firefox the same way.
Always open the firefox browser every refresh…
Something you can tell about that, theres a way to fix it?
btw: gooooood job!
Is there a new release planed? With air 1.0 I can’t install it.
Doesn’t work (doesn’t refresh forum’s pages)
very nice.
I would like to be able to Name my snipps.
thanks
ps: do you still have that old very nice flash interface site full of rotating circles accessibly in some link?
Excellent application. However, I’m experiencing problems with cyrillic encoding.
FAntastic stuff. The start of the next killer app.
Some suggestions. Have a toggle to collapse the main view to a single line – that way these could be stacked (and maybe have a “this site has been changed” icon).
EAsy way to save these so that they can be brought back to life after shutting down.
Great anyways.
Thanks
Great product…If i snip my enterprise wiki home page, no problems with security? My password?
Thanks
I love the app, but you’re right, the desktop gets cluttered quite fast.
Maybe it’s possible to add a feature that would make the snip smaller and only show normal size when we mouse over?
Hello
what’s the font of the “snippage” app title here?
the app is nice..
Nice, this is really useful. I’m using it for application Websites that I like to keep open. I’m forever closing those windows while surfing or testing stuff in my browser and having to navigate back to my tools. Now I can keep it open in Snippage.
It would be handy to have a minimize button though on each snip.
I would also like to see the app remember the ‘links open in snip’ setting.
By the way AIR 1.1 is out now and all you have to do is update the xmlns in the descriptor app. Don’t need to update your badge install unless you want to take advantage of new localization features.
Cheers,
Andrew
I am looking at your app and find it ‘potentially’ useful.
Unfortunately my use for it requires a smaller refresh interval.
I understand your stance on ‘not hammering websites’ but you said you were going to make the minimum 5 min…
And you said that like a year ago.
I was wondering if you intend to install that function in the near future or if you have in ways moved on to bigger better things…
Just curious.
Thank you for the great app! I was looking all over for this! I will surely keep this app and recommend it to my friends.
Just one thing though…
It would be really cool if you could hide the Snip(s) and bring it/them back up when you needed it/them. Just a suggestion.
But besides that, great work!
no flash or java?
@Peter same here. Is there any way to force a text encoding?
great app, not so sure if i’m using it for productivity but hey what is the internet for anways! lol. anyways a quick “thingy”, is there a way to embed the app into my desktop? reason being is am a huge fan of the show desktop button, but it effectively minimizes the snipped page as well, and its a bit tricky to bring back up. any suggestions?
Thanks!
great app! what i exactly wanted!!
but. how can i make snipped page to be ‘always on top’?
i want to make my snips float on all other windows.
THANK’S A LOT!
VERY NICE APPLICATION!
Several questions:
1. I can’t find Snippage in the taskbar. So any new snip only accessible from desktop. It’ll very useful to have it in the taskbar and also have the list of snips in the Snippage icon in the same taskbar.
2. Can I save the snip stand-alone?
Great app!
However, one remark: would it be possible to enable each window to be always-on-top? Its a pity that the windows disappear when you press win+d.
Thanks
Hi, can you elaborate a bit about how you created snippage – did you do it with flex, html or flash? and how did you go about making the awesome animations?
thanks
Awesome application! It fits my needs beautifully.
I work at Twitter and currently I am using the application to monitor the Trending Topics for spam topics. This app helps me do that with great efficiency. See screenshot – http://twitpic.com/58olq
2 Feature Requests:
1) 10 min refreshes are WAY too long. I could use 5 minute, or even 1 minute refreshes. 30 second refreshes wouldn’t hurt either.
2) If a window covers my snip, I have to minimize the window to see the app again. Windows-D hides it and clicking on the Snippage tray icon does not bring the app to the foreground.
These are two VERY important feature requests which would greatly change my user experience of Snippage for the better.
Thank you for the wonderful free application!
Cheers!,
Charles
Hey,
Thanks for the great app. I spent almost the whole day looking for a windows alternative to the Macintosh Leopard web clips dashboard. I’m really surprised there wasn’t a gadget for Google Desktop / Vista Sidebar.
Anyway, I would love it if you added a minimize button, or even better, add it as a gadget, or at least have a command (like double shift with Google Desktop) so you can hide everything.
Love your work.
Thanks.
Hello, are you gonna integrate flash into the browser?
I’d love to use this with some upload sites, but unfortunately the best of these are flash powered!
I tried it with WoW’s realm status page and it just doesn’t load. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/realmstatus/?rhtml=y