Jun 25
Wednesday
Tech : Duncan Riley
How to build your own Seesmic widget


Widgets are cool, personalized widgets are better. Last week I did a screencast on how to build a widget for your blog in Sprout Builder. For this post I set up a Seesmic widget, complete with customized background, layout, support for threads, and even built in recording so your users can respond to your videos where ever you are showing the widget.

The other thing to note that I learned this week: Sprout Builder now offers a “pro account” that means you don’t have to show the Sprout bar underneath each widget. It’s free at the moment with a charge likely in the future. I’ve opted to keep the bar, but it’s another compelling reason to give Sprout Builder a shot.

The widget I designed in about 5 minutes on the video, below.


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  • June 25, 2008 at 8:48 am Larry Kless
    Nice demo Duncan! Thanks for putting it togther, It helps to setion on your blog. The screencast quality was great too. Can you what you used to do the screencast? It's cool to see the final product in action on your blog. Can you share what screencast app you used? I have a lot of colleagues on Macs that are looking for a good solution. Thanks!
  • June 25, 2008 at 3:54 pm Duncan Riley
    Larry, Snapz Pro X. Great, easy to use tool. The only bad side, the movies it creates don't play nicely with iMovie so it's difficult to impossible to post edit them (add captions, logos etc). The alternative is Camtwist, but the quality in the picture isn't there
  • June 25, 2008 at 4:24 pm Jim Stewart
    Re Snapx - If you save as a MOV MPEG-4 codec it edits ok in imovie, make sure you set your capture frame size at 720x576 tho
  • June 25, 2008 at 8:13 pm Tom Landini
    I tried using Seesmic in my blog's sidebar but couldn't get the sizing to work. This looks like an easy work around. I'll give it a try.
  • June 25, 2008 at 8:36 pm Larry Kless
    Thanks Duncan, that info really helps, I'll give widget maker a try. Thank you too Jim for the export to MPEG-4 and aspect ratio tip. Friendfeed comments rock!
  • June 25, 2008 at 10:59 pm Kate Foy
    Duncan, great 'how-to'. Thanks. @Tom Landini I had a problem at first with sizing. There's a pre-configured drop-down sizing menu on the Sprout Builder interface. Choose one that suits your blog or approximates.

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