The present interface for developers to upload their Chrome extensions.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
Google has opened up its gallery for developers to share Chrome extensions, a step that soon should make it easier for people to customize the open-source browser.
Aaron Boodman, a leader of the Chrome extensions effort, announced the move on a mailing list posting Monday, and programmer and "gallery master" Lei Zheng shared details in a blog post.
So far, only uploads are permitted. Google plans to let some testers use the gallery to download extensions, too "in the next few days," Zheng said. "We are making the upload flow available early to make sure that developers have the time to publish their extensions ahead of our full launch."
Extensions, a major asset of the Firefox browser and the headline feature of the upcoming Chrome 4 beta, let people modify the browser more to their liking. With them, the browser itself doesn't have to be bogged down with numerous features and configuration options that most people don't want.
One feature of Google's system is that add-ons are automatically updated on Chrome users' computers once the developer uploads a new version.
For developers, the extensions gallery comes with a set of terms and conditions.
One nugget in the legalese: expect Google to use a rating system, as it does for other sites including Android applications and YouTube videos. It's all part of Google's philosophy of using user data to help automatically manage its Web properties in a way that, the company hopes, will be helpful to those who use its sites.
According to the terms and conditions: "The gallery will allow users to rate products. Along with other factors, product ratings may be used to determine the placement of products on the gallery with higher rated products generally given better placement, subject to Google's right to change placement at Google's sole discretion. For new developers without product history, Google may use or publish performance measurements such as uninstall rates to identify or remove products that are not meeting acceptable standards, as determined by Google."
The developer preview version of Chrome now promotes an as-yet unworking link to an extensions gallery.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)Google is on the verge of launching a Web site to showcase its extensions to customize what its browser can do.
The company's latest developer preview edition, Chrome 4.0.249.0, promotes the feature on its opening screen and its new-tab page. "New! Google Chrome now has extensions and bookmark sync," the page reads, offering a link to a site that's not public yet, https://chrome.google.com/extensions. (Bookmark sync is already available.)
Extensions and support for Mac OS X and Linux are the headline features of Chrome 4.0. It's available as a beta for Windows, with Mac OS X and Linux beta availability expected in early December. According to the Chromium development calendar, the beta is planned for December 8 release and the stable release of Chrome 4.0 is due January 12.
A number of third-party galleries for Chrome extensions already are available, but programmers for the project have said on mailing lists that a Google site is planned. Earlier this year, Google shipped a version of Chrome that pointed to a collection of visual themes before the Chrome themes gallery was actually live to the public.
Extensions are a key asset of one Chrome competitor, Mozilla's Firefox; extensions permit people to customize the browser and add new features without burdening the overall project. Firefox is getting a new extensions framework, Jetpack, starting with version 3.7 due in the first half of 2010, and Mozilla has just launched its own Jetpack gallery.
Browser add-on Flickr Gallery Plus adds extended functionality to Flickr's set view, allowing users to click through to see full versions of each shot without having to reload the page. Once installed it will go out and pre-fetch the larger sized version of each shot, making big sets a cinch to speed through. This includes the addition of keyboard shortcuts (something you can't get in Flickr without a Greasemonkey script) which lets you go back and forth between shots using your arrow keys.
In addition to its thumbnail optimizer, the add-on includes a simple slideshow viewer that doesn't attempt to replace Flickr's own gorgeous slideshow tool. Instead, it simply fades together the pre-fetched pictures without leaving the page. You can set how long you want each photo to be displayed, anywhere from one to five seconds.
If you're a heavy Flickr user this extension is definitely worth the download as it will cut your page loads in half. It retains Flickr's slideshow tools and its same navigation; you also have the option to turn it on and off from a setting at the bottom of your browser.
Note: As with all experimental Firefox add-ons, you must be registered with Mozilla's Firefox add-ons site to download it. It's also available as a Greasemonkey script.
Flickr Gallery Plus lets you go back and forth between shots with your keyboard's arrow keys. It also pre-fetches each image--letting you load it without the page re-loading.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
TiltViewer turns your photos into a visually engaging experience.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Got a photo gallery you want to spice up? Check out TiltViewer. Like CoolIris' PicLens, it takes your photos and places them on a dynamic 3D wall that can be zoomed around with your mouse. Clicking any thumbnail will scale it up as big as your browser window is, and you can flip any shot to view the metadata--complete with customizable links that go towards that photo's sale page, or to download links.
The big difference between the PicLens and TiltViewer is that the latter doesn't require the viewer to have any sort of browser plug-in installed to see your shots, although setting it up on your page requires installing a small bit of code and linking it up with files you have hosted elsewhere.
To demonstrate the technology, there's a test page with the entire "explore" section of Flickr set up here. The tool is completely free, although leaves a small watermark on all your shots. A slightly more configurable pro version that's watermark-free runs at $45. Airtight Interactive, the makers of TiltViewer, also make a handful of other neat, or otherwise visually engaging Flash tools. You can check out the entire gallery of them here.
[via DownloadSquad]
Do we really need another outlet for photo sharing? Shutterfly thinks so.
The photo-printing service, best known for publishing custom calendars, albums, posters, and other photography-infused goods, announced on Wednesday the launch of "Shutterfly Gallery," a social network that is sort of like a Flickr for the scrapbooking set.
Shutterfly Gallery is the first major project launched since the publicly traded company acquired Nexo Systems, a Web site personalization start-up. Nexo's technology has provided the technology for the new social-networking arm of Shutterfly.
Shutterfly Gallery encourages "storytelling" (see, I told you it would appeal to scrapbook lovers) through the creation and sharing of online photo books that can be themed and customized with backgrounds, text, and tags. Members can also rate one another's albums (Ouch! "Scott and Nancy: The First 2 Months" has only two stars!), create profiles, and embed their photo books into Web sites or blogs.
"Our customers are inspiring and enthusiastic storytellers, and have asked for a way to share their stories with other customers and the general public," Jeffrey Housenbold, president and CEO of Shutterfly, said in a statement Wednesday. "Now we are providing them more ways to tell their stories."
Cat lovers, camera-happy vacationers, and proud parents of the world, rejoice!
Kingston's low-key but interesting Icons of Photography site uses a monthly magazine format to make the most of a relatively shallow content pool. Over the past year and a half, it's parlayed the four pros--Harry Benson, Colin Finlay, Gerd Ludwig, and Peter Read Miller--into 11 issues by doling out bite-sized chunks of editorial.
Accompanying each piece you'll find a handful of photos, representative of the work of the pro or the amateur supplicant. Calling them galleries would be a gross overstatement: they're five-photo, completely text-free slide shows. If the idea were to present the photos in an elegant manner, that would be one thing. But the huge, distracting Kingston logo banner and ad ruin any chance of that. So a label with the name of the photographer, and perhaps some EXIF data, might be nice.
Bright red banners remind you that you're on a manufacturer's Web site.
There are four basic types of stories, all targeted toward the interested amateur. The feature "20 Questions" presents brief interviews with pros, that makes an interesting two-minute read for the uninitiated. It's a bit frustrating, though. For instance, when Harry Benson discusses his famous image of the Beatles' pillow fight, a link to or inclusion of the photo would have been really nice.
... Read more
.Mac, the popular Web services suite from Apple is getting an update this morning. Among the newer features is a much-needed upgrade to .Mac's Web photo gallery service, which now ties in with the freshly updated iPhoto '08 and the iPhone. Users will also be able to upload photos to their online galleries via a specialized e-mail address. The new iPhone integration mirrors some of the options that are already in place to shuttle off photos from the device, with a new option to "send to Web gallery," which lets you send photos to their.Mac Web gallery, and their friends who have allowed the option in their own Web galleries.
Also of note, the updated Web galleries will work with movies made with iMovie '08. There's also a new option right in iMovie '08 to send the video straight to YouTube.
We're not seeing anything revolutionary here that hasn't been done on other services such as Flickr and Zooomr, but it does look pretty slick. The one big catch is that you have to be a .Mac subscriber to take advantage of these galleries. This is a nice plus if you use the service, but it's hardly a competitor to other photo services that are open to everyone. The one real surprise from this morning is the storage bump from 1GB to 10GB, which is necessary when you're splitting that space between e-mail, photos, and videos.
Update: To take a look at a Web gallery yourself, Apple has posted an example here. Keep in mind it might be a little slow today, since a lot of people are hitting the page at the same time.
(Credit:
Apple.com)
A bit late to the party and wearing surprisingly Web 1.0 clothing, Pentax today launched the beta of its new Photo Gallery--a place where your photography can see and be seen right along with the pros, but very much in an old-fashioned, lone surfer, gallery atmosphere .
Visit Pentax Photo Gallery
The Gallery has a curator of sorts, and at least initially, posting is by her invitation only. You can solicit an invitation with an e-mail to photogallery@pentax.com, at which point she'll provide you with the magic log-in or gently (I hope) turn you away and point you to Flickr or some other populist photo site. And the possibility of rejection--a key nonmonetary differentiator between the amateur and the pro--makes you feel like you're playing in the big leagues.
Being approved for posting, however, doesn't guarantee you can display anything you want; every image posted must be OK'd by the gatekeeper. However, once you've been approved, you can vote on other people's work for elevation to the Premiere Collection.
Pentax's Flash-y Photo Gallery has a nice, simple aesthetic, but that's partly because there's not a lot there yet.
(Credit: Pentax Photo Gallery)... Read more
Galleries of images set off against a black background have become common as software and Web sites try to help people show off their photos better. Cooliris' PicLens offers a clever way to do set up such galleries from many Web sites on the fly.
a view of PicLens in action
(Credit: Cooliris)The PicLens browser extension can convert a bunch of images from Google and Yahoo image search, Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and RSS Media-based sites and other locations into a full-screen gallery of pictures. The photos slide by at a stately pace or advance when the user clicks the keyboard's arrow key, and a handy filmstrip across the bottom aids in jumping to the photo you'd like to see.
The first 1.0 beta version worked only on Apple's Safari browser on Mac OS X, but a new version 1.5 beta released this month now works on PicLens now works with Firefox on Windows. In addition, with the new Safari 1.5 release, PicLens for the Mac now is out of beta.
I found the software worked on Firefox, but imperfectly. The on-screen controls were missing the first time I used it, though they appeared after a reboot. I couldn't get it to work with Picasa Web albums. The interface could use a button to exit.
And alt-tabbing to switch between applications seemed to send PicLens into a zany limbo zone. Apparently the software won't yield control of the screen to other applications, but the mouse and keyboard interact with whatever software is hidden underneath. If you alt-tab back to PicLens/Firefox, though, you can resume using it or hit the escape key to exit.
One disappointment--and it's not really PicLens' fault--is that low-resolution previews such as the default Flickr photostreams look pretty coarse when scaled up to full screen, but the full-size images that can be found through Yahoo image search, for example, can take a long time to download. And because of the aforementioned screen-hogging issue, you don't have much choice but to wait or exit.
(Via John Nack)
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