If you are a social networking freak, here is an interesting tool for you. VLike, a 'like' button for GMail (web interface only) status. With GMail users being the modern day philosophers, this can be a quite handy tool.If you find a friend's GMail status interesting, you can just press a button to let the world know that you like it. And, the same will be visible to all the chat buddies of your friend. You can also share your favorite status messages in Twitter. Check out the screen shots below.
How to install it?
VLike is a GreaseMonkey script written on top of GMail web interface and the tricky part here is to understand the GMail's obfuscated code, parse the DOM and place the controls over there. Google App Engine's data store has been used to store the data. It requires GreaseMonkey add-on and can be installed from here. After installing the GreaseMonkey, install VLike by clicking here. Alternately, VLike can be installed as a stand-alone Firefox add-on (Haven't tested it much).
What is on the queue?
Porting of VLike to Twitter Web page to enable 'like' feature for tweets.
VLike plug-in for Pidgin.
Browser Compatibilities
Firefox 2+ - Yes. Requires GreaseMonkey.
Chrome - Yes. Requires GreaseMetal.
Safari - Yes. Requires GreaseKit.
P.S.: This is my first application developed using Google App Engine Java API since its release in Apr 2009. It was developed overnight and might have some glitches.Also, it doesn't capture the smileys and formatting used in status messages. Message with special characters doesn't work great.
-- Varun
Nice one da :)
ReplyDeleteWorks great with Firefox, with Chrome it had some problems, din't show up!
But, good stuff!!
Thats really a cool work!
ReplyDeleteFew questions I got:
- If I want to mark my friends status should both of us have the scripts installed or should he alone have would suffice or me alone having it will suffice.
- So the app engine will store all the status message thats been marked as like by users!
@Params: Haven't tested with Chrome. Shall fix the minor issues and let me know asap.
ReplyDelete@Vijesh: Thanks!
1) Its enough that only you have the script. But, if you want your friend to know that, the script should be available at his / her end. I can enable mail notification if that makes more sense.
2) Yup! Google App Engine is used only as a data store. I am planning to build a live feed view over there.