Performancing for Firefox 1.4 Roadmap

By jedbPerformancing Plugins

While we are hard at work on creating PFF 1.4, I’d like to take this moment to get some feedback from you all, pff users.

Currently the roadmap looks like this

  1. Image Service uploading (flickr, Photobucket, etc.) – An Easy, single interface for uploading images. Also make it easy to add new uploading Services
  2. Edit Accounts Dialog – Give easy access to renaming your blog, changing your password, etc.
  3. Blogger Beta support – Support for blogger’s latest and greatest  service
  4. Import/Export of account settings – Easily back up and import your pff settings
  5. Re-do Image Uploading UI – Create a kick-ass image uploading UI where you can easily choose to upload via FTP, your blog’s upload api or a image service (like flickr) 
  6. Re-vamp Settings UI – Right now it really looks bad, and has alot of room for improvement.
  7. Better Formatting Options – Improve how we generate HTML in the Rich edit mode and add more formatting feature in the context menu (i.e. Font Family, H1, H2, .., )
  8. Other small bug-fixing

I’d love to hear what you think of this feature set, and any suggestions, or something we are missing.
Specifically how you would like to see Image Uploading work given the options of FTP, Image Services and Blog API Uploading.

With your help, I think PFF 1.4 will be our biggest release yet!

powered by performancing firefox

44 thoughts on “Performancing for Firefox 1.4 Roadmap”

  1. I recently moved my blog from livejournal to blogger beta. In LJ, I had a plethora of stand-alone clients to use to blog. I was shocked and disappointed to find none for Blogger Beta — until today!

    My two blogging tools of choice were “Deepest Sender” and “Drivel”, both of which did a great job. But, I definitely think Performancing will be my tool of choice now (well, given that, ATM, it’s my only choice notwithstanding ).

    One of the things I liked about “Deepest Sender” was the fact that it could be opened in the sidebar. I like this feature, because I have more horizontal space than I do vertical. I was wondering if “open in sidebar” could be a choice for the upcoming version….

    Again, thank you so much for giving those of us using Blogger Beta a tool we can use!

    Brian

  2. * Possibility to select target of links: same or new windows
    * Table support
    * Embedding videos with XHTML valid code

  3. I know PFF is so darned good because the things that bug me are the little things.

    For example, how about a way to map keys to functions? (I hate having to click the quote button for blockquote — why doesn’t it work like bold or ital?)

    And on the same note, why not let us map them to macros. That way if I have a particular chunk of text or code I use a lot, I can hit one key combo to insert it….

    Whatever you come up with, I’m sure it’s gonna be another kind of great. Looking forward to it.

  4. This has been discussed in the PFF Beta thread, but I thought I might as well bring it up here.

    I know PFF has support for appending posts with technorati tags. I would love for this feature to be extended to delicious tags. An option where the user has a choice of displaying either delicious or technorati tags on each post. Or both if they really want.

    Cheers.

  5. Hello Jed,

    very good work from you and all others who worked it out!

    I think that PFF 1.4 will be the HIT as u have mentioned, Jed!

    Thanx a lot!

    A Linux User who has found for what he was seeking a longer time.
    A good working Blog Editor.

    Have found it!

    You are looking for a Beta tester?
    You have one more!

    The Ideas I have:

    1. Possiblity to create Folders for the Notes, so that u can better organize them, i.e. on the left side as own Notes Button where under this button the folders are placed,if I click on a folder the right side will ahown all files which are in it
    2. Also I want to ask for video support i.e. (YOUtube or other free ones) have you thought about it, to implement it like the flickr thingy!
    3. Is it also possible to make a little tool for special tags from e.g. WordPress plugins, i.e.



      that I can create a tag series for my needs!

      i.e. a little drop down menue where i can name it and if I need it, drop the menu down and click on it.

    Hope it wasn’t too much and some of my ideas were interesting to thought about it.

    Greetinx

    Stefan Julius

  6. Thanks guys, I like your suggestions
    @tis4blogger: I really mean ‘re-do’ the settings menu.
    Basically how it is now it not very organized nor attractive.
    I’d like to give PFF some more advances settings, yet make them non-obtrusive for users who will never touch them.
    Basically a more ‘firefox-style’ settings menu I think.

  7. Hello Jed have a short Question to point 6 of the Roadmap, what does re-vamp mean, sorry but I do not understand for what it stands for.

  8. Hi, I love PFF.
    How about making right-hand panel (which hosts Blogs/Categ./History/Notes tabs) resizable?
    The way it is now, when I look at the history/notes, I just see part of the names of the posts there. Resizing it, would allow me to make it show bigger part of the names.

  9. Hi, thanks for world’s best blogging editor so far. I enjoyed it lightening speed while blogging with pff.
    Two improvements/features I think are must are:
    1. Picture alignment and resize in blog posts should be done by mouse dragging. Now I have to add codes manually: “vspace=5 hspace=5 align=left” every time I insert a picture into the posts.
    2. I right click mouse->performancing->blog this page, the page’s title in hyperlink format will fly to into the post text box, which is great. But any words I add right before and after the hyperlinked pagetitle, they become hyperlinked too. Only manul work can change that, which is annoying.

  10. Artem, it [spell-checking in Firefox 2] does. That is a huge part of the 1.3.5 release (just released).
    Let me know if it’s not working for you.

    Yes, it does. I wrote the comment before seeing that there is 1.3.5 already
    Thanks a lot. Spell-checking was one of my biggest problems with PFF

  11. @vox: Yes! I would love to see this as well and shouldn’t be hard to do. Hardest part I think is coming up with the date/time picker widget, but I want to do that any way.

  12. Back in august I posted a feature request on the forums (http://performancing.com/node/3755), but nothing came out of it…maybe this is a better place for it

    The idea is to add an interface for the post-dating of posts like you can do in WordPress. This way, you can write a post, change the date/time for it and hit publish, and make it so the post appears in the selected time/date instead of appearing immediately when you hit publish in PFF. I know more than a few WP users who love this feature, because it allows them to write various posts in a sitting and have them publish during the day, making it so they can maximize their traffic, which is always a good thing to do

    So…could we get this in PFF? Please?

  13. Artem, it does. That is a huge part of the 1.3.5 release (just released).
    Let me know if it’s not working for you.

    Also one thing to check would be in about:config
    make sure the pref: performancing.extra.doSpellCheck
    is set to true.

    You may need to restart firefox for any of those changes to take place.
    PM me if this isn’t working for you.

  14. Firefox 2 built-in spell-checking is cool and working instantly everywhere.. but in PFF. I started finding myself typing posts in Yahoo Notepad before copying them to PFF – just to be sure I made no mistakes.

    Could you make the Firefox 2 spell-checking work with PFF? It would be a really advantageous feature.

  15. @all: Thanks I like all of those suggestions, keep them coming

    @Garard, could you PM me your email address and I’ll send you a build to test and see if that fixes it.

  16. I’d love to see support for other tagging systems such as Blogalaxia (think of it as a spanish language technorati). There’s more info on the format here: http://www.blogalaxia.com/tagmaker.php

    Basically, it’s Technorati without commas. Maybe it could be configurable so that users could add other systems?

  17. On my question about getting an error message when trying to delete or publish as edit an article, you answered:
    “Problem is the host you have expects a different API call than what most metaWeblog api’s support.
    I’m hoping this will be fixed in version 1.4”
    I hope this is still your plan.

  18. Perhaps this is already included in “Better Formating Options”, but just to make sure:
    It would be great to be able to align image. Currently I add style="float: right; padding-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; border: 0;" to image manually (I tend to start postings with an image).

    An enhaned “add link” dialogue that allow opening links in a new window would also be great.

    Also I’m producing a lot of posts that all have the same style, e.g. book reviews. It would be great to create a template for a certain post style to have things like images and headers preformatted.

  19. @UncleTime. Not yet, I’m hoping for the end of this month to have the first beta, with a release sometime in December depending on how things go and feedback from the beta.

  21. All the things you mention are nice but here are two things that are an absolute must for me (I currently do not use Performancing, as much as I’d like to because of them).

    * Blockquote should NOT insert end of line breaks into text – Performancing is the only one I know that does it (and I’ve used most of the others). I want my blockquote to be formatted as a paragraph by default or at least to get a choice.

    * There should be a remove blockquote/unindent button on the formatting menu. You should also have a break-link button.

    A few small points:

    – a keyboard shortcut to blog this
    – posting to multiple blogs at once
    – adding new categories in Drupal’s freetagging options
    – tag highlighting in the HTML view
    – it could be easier to manage posts – ie have an option to backup all posts automatically
    – publishing multiple content types in Drupal

    These are all things I’ve seen in other apps of this type.

  23. PFF is a great tool. It is good to see it will be better yet. What about giving it an international level by localizing it (French would be a nice beginning ;-). That would be an improvement. Some of the other ideas submitted too 🙂 Merci.

    (Is a Cocomment integration possible? http://www.cocomment.com/)

    BBcode extension make my day.

  24. I would like to see you add a manual time and date stamp. In WordPress (and others) this allows me to prepost content to my server that automatically goes live. Also, while on trips, I will continue posting as if I am connected to the internet, and want the time and date of the writing to remain, not the time and date of the publishing.

  25. Hi Jed – I always open PFF in a new Tab and therefore have to always right-click on the icon and then choose Open in New Tab. Could you make this configurable in the Settings so that users can specify where the default click of the icon will open PFF? – In a new Tab in my case…

  27. compare to the MS map in the “Live writer”,I want PFF to use the google map to map us add a map easily in a post.This may be hard to realise bu it is very important and attractive!More people will use it if it can add this function.

  29. Please release tht as soon as possible….
    Unfortunately i have switched to beta…(:

    I am doing testing for PFF for blogger beta.
    Few observation:

    1. Content and Title gets truncated….
    (soon send you screenshots…)

    Support for “Labels” as categories?

  30. noreqt, I havn’t forgotten you guys
    This will make 1.4, or atleast some variation of it will.
    Once I get Image-Uploading done, it’s my next to-do. (I know I’ve said that before, but I’m serious this time).

  31. Hi jed, looks almost like I’m the only one who keeps on hammering on this issue for Pmachine, however in the EE commmunity its a big thing, a lot of people (one thousand views on this post already there) are looking for an answer. Hope I can drag you into this 😉

  32. yes, but not exactly that. i mean by adding an option about remembering password or not.

    i remember that i disabled the “remember passwords” in the ff option. but when i saw the saved password list, i was shocked. the only password saved is from performancing.. and that is my blog password. i hope nobody saw it (it’s a public pc).

  34. Cool new features…!! But looks like a big list of improvements. Why not divide it in two builds 1.3.05 ..!! Essential features first like blogger beta and bug fixes. other features in next build. Just thinking..since i have switched to beta and i can’t use PFF..

    One more feature…clear formating button…!!

  35. I’m not saying that these belong in performancing but these are the two features that make me reach for another blogging tool (ususlly w.bloggar):

    1. Confidence that my text will survive a browser crash. This was an issue particularly during beta 1 of Firefox 2.0 where there would be crashes 2 or 3 times a day. Maybe Performancing already does this but it’s having the confidence to believe that your brilliant post will survive that matters.
    2. The ability to take what I am listening to on iTunes and put it at the bottom of my post. Probably not as relevant for the professional blogger but on the other hand you can build a sense of connection with your readers through this sort of declarative living.

  36. Three requests on my side:
    1. Eventually make the “Source tab” show the “Source”, i.e. exactly what’s being uploaded. My site (as a lot of tuned Drupal installations) preprocesses submitted code and if it preprocessed also by PFF.. well, that’s why I stopped using PFF for now

    2. Let the user choose the shortcut button. Some other extensions can take the F8

    3. Make spellchecking work out of the box

    P.S.
    If you wonder when exactly I have problems with the double text preprocessing, it is when I submit the source code. All the -> are transformed into -&gt and of course it looks awful

  38. I never knew that option was there. Hopefully my ignorance doesn’t make might next comment sound critical (yes there’s a but coming)

    but

    Have I missed something somewhere that walks users through the settings?

    A tutorial, especially a series of short 30 second video tutorials would be amazing.

    I use a program called MindManager for unrelated work. It comes with fantastic short video tutorials snaggit quality no sound.

    Maybe if you are running into other areas where user ignorance is the issue, that might not only increase satisfaction but increase the initial impression, provide some examples of how to use the product and increase sign ups and more.

    thanks, Now my favorite blogging tool just got better!

  39. Thanks for the feedback guys, but I have questions

    @Dennis: yes. That bothers me to! This will be fixed as well!

    @Rich: So you mean if you do a quick ‘click’ on the arrows you want it to do basically collapse pff? Why not use the close button (it doesn’t actually close it, it just hides it)?

    @ronalfy: I get what you are saying. I agree that would be great. Let me see what I can do.

    @brett: Agreed. So I assume you have ‘automatically insert tags’ enabled? If you dissable that setting, you will have a button to manually add the tags. Is that ok, or do you need more?

    If I do get to change the settings menu for this release, I would love to allow you to modify the html code for the tag insertion there.

    @alay: What do you mean? Do you mean *not* have pff remember your passwords?

  41. Dreamweaver offers the same functionality for the PC versions. This would be useful.

    You covered all the other items pretty well already.

    One thing for the wish list not as important as everything already mentioned –
    I’d like to be able to format the fonts of my tags.

    Currently they get piped in as I post the article, If the article happens to fail to post (off topic) then the html code generates the tag code and I can format the tags. (I like them with a much smaller font.)

    I’d like a default option for this up front or would like to edit the tags in the html before I post the article.

    Thank you very much for all the hard work, 1.3 is a great tool!

  42. My current peeve with the plugin is for the Rich Text formatting buttons. For example, if I hit the bold button, I think the bold button should look like it has been pressed. Likewise for the other buttons, especially the blockquote.

    I can’t for the life of me figure out how to end the blockquote and start a new paragraph without having nested blockquotes and going in the code to clean it up.

    Thanks…

  43. Thanks for asking! At the top center of the editor, the drag bar has two arrows. I am constantly dragging this up and down. I use a mapping program (TopoFusion) with this feature, except you can click there (on the arrows) and it will minimize; click again to return to its previous position. Could you PLEEEEEZE add this? 🙂

  44. Good set of additions and fixes; especially the uploading of images and saving settings offline. Great improvements.

    I still would like some fix for the “Post Successful!” banner that frequently pops over a later entry. Is this really needed, as the “Publishing” button will tell you the same thing (by the change from stripped to full color)?

    It may be me, but with more than a dozen entries a day, this screen just gets in my way.

    – -Dennis

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