RichMercer.com A Graffiti CMS powered site

Following on from the Flickr Widget I released yesterday, I have now created a Picasa Web Albums widget for Graffiti that will pull the latest photos from a users Picasa account. It works in very much the same way as the Flickr widget, although tag support is not included at this point (Picasa only allows you to filter by one tag at a time anyway).

You can download the widget here, which also contains a newer version of the Flickr widget containing some bug fixes and some performance enhancements.

After working with the Picasa Web Albums API for a new Graffiti widget, I thought I'd share this as I found a bunch of people that couldn't get square thumbnails from the API, but it's real easy when you know how. If you add 'thumbsize=72c' to the query string, you will received a cropped square image back. The 'c' signifies that the image will be cropped, and replace it with a 'u' for the un-cropped version.

i.e. http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/[username]/?kind=photo&thumbsize=72c

Although it's been available to download for a while (but slightly hard to find), I was never anywhere near happy with the quality of it. Well today, I'm publicly announcing the beta release of my FlickrWidget for Graffiti. The widget simply shows the latest photos from your Flickr page in the sidebar and it also lets you filter by tags. You can see it in action on the sidebar of this site.

Download it now and check it out. To install the widget, simply drop the RichMercer.Graffiti.Widgets.dll into your Graffiti sites' /bin folder then it should appear in the available list on the Widgets page. Then simply set your username and the number of photos to display. I'm going to add some more features soon (like caching) so watch out for an update.

I've just put the finishing touches to a new theme called Monochrome and I'm now using it on my site. The original theme was created by Roshan Ravi and I was originally going to just port it to Graffiti then release it, but I like it so much I'll be using it here too. Look out for another post when it's available to download at the Marketplace.

I know, I'm (very) late to the party, but since my last update, a lot has happened with Graffiti. It's now been released and you can download the free version or purchase it here. You can also read the press release over on the Telligent site. I'm really excited about Graffiti and can't wait to see where it will go in the future. I'll be releasing some new themes for it in the coming weeks as well as some Plug-ins.

I assure you the extra few days wait were worth it, but last night Graffiti CMS beta 1 hit the web! Everyone who signed up for the beta at Graffiticms.com should have received an email already with download details and setup instructions. If not, you can download the beta here, and an ever growing collection of documentation can be found here.

Personally, I think Graffiti is an amazing product and some of the early feedback from beta testers would suggest the same. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already.

P.S. Of course, docs.graffiticms.com is powered by Graffiti so it's one great example of how it's not just a blogging platform. :)

One great feature of Graffiti that I discovered yesterday is the amazing portability of the themes. As you probably saw, I released two themes yesterday ready for the launch of the private beta. Thanks to Graffiti, this is not only an easy thing to deploy, but it's super easy to install a new theme. There's no copying files, or sending folders to an FTP server.

To export a theme to share with others, simply go to the Admin->Presentation->Themes page and click Share. You'll be prompted to save the resulting XML file and that's it. All the images, layouts and styles are serialized into that one file so installing the theme is as easy as visiting the same page and clicking Upload Theme and selecting the XML file. That's it! Easy, isn't it? :)

I have just uploaded a second theme called 'The Missing Piece' which personally, I quite like. You can download it on my Graffiti themes page.

P.S. This theme took me around 25 minutes from start to finish.

Ahead of the Graffiti private beta, I have released the first of what should be a series of themes for use with Graffiti. The first theme is called 'Stylized' and is available to download now!

Visit my new Graffiti Themes page to download the file and for more information.

I recently found a great page over on MSDN that list a whole bunch of samples for LINQ, so if you're not sure how to do a simple select, or you're looking to create a complex aggregate query, the chances are, this page will get you going. If you're using LINQ, bookmark it now!

On a side note, I'm looking for more information on best practices when it comes to using LINQ. It really doesn't fit well with the traditional 3 tier design and using it like that doesn't quite feel right. Other than that, I'm loving LINQ!