tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16425656.post-39210049567560380472007-10-24T20:58:00.000-04:002008-12-10T04:43:17.648-05:00I’ve started playing around with <a href="http://www.stikkit.com/">Stikkit</a> a little bit. I’m not entirely sure what I want to use it for, but it has the advantage of a <a href="http://api.stikkit.com/api">pretty good API</a>, which means that, whatever I do with it, I can do it from the <a href="http://interblah.net/2007/4/3/stikkit-dashboard-widget">Dashboard</a>, <a href="http://www.valuesofn.com/blog/2007/04/stikkit-quick-with-quicksilver.html">Quicksilver</a>, and anywhere I can run my own code.<br /><br />James Adam, who wrote a Dashboard widget for Stikkit, <a href="http://interblah.net/2007/4/3/stikkit-dashboard-widget">wrote</a>:<br /><blockquote>Instead of using Stikkit as my online information repository, I've found that I used Stikkit as a kind of <em>online-short-term memory</em>.<br /></blockquote>I think that’s a good direction to take, since, with the Quicksilver tool, I can quickly post to Stikkit from home and work, and I can access my Stikkits from anywhere with a browser.<br /><br />Right now I’m trying out Stikkit for personal todo items (I love <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/">OmniFocus</a> at work, but it’s too heavyweight and on-one-machine for home use) and I’m thinking of also using it for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickler_file">tickler file</a> things, since it’s easy to tie dates to things. (Formal events I’m keeping on <a href="http://www.google.com/calendar">Google Calendar</a>, sometimes <a href="http://upcoming.yahoo.com/news/archives/2006/04/14/fun_with/">fed in</a> from <a href="http://upcoming.yahoo.com/">Upcoming</a>.)<br /><br />Since I’ve also been recently taken with writing gadgets for iGoogle (mmm… <a href="http://buzz.blogger.com/2007/10/blogger-play-in-gadget-form.html">scroll-y</a>) I took a few evenings and wrote a Google Gadget for Stikkit.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ePNaPx__W9w/Rx_1j85jsNI/AAAAAAAAAII/HJcPgEtAdUk/s1600-h/stikkit.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ePNaPx__W9w/Rx_1j85jsNI/AAAAAAAAAII/HJcPgEtAdUk/s400/stikkit.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5125084898962682066" border="0" /></a><a href="http://fusion.google.com/add?moduleurl=http%3A//www.grogmaster.com/gadgets/stikkit.xml"><img src="http://buttons.googlesyndication.com/fusion/add.gif" style="border:none" alt="Add to Google" border="0" height="17" width="104" /></a><br /></div><br />The gadget will show a few days’ of upcoming events and also all of your undone todos (except those that appear as events). Clicking on the “-” next to a Stikkit will mark it as done.<br /><br />You’ll need your Stikkit API key to get this to work. It’s available from your Stikkit account settings page (click on your username).<br /><br />Driving the Stikkit API from a Google Gadget is slightly tricky. Google provides the <a href="http://www.google.com/apis/gadgets/remote-content.html#Fetch_text"><span style="font-family:courier new;">_IG_FetchContent</span></a> function to get around same-domain policy and grab the JSON as text. A simple <span style="font-family:courier new;">eval</span> call then turns it into a data structure.<br /><br />POSTing and PUTing is trickier. I ended up using a <span style="font-family:courier new;">&lt;form&gt;</span> element that is targeted at a hidden <span style="font-family:courier new;">&lt;iframe&gt;</span>, specifying the “text” format for the result. Stikkit supports a <span style="font-family:courier new;">_method</span> parameter to override the POST into a PUT for the todo toggling. This works when it works, but due to cross-domain limitations the gadget code can’t tell when it doesn’t work.<br /><br />Anyway, if you’re using Stikkit and give this Google Gadget a try, leave me a comment here or <a href="mailto:phopkins.feedback+stikkit@gmail.com">drop an e-mail</a>. I’m open to feature requests as well as suggestions into how to get the most out of Stikkit.<br /><br />Also, if anyone can poke <a href="http://www.valuesofn.com/peeps.html">Rael and the gang</a> and get SMS reminders to AT&amp;T working, I would be much obliged.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/16425656-3921004956756038047?l=blog.grogmaster.com'/></div>Petehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09388247167019618091phopkins@gmail.com1