October 10, 2007
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Widgets!
A lot of you have mentioned that the conversion to Xanga Themes made your counters and other codes stop working… We hear ya, and we are working on a way to allow more custom codes on themed Xanga Sites.
But in the meantime, if you’re using Xanga Themes and you want to add some fun stuff to your site, check out Xanga Widgets!
We’ve partnered with a couple of awesome widget providers – widgetbox.com and clearspring.com – to launch a gallery with almost 200 widgets (and many more on the way). Just head on over to http://widgets.xanga.com to try them out.
Thanks to monsur for programming this feature. And please let us know what you think.
- Marc
Comments (49)
please! my xanga got really really messed up by themes and i can’t get it to go back. all i want is basically a hard reset so i can start from scratch again. please post something that helps people like me.
Very nice.
Hmm… a search mechanism would be nice, or at least some sort of organization (i.e. display only counters, news feeds, games, calendars, etc.)
Please stop trying to copy everything that facebook and myspace are doing. “Nudge”? Are you kidding?
Xanga’s market distinctive is that it offers easy-to-use blogging with the focus on written content that facebook and myspace can’t match with a much better sense of community than blogger or similar sites.
You’re watering down your distinctives with all these imports, and it’s getting in the way of blogging. Is it possible that xanga is headed towards being a kids-only domain?
I agree with smarterthanhelooks……don’t feel pressured to be something you are not. Remember fads come & go but tastefulness is always in style.
You are Xanga….be Xanga, not facebook or myspace…….they suck.
a search (or some sort of categories or directory) for the widgets would be great. it’s sort of a pain to go page after page looking for something. still waiting for a sitemeter widget. is it in there already, or is it still upcoming?
Um I love the fact that you are adding more options – and that’s exactly what they are – OPTIONS. People need to relax and remember they don’t have to add them to their page if they don’t want to. Personally I like the fact that my Xanga page has evolved into a more complete personal web page that I can use to share through all kinds of mediums.
TIP: I would love to be able to search for widgets rather than keep clicking through random ones.
I agree with smarterthanhelooks and Berlyblake67 about like Xanga much better than Myspace and Facebook. I agree that we don’t need to have all the features they have. Of course it is good to have options like KimNeyer said, but I also think it can get confusing having too many options. Such as, is there really a reason to “friend” someone if you are already subscribing to one another? Maybe there is, but to me it’s just doing the same thing twice and the “friend” idea on Myspace always seemed more like popularity contest, which is just annoying.
Anyway, I also can’t wait to get the option back of doing custom codes. I was so sad when mine just disappeared when I did the switch. I had created a whole unique module and it took a long time to create. I do like the way you can simply edit different features though without having to go back and forth from the look and feel page to the preview. Keep up the hard work and thank you for sharing about the progress you are making. It is one way Xanga feels more like a community and personal than some of the other sites out there. :+)
Nice! I agree with kimneyer on all her points. Pedro
I was searching through the widgets just to see what they were all about and when I clicked on one, instead of letting me get a better look at it up close like I thought it would before I chose wether or not to put it on my blog it automatically loaded it on my blog! But wait… here’s the fun part, there doesn’t seem to be any instructions anywhere to remove them. Can someone help me out with that? I didn’t intend to choose it to display on my blog and it would be great If I could remove it. Sorry to say, I don’t think I’m a fan of the widgets. I think I’ll leave well enough alone.
Please disregard my above comment. After playing around a minute, I figured it out and it’s gone now. But I’ve learned my lesson and won’t do that again anytime soon. I think you guy’s still have some work to do here. How about allowing people to get a closer look at the clips without them automatically loading onto our blogs and it would be good to have better search options as well.
That is great. I love what you guys are adding. It is nice to have the extra option.
And chill out people up there. Just don’t use it.
Don’t worry – I’m chill, whatever that first comment may have sounded like. I think the tone was a bit off on account of having just woke up.
It is true that the programmers have been good about not bothering us with any extra features if we don’t want to use them.
Xanga should keep a sharp focus on what they’re best at, that’s all.
well if they’re options, can i just get rid of it from under my comment box? just not my thing.
Are these widgets similar to what iGoogle is about?
Someday, and even though I love iGoogle, I still have these same issues with it…..Someday—I will have a new computer that can handle all these things! My computer doesn’t seem to care for Xanga (even though I love it) because it randomly will freeze.
I need a new faster one. Then I can actually try these new ‘themes’ that I keep hearing about!! Though I must say, I love having a nice clean, albeit boring, layout. It’s readable.
Great idea. Now, can we please make it useful by organizing the way they’re presented to us? Or *gasp* including a search tool that works?
And I love all of the new-age, spiritualistic stuff and a convenient lack of anything CHRISTIAN. I’ll be happy when you either put a verse of the day widget, or let us use javascript to allow third-party widgets (if you are for whatever reason completely opposed to letting us have CHRISTIAN widgets, that is
A majority of the widgets are ads. Why would I want to insert advertising in my blog? With the addition of “minis” and widgets it seems like xanga’s marketing is aimed more toward pre-teens.
I agree with Jessareil. They seem neat and ya’ll are working very hard I know to try new things with Xanga.
But I seen another new thing and haven’t seen ya’ll say anything about it:( I most likely just miised it) but, what are Minis? And what do they do?
Hey tx_christian, your comment is very UN-Christ like. You must have missed the part about ‘more coming soon’. And did you really look through all 200+?
I don’t mean to sound rude at all, I just thought it needed mentioning.
I agree with smarterthanhelooks and streetphotos. Xanga seems to be moving towards being a tween/teen blogging platform. I thought Themes were an attempt to fix that, but the fact that they can’t even support JavaScript yet is disappointing. I may have started with Xanga as a teen, but I’m having a hard time justifying sticking with it (and my Premium subscription) now that I’m in my mid-20s. Please focus on real functionality.
I wish that Themes did not lock out people from being able to comment because the comment boxes disappear. It seems quite random, no connection to any particular system or browswers that I can tell, but I don’t use a theme any longer because of complaints that readers could not find the box to use for comments. This was something that I tried to have addressed before they became available to everyone, back on the chat boards. It’s still not working correctly for many of us, but we are just tired of asking for things to work.
hey XT,
my xanga won’t let me post anything. The button doesn’t work for some reason, though all the other features work fine & i haven’t been able to write a new post since Aug. 11 !!!
please help thanks
I like the fact that you have a few more options… your themes idea was great, but yes, please just make it so it can support user-added scripts and codes. Widgets seem pointless, and I doubt if people will use them much. I do agree this is becomming a bit more myspacish, but hey, the internet is dominated by teens, so whatever works works. what would be best, is a ‘create it yourself widget’ allow the user to put in his/her own codes in there, in multiple formats. that way everyone wins, you can have your generic ones, AND we can make our own and put what we want there too.
How do I get rid of the widget I put on my page….
There are 2 of the same widget & I only want 1.
Please! No more gadgets, minis and other junk!
If I wanted a facebook page, youtube or myspace, would go signup there.
I like Xanga because it is an actual blogspace not a playground.
Enough already!
Why there is no chinese version for this post?
I have no mood to read this post……
how do you remove the widgets?
Can someone help me? I need to remove one.. because I accidentally put two of the same one on the page.
I accidentally got a “widget” on my blog. I cannot seem to remove it.
I want it GONE!
Please do add back the ability to have counters like SiteMeter ASAP. Tracking readership and URL referrals are very important to serious bloggers. The most useful type of widgets are those that interact with other sites such as Twitter, Flickr and Instant Messengers. I agree with the others who posted Xanga does not need to be MySpace. If we wanted to be on MySpace, we would be there. Trying to play catch up to the tween audience is a mistake IMHO, I think the majority of Xanga members focus on Blogging, so please continue to put emphasis on that aspect. I’d like to have options available for social bookmarking for each entry.
ok
????????????????
good
I agree with the others who don’t want all of the bells & whistles. Xanga is one of the few sites which still focus on blogging & has a sense of community. Don’t loose your best quality trying to copy trendy shallow sites. Have the courage of your convictions, which is self-expression; writing for the sheer joy of it. Don’t do an MTV on us.
Hey Xanga Team!
Arghh, what happened to the HTML layout codes for Xanga.
I was here awhile ago. I kinda liked the layouts better than
the themes. Is it possible if we can get both the themes AND
the HTML, please?
Awesome! The Office widget is amazing.
Suggestion: Make a Digg.com widget, please?!
I need to get rid of the freaking widgets!!!!!!!
How do you delete the widgets? I think it’s really unfair that I shelled out $100 to not have ads on my blog then you trick us into having them put on regardless with no way to remove them.
You know, I don’t want to sound like I’m just grousing here, but Xanga is driving me nuts. Even though several people leave me comments each day, for two days now on my home page it has said I have zero footprints. That happens all the time and it is aggravating. I don’t know about the widgets … I dare not try anything new because when I went to set my theme up, it had me pulling my hair out in sheer frustration. Even now the colors are unpredictable … the whole thing seems unstable and difficult to deal with. I’ll only be here until my subscription runs out in January. I will not renew. Sorry. Don’t ever seem to be able to get any support either. Not good.
I got believe you’ve had this post up since the 10th and you haven’t told people how to remove the widgets yet. What’s going on with that?! TELL US HOW TO REMOVE THE WIDGETS!!!!!!!
How do I get widget off my xanga?
????? i think minis are cooll
I agree with Jessareil. They seem neat and ya’ll are working very hard I know to try new things with Xanga.
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I cant go onto the Widget site
oh, why you take away this now?
Where are your widgets now ?
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The BOE also publishes the price of each car by make, model and age. Based on this assessment, and new lexus not what he has paid, the citizen who has bought his car from a private pay transfer tax.