Performancing Op-Test
Sunday, January 22, 2006
This is a quick test of the Performancing extension for Firefox that I mentioned the other day.
This is pretty nice! The editor is resizable and resembles nothing so much as a windowshade -- except that it raises and lowers from the bottom. (I think it's called a "split screen".) With tabbed browsing, the editor stays visible while the tab changes, which is very convenient for going back and forth between news sources. If the "shade" is raised all the way up, you end up with an editor window about twice the size of the one Blogger gives you. F8 toggles the whole thing on and off. This alone is more convenient than having to use the Blogger editor in its own tab or window.
I may like using this, unless some quirks surface over time. Aw man! There's no spell-checker! I found one on their site, but it is not integrated with the editor and it missed an idiot check I put into my text! I guess I'll have to spell-check elsewhere before publishing. Bleh!
Incidentally, while logging into Blogger to do just that, I noticed that this will be my 600th post! I'll publish directly from Performancing, though.
-- CAV
Updates
1-23-06: Corrected a typo.
This is pretty nice! The editor is resizable and resembles nothing so much as a windowshade -- except that it raises and lowers from the bottom. (I think it's called a "split screen".) With tabbed browsing, the editor stays visible while the tab changes, which is very convenient for going back and forth between news sources. If the "shade" is raised all the way up, you end up with an editor window about twice the size of the one Blogger gives you. F8 toggles the whole thing on and off. This alone is more convenient than having to use the Blogger editor in its own tab or window.
Incidentally, while logging into Blogger to do just that, I noticed that this will be my 600th post! I'll publish directly from Performancing, though.
-- CAV
Updates
1-23-06: Corrected a typo.
7 comments:
Gus, when I first installed the spell-check beta, it didn't seem to be working for me, either. However, I got it to work just fine by highlighting a misspelled word, right-clicking, and selecting "Check Spelling." When the spell-check window popped up, I had to choose the "English Language" choice near the bottom before the beta would work.
Also, I may have mentioned that a direct download/installation of the spell-checker didn't seem to work for me. It's about 500kb, I think, so if it appears to install very quickly (on dial-up?), it probably isn't installing. (This is what happened to me; you can check your extensions list under "Tools" to see if it has installed.) So, I had to right-click on the xpi and save to my computer, then open that file via Firefox's "open file" command in the "File" menu.
After it installs, Firefox should be closed and reopened. I also had to edit the tool bar to include the two spell-check icons. One is for "check spelling as you type" -- I keep that one selected -- and the other is for spell-checking afterward.
I've been pretty impressed with the spell-check.
BTW, if you right-click on the Performancing icon at the bottom of the browser, you'll be given the option to open Performancing in a new tab, a new window, or the existing window.
ER, actually my memory is a bit foggy. Once you are sure the spell-check has installed, you can highlight the "Spellbound Development" extension in the extensions list and choose "Options." From there you can choose "test area" and then click on the Tools icon which looks like "abc" with a check mark under it. That should open the spell-check dialog box and give you the option to choose the English language dictionary.
Curtis,
Thanks for the advice. I'll try it on my next blogging session.
One very unnerving thing I noticed is that if you toggle between editing modes, you tend to lose edits. This morning, I found three errors that I am sure were caused by this -- that I didn't catch last night when I finally noticed the problem.
I'm going to try hitting "save" before toggling in my next session to see if this behavior stops. But if I can't get this to stop, it will be a deal-breaker, at least for awhile.
Gus
By "toggle between editing modes" do you mean between the WYSIWYG and the HTML modes? Oddly, I didn't have a problem the first couple of posts when I'd toggled between them, but yesterday I did. This occurred when I included a horizontal line and a few following sentences in my post in the HTML and then toggled back to WYSIWYG; the last couple of sentences were missing. Toggling back to the HTML revealed them, however.
I also briefly had a problem with the "publish" button, which didn't work during one post for some reason.
I've been saving my entries as "notes" to circumvent these two problems, or to make sure I don't lose anything. Once they are saved as notes, they are saved.
The folks at Performancing are working on an update to the extension. Hopefully it will address these and other issues.
On the toggling question: yes. And I had decided already to do what you have reported as working.
I also noticed that a new version is about to be released. We can always hope they've integrated the spell checker, as opposed to it being actibated in a roundabout way.
Gus
Woo-hoo! The updated version is out!
The "Page Tools" Technorati interface is cool; whenever you navigate to a new page, the Technorati specs are display. (Links/blogs linking to that page...)
I may even put by Del.Icio.Us account to use, now...
And, setting trackbacks are now an option!
I'm going to give this think a new spin...
Curtis,
Thanks for mentioning that. I noticed on their blog that it was supposed to be released soon. I'll probably download it over the next day or so and try it out.
I've composed my last few posts in Performancing without too much trouble.
Gus
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