Topic: Where's My public Widget?

I was doing a quick test of the functionality of the site and the ease of sharing widgets. I made a simple widget that just loops an image (no actionscript) and tossed it to public.. Where is it?

-- Not approved..

I have let it sit for a matter of days, what does your content filter process do? I understand that there is a requirement for filtering, but that needs to be quite immediate, AND it cannot only approve widgets that YOU (Chumby) deem useful. Some of the greatest things created start as garbage, and move up from there.

So,

anyone else want to share widgets? I know I would, and make the community great.

Re: Where's My public Widget?

there could be an opt-in beta widget section where you can view and use widgets that aren't "approved" yet

Re: Where's My public Widget?

We're going to address this through some type of "developer sandbox" or categorization that makes it possible for widgets to become more available without being, technically, "approved."  Just need to make the work in process stuff not overwhelm the more polished stuff -- so widgets that most people will want are findable and provide a good user experience.  We definitely want to make the widget creation and submission process friendly and open to developers.

Re: Where's My public Widget?

I also submitted a widget to the public over the past weekend and have yet to hear back about approval. While I understand that Chumby Inc. wants to maintain a certain amount of quality control, it would be nice to know if/why it was rejected. A little more transparency about this process would be welcome.

Zirga's idea of a beta area is a good one as well. I think it would be smart to have a "Chumby Quality Controlled" widget area which exists separately, but to also allow people access to the unwashed masses of public widgets. At the very least, this gives a public home for widgets which you have not gotten around to approving/rejecting.

Re: Where's My public Widget?

My Administrator account shows *all* widgets, both public and private.

There are dozens of widgets called some variation of "test" - frankly, the signal to noise ratio is *really* low, and there are many widgets that simply don't work.

On top of that, it's clear that users aren't currently differentiating between the chumby device, widgets that we create, and widgets that someone else created - when some third-party widget fails, folks are getting the perception that the *chumby* is defective, and we end up picking up the support for something we didn't make.

We're working on a more comprehensive process for the publication of third-party widgets which will hopefully address a lot of these types of concerns - one goal is a better way to make "not ready for prime time" widgets to be available publicly without polluting the population of release-quality widgets.

Re: Where's My public Widget?

i also had "public"-ed a widget about 2 weeks ago and haven't heard or seen anything.  have been wondering if there is a "backlog" or if it was deemed of insufficient interest, or if there is something wrong with the widget.  it would be nice to have some mechanism for feedback. i have several others i am preparing, but kind of wondering if i should continue

Re: Where's My public Widget?

Duane wrote:

My Administrator account shows *all* widgets, both public and private.

Cool! I want an administrator account too!  smile

Re: Where's My public Widget?

I would suggest that you add a user submitted area, where you can maybe move them over to the released side based on votes/ranks. That openness to uploadable user widgets would be something that people want to see before purchase.

Note the engadget complaint in the review about clocks? I'd be willing to bet this area would add to the excitement of chumby.

Re: Where's My public Widget?

Can we share "private" widgets with "chums"? I would like to get some early feedback on a widget I am working on but without sharing the .swf and configuration parameters manually.

This type of sharing might work for me.

-John Forsythe
www.jforsythe.com