Three Monkees & Me

Enter Ping.fm.  Ping.fm is a site that makes life easier for people like me.  They are a 'one stop shop' for sending these status messages to all the social networking sites, whether it's from a form on their site, via an email, or via one of several IM 'bots' (ie, from withing Google Talk).  The one place they couldn't send the message was to my Joomla-based site.

So I created JoomPing.

The JoomPing component works in two ways:  It is called via Ping.fm's CustomURL service and adds the status message to the database.  It can also be displayed via a menu link, and, in this instance, will display received status messages.  There is also a module that can be added to any page you want to display the last 'x' number of Pings.  I have it displayed on my home page, so that people can instantly see what I'm up to.

This is my second ever Joomla extension, and my first component.  It seems to work on my site, and I hope it'll work for you.  I had no intention of making any money from this.  It's useful to me, and as a result, I thought I'd offer it to other fellow Joomla users. I'm still cutting my teeth with Joomla development, but if you have any suggestions, or problems, please let me know.

How To Use It?

Simply install the package.  You'll need to unzip the package first, and then install the component & module individually.  Once the component has been installed, create a Menu link that links to a JoomPing content type.  Give this an alias you can easily remember, i.e. joomping, as this is going to be used as the Custom URL at ping.fm.  Now head over to Ping.fm, and add the Custom URL service.  In the URL field put your link... i.e. www.yoursite.com/joomping.  Now, provided all is good, if you return to the ping.fm dashboard, type in '@cu my first message' (without the quotes), and send the ping, it should be added to the database on your site.  You can either check in the administrator, or by looking at the page you just created.

Oh, I have only tried this on my site with SEF enabled, which is why I use the /joomping url.  If you haven't got SEF enabled, or you use something other than the standard Joomla SEF, then you'll need to get the URL of the JoomPing page, and enter this as the Custom URL at Ping.fm.

Where to get it?

You can download the latest pkg_joomping (v 0.0.1) from here.

History

Version 0.0.1 (22/07/08):  Initial Release.

Comments (10)

bob uzil said:

	how about a Cb1.2 version? Great this would be really great if we could do it via CB1.2 for all our users
	report abuse vote down vote up

October 01, 2008
Votes: +1

Jason Boyette said:

	Component fails to install I get an error installing com_joomping_0_0_1.zip: "Error! Could not find an XML setup file in the package." I am using Joomla 1.5.3; will JoomPing work with that?
	report abuse vote down vote up

October 02, 2008 | url
Votes: +0

Nick said:

XML setup file problem Hi Jason, this problem has cropped up a couple of times, and I'm at a loss as to why it's happening for some, and not most. I can assure you the XML file IS in the zip file. May I suggest that you unzip the com_joomping ZIP file to a temp folder, upload the folder to the server, and then use the install from directory option. This has been confirmed to work by another person. Regards Nick

report abuse vote down vote up

October 02, 2008
Votes: +0

Ganesh said:

	XML setup file problem Hi Same is my problem. I don't know why its occuring again and again. My joomla version is: 1.5.2. Thanks Ganesh
	report abuse vote down vote up

October 19, 2008 | url
Votes: +0

Nick said:

	XML Problem - RESOLVED! We have finally resolved the issue. It was basically down to the Zip files being created on a Mac. I don't know why it worked for some, and not others, but the problem now seems to be fixed. Many thanks to Ganesh for his assistance. Sorry for the inconvenience caused... Nick
	report abuse vote down vote up

October 19, 2008
Votes: +1

Jason Boyette said:

	Try again I will try again with latest zip file.
	report abuse vote down vote up

October 22, 2008 | url
Votes: +0

Jason Boyette said:

	Works fine now Your extensions work just fine, now, Nick. Thanks a lot! I use hellotxt.com for my status updates. Do you know if they allow posting to custom URLs?
	report abuse vote down vote up

October 22, 2008 | url
Votes: +0

Jason Boyette said:

	One more question I live in Michigan, and we're on Daylight Saving Time for a couple more weeks. When I post through ping.fm, the time is off by one hour. I'm assuming this will fix itself in November, but how can I get the times to post correctly?
	report abuse vote down vote up

October 22, 2008 | url
Votes: +0

Phoenix2life said:

	Excellent Extension Wow. It is just a breeze to install and to use this cool joomping extension. Keep it up. Thanks for sharing !!! Phoenix2life
	report abuse vote down vote up

November 06, 2008 | url
Votes: +0

Jason Boyette said:

	How about HelloTxt? Does this extension work with HelloTxt.com? Or is it specific to ping.fm? The guy at HelloTxt just created the custom URL option, and I wanted to use JoomPing from there. It's not working, so I can't tell if it's a problem there, or with JoomPing.
	report abuse vote down vote up

December 18, 2008 | url
Votes: +0

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment