After the Deadline

So many things to announce, how do I do it in one blog post? Let’s do a list. Drum role roll please.

5. Good-bye API keys

We’ve gotten rid of the AtD API keys. I was pushing to ask for more information and force folks to download a white paper before getting anything. Needless to say, I lost that battle. Using After the Deadline no longer requires registering with us. It’s still free for personal use. If you have a commercial need, grab our open source software.

4. Open Source Software – Updated Release

Finally, after all this time, After the Deadline’s server software is in a public subversion repository. We’ve also repackaged the current code and updated some of the documentation. Now you can check out the server software and stay in sync with what we’re using. We also have a mechanism (a local.sl file) where you can make local changes and not worry about us breaking them during future updates.

3. AtD speaks multiple languages

Yes, now AtD speaks multiple languages. We’ve put servers in place for French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. We have more languages ready to go and we’ll make those available in the future. We’re providing contextual spell checking for these languages. French and German have grammar checking courtesy of the excellent Language Tool project. Misused word detection is under development.

The AtD Language Pack on our open source server page has everything you need.

2. bbPress Plugin Update

As if some otherworldly power was driving him, Gautam released an update to AtD/bbPress with support for French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish on Friday. How he knew about all this stuff before us, I don’t know 🙂 But it’s great and if you use bbPress you need to get the plugin.

1. WordPress Plugin Update with Translations

And yes, our WordPress plugin has been updated to banish the API key nag-screen and to support proofreading in French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.

The updated WordPress plugin uses your WPLANG setting to decide which language it should proofread in. If you blog in many languages or this setting doesn’t work for you, visit your profile page (the same place where all the AtD settings are) and enable the proofread with detected language option. With this turned on, After the Deadline will detect your language and apply the correct proofreader to it.

Thanks to the wonderful WordPress community volunteers, the AtD plugin has translations for Portuguese, Hindi, Japanese, French, Finnish, Bosnian, and Persian.

0. An Extra Bonus

I originally wanted to provide 10 exciting news items and this post became way too long with too much stuff at the top. So now you get a bonus item. We’ve also released updates to the AtD front-end components. They’re L10n ready and AtD/jQuery is now compatible with jQuery 1.4.

We’ve accomplished a lot lately, so I have some updates to share with you. The AtD/WordPress plugin, jQuery plugin, and TinyMCE plugin have all seen updates. Here is a list of what you get to look forward to:

jQuery API Updates

The AtD/jQuery API is the big winner in terms of fixes. This updated library builds on the AtD Core UI Module. The Core UI Module allows the jQuery API and TinyMCE plugin to share a lot of code. This means a bug fix in one is a fix in another.

The jQuery API includes a new jQuery-like syntax for attaching to a textarea. This is the technique powering the AtD Bookmarklet released last week. Do you want to add AtD to a webpage? Here is the code that does it:

<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="http://static.afterthedeadline.com/atd-jquery/scripts/jquery.atd.textarea.js?ver=011210"></script>
<script src="http://static.afterthedeadline.com/atd-jquery/scripts/csshttprequest.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://static.afterthedeadline.com/atd-jquery/css/atd.css" />
<script>
   jQuery(function() {
      $('textarea').addProofreader();
   });
</script>

That’s not all. The jQuery Textarea API takes advantage of the new contentEditable HTML 5 feature in non-IE browsers. If you’re using a new browser you can change your content from the proofreading view.

TinyMCE API Updates

The AtD/TinyMCE module now takes advantage of the Core UI Module.

WordPress Plugin Updates

The WordPress plugin user interface is now ready for localization. If you’d like to contribute, please read the call for volunteers. The Visual Editor and HTML Editor now share a lot of code (and fixes) thanks to the Core UI Module. If you’re using AtD on your WordPress blog, I highly recommend this update.

Today I’d like to present a new toy for you–the AtD Bookmarklet. With it, you can click “Add Proofreader” from your bookmark bar and an AtD button will magically appear above every text area on the current page. You now have the ability to check spelling, grammar, and misused words from your browser.

You can get it here. What can you do with this new bookmarklet?

1. Look smart when posting to Hacker News

2. Check your tweets before they go out

3. Avoid an embarrassing mistake on your LinkedIn profile

4. Spell check your comments–on any blog!

This proofreading technology uses an open source back-end. We also have libraries for jQuery, TinyMCE, and CKEditor to make it easy to embed After the Deadline into your application.

Chrome Update – I’ve received several reports (and have verified) that this bookmarklet does not work in Google Chrome. The AtD libraries work with Chrome and everything is happy when requests are to and from the same host. When I find a fix, I’ll post something here.

Chrome Update 2 – After investigating with Google Chrome, I believe this bookmarklet communicates in a way that conflicts with Chrome’s pop-up blocker or browser security policy.

The AtD/WP.org plugin experienced some reworking this week. This release smooths the install process, adds a new feature, and fixes several bugs. Here are the highlights:

Auto-Proofread on Publish and Update

Many of you have told me “I love AtD but I keep forgetting to run it before I post”. Well, never fear. Mohammad Jangda and I have worked together to bring a new toy to you. AtD now has an auto-proofread on publish and update feature. You can enable it from your user profile page.

When enabled, this feature will run AtD against your post (or page) before a publish or update. If any errors are found, you’ll be prompted with a dialog:

It is then up to you. If you want to publish, click OK. Otherwise click Cancel to interact with the errors and make your changes. The next time you hit Publish your post will go through.

Define a Global AtD Key for WPMU Users

If you’re using WPMU and would like a way to set a global AtD key, we’ve got you covered. AtD now looks for an ATD_KEY constant before prompting for a key. If this constant exists, the ask for a key page goes away. You can also define ATD_SERVER and ATD_PORT if you’re running your own AtD server from our open source distribution. You can set these constants in wp-config.php.

Smoother Installation Process

For most of you, installing After the Deadline is a snap. For some of you, it doesn’t work out. It seems there are two issues that pop up and this update addresses them.

The first snag is many folks try to use their WordPress.com API key instead of their After the Deadline API key. Fortunately these have different forms and are easy to tell apart. The plugin now detects when you entered something other than an After the Deadline API key and gently notifies the user that an After the Deadline API key is different.

The second snag has to do with security. Many system administrators lock down a PHP installation by disabling functions that PHP scripts use to connect to other hosts on the internet. AtD connects to a service to do its job. AtD now detects this security measure and tells the user to contact their system administrator (along with what needs to be fixed).

This should help many of you out. As always, enjoy the update.

As a side note: the AtD/jQuery and AtD/TinyMCE extensions were both updated as well. These are minor fixes but you should get them if you’re using them in your app.

Today I released updates to the AtD/TinyMCE and AtD/jQuery plugins. Here is the latest:

AtD/jQuery

This release adds functions for easily hooking into a TEXTAREA. I observed a few people and how they adopted the examples and decided to help them out. There are also several bug fixes and support for diacritical marks.

• AtD/jQuery plugin page – download the latest
• AtD/jQuery Changelog – see what’s new

AtD/TinyMCE

Surprise 🙂 This update fixes several bugs and adds support for diacritical marks.

• AtD/TinyMCE plugin page – download the latest
• AtD/jQuery Changelog – see what’s new

Diacritical marks are those accents and marks we leave out when we’re writing words like resumé, naïve, and San José. This is common practice because most of us don’t know or can’t remember the codes to produce these marks.

For proper nouns like São Paulo, a city in Brazil, it’s critical to have these marks as they are part of the proper spelling of the place.

For other words the marks are optional. I can write cafe and you’ll know what I mean. But what about resume? Am I referring to continuing an action or a document that I gladly deleted when I joined Automattic? Ok, you can pick up the meaning on context. Let’s agree that resumé is prettier than resume.

In the interest of correct and pretty writing, After the Deadline now helps you restore diacritical marks in your writing. This is a style checker option that you enable through your WordPress profile.

Also, After the Deadline is now better at learning words with diacritical marks. What does this mean? It means if you type Beyonce, After the Deadline will tell you it’s misspelled and suggest Beyoncé. Try it. It’s pretty cool.

And, if you read The New Yorker and want to write like them: After the Deadline will now suggest a diaeresis for words with two consecutive vowels that are treated as separate syllables. This comes up for words like coöperate, reënter, and zoölogy. It’s an old pronunciation cue and I have a friend named Matt who is bound to love this feature.

Now you can accent your writing with After the Deadline. Try it out at www.polishmywriting.com, download the plugin at wordpress.org, or add it to your application through our developer support.

One of the most requested features for the After the Deadline WordPress plugin has been support for the HTML Editor. I’m pleased to announce this feature is now available. Visit the WordPress plugin repository to download the update.

AtD/jQuery

The AtD/WP plugin builds on the AtD/jQuery plugin. So today I’m also announcing an update to the AtD/jQuery package as well. The AtD/jQuery plugin now supports all the features of After the Deadline. As the developer you get to pick and choose what to use.

• AtD/jQuery plugin page – download the latest
• AtD/jQuery Changelog – see what’s new

AtD/TinyMCE

The AtD/jQuery and AtD/TinyMCE code have a lot in common. A bug in one usually means I get to make the same bug fix in another. With that in mind, the AtD/TinyMCE code has been updated with several fixes. This updated plugin also includes new documentation and a demo for you to work with.

• AtD/TinyMCE plugin page – download the latest
• AtD/jQuery Changelog – see what’s new

Thanks to the efforts of Gautam Gupta, After the Deadline is now available for bbPress. bbPress is the WordPress take on forum software. Simple, elegant, and usable.

This plugin lets users check the spelling and grammar of their posts before they go live. How cool is that? (Ok, everything around here is about checking spelling and grammar–it’s still cool)

You can find out more on Gautam’s blog or download the After the Deadline plugin from the bbPress plugin repository.

Here is a screenshot of AtD/bbPress in action:

AtD/bbPress uses the AtD/jQuery library. You can download AtD/jQuery and other developer goodies from the AtD developer’s page. If you add AtD to an application, let me know.