Service Links towards the 2.1

After 5 months since Service Links reached the 2.0 version, new proposals have been suggested on the queue issue in addition to the old requests not yet implemented.
Some of them was requiring a step forward in the main module, others was needing a more strong idea for glue the new features in a forward-looking approach. Infact the most difficult thing, sometimes, is not implement a new feature but give it a sense and a right place inside a piece of software.
Give a good structure is also important for keep it easy to extend, obviously an OOP model could give a great support in this sense but this is not the matter for the current 2.x.

A step backward to the postponed features

Below the list of features detached from the original 2.0 plan:

• Indipendent popup effect;
• Tag Extension;
• CSS sprites instead of classical IMG elements;
• bookmark count with statistics page.

Some of them will be included on the next 2.1.

The use of sprites is in a good status, the unique improvement could be an option for add custom CSS elements to the file automatically generated. For avoid a double icon appearing to widget items a new item called style has been introduced on the service's declaration and fix the use of style to a predefined one.

The tag extension was thought for stick different data, depending from the node, in the title field of the final link; for accomplish this issue has been introduced a new method which require the Token module. This solution save a lot of work, look more reliable and plus, from Drupal 7.0, this module is part of the core.

Concerning the popup effect, actually it's provided in conjunction with Share module, but i consider this a key feature, too important for let it available only through an external module. I think, a step in this way can be made for the next 2.1 release!

Collect statistics about the number of services requested is another interesting feature that for lack of time and a good planning, can't be introduced for the next release.

What's new for the next release

The old 2.0 has been improved in various ways, this also thank to the contribute of various users, but there are also interesting news which extend the set of features.

Improvements:

• Better compatibility with other modules which modify the displayed theme (OG, Blogtheme, ...);
• better compatibilty with Print module, hiding the services when a print page is rendered;
• before show the category's terms the related vocabulary have to be selected, this help when it's not desirable show a big number of terms on the admin page.;
• a message alert when the list of services available is empty, the validation function has been improved;
• links can hide when the node belong to the user;
• short url for not-node pages;
• permission for configure service links belong to the standard.

News:

• Support for CSS sprites;
• Display Services plugin, introduce fields for Displays Suite: one field for each service (look in admin services page for select the related checkbox), or a single field with all the services allowed;
• added services: Diigo, Technorati favorite, Newskicks service, Print, Xing, and the new set of Polish services;
• override of <title> tag with Token support, this is the way for support also Pagetitle;
• support for widgets with their options too: Facebook Like, Facebook Share, Twitter ... and someone more i hope;
• added <raw-encoded-xxx> tags which use the rawencode() php function;
• added <query> tag (and related encoded and raw-encoded variants) useful for services generated by extra modules (Forward, Print, ...);
• a weight is used for define the position of Service Links in node and move the block before or after the content;
• added the ability to point always the front page in block for not-node pages.

That's all for now, into a next post i wish publish a little TO-DO list.