Inside Snipplr.com

Yesterday, Mozilla released Firefox 2.0 and with it a slew of new features. One of them is autodiscovery of websites that support Amazon’s OpenSearch format. Amazon describes OpenSearch as “a set of simple formats for the sharing of search results.”

What this means to you is Snipplr (and other websites with searchable content) can be searched directly from Firefox’s search box. There’s no need to first go to Snipplr and then do a search. Now you can search from inside your browser no matter what site you’re currently on. Here’s how it works.

Using Firefox 2.0, go to Snipplr.com - you’ll see the small arrow next to Firefox’s search box light up.

Click on the arrow and choose “Add Snipplr” to add it to your list of search engines.

Now, you can search Snipplr using Firefox just like you do Google. Snipplr will even suggest searches as you type them! Here’s a short screencast showing the whole process in action.

I’ve updated the Snipplr TextMate bundle to fix a small bug. Now it’ll give you a nice error message if you search for snippets and don’t find any. Thanks to Brian for pointing this out.

As some of you know, Snipplr was bought by Sitening last month. It’s a great oppurtunity to help Snipplr continue to grow and even let me get paid for it One of the first improvements coming to the site is a new design. Here’s a quick preview:

Based on visitor feedback (thanks, Hernán!) I updated the Snipplr API this morning. The snippet.get method now returns a list of the snippet’s tags. Also, I added a much needed snippet.delete method that (you guessed it) lets you delete snippets from your account. Click here for the API documentation.

I can’t count the number of times on this blog I’ve mentioned the importance of keeping websites like Snipplr open. I don’t mean online and in business, I mean keeping the data (your data) freely available for you to import and export as you see fit. That’s the point of the Snipplr API - to let you manage your snippets without ever having to even visit Snipplr.com. Today I’m releasing a new feature to continue this trend.

Many users have asked for a way to backup all their snippets. Just in case Snipplr goes offline or you want to move your code to another site. Ask an ye shall receive.

On your settings page you’ll find a new link that will let you download a zip file containing all of your snippets.

Delicious Monster, the company behind the fantastic Delicious Library app for Mac, has made it a point to thank the coffee shop that they work out of. With good coffee, big desks, and friendly employees who needs an office? It sure saves on rent. Following in their lead, I think it’s high time to thank the Starbuck’s I spend a lot of my time in. I’d wager that 60% of Snipplr was born right here in this store.

What Starbucks am I speaking of? Why the one on Harding Road here in West End Nashville. The desks may not be very big, but there are plenty of outlets and above all a friendly staff that always makes me feel welcome no matter how long I stay.

(Photo courtesey of Starbucks Everywhere)

I’ve added diff syntax highlighting to Snipplr’s supported languages. Enjoy.

I pushed out another round of updates this afternoon. The biggest change was the switch from Pear’s Text_Highlighter module to GeShi. While I prefer the Pear version, GeShi supports many more languges and is easier to maintain. A bonus I wasn’t expecting is that PHP functions are linked to their man page on PHP.net. Very cool.

New Languages:

• ASP
• Assembler
• Fortran (no laughing, please. People really do still use this.)
• Lua
• MatLab
• Pascal
• SmallTalk
• TCL
• VB.NET
• VHDL

In my last two posts I mentioned that Snipplr can import snippets from other websites. I’ve had this feature ready to go for a while now, however I’ve been a little hesitant to deploy it. It’s a touchy subject. I mean, you could argue that I’m stealing content from other websites. Right? Maybe.

There are two reasons that finally made me decide to roll out the update - that made me see this as an “ok” thing to do:

• First of all, I’m not the one initiating the snippet transfer. It’s entirely up to Snipplr’s users to import their snippets. If a user wants to convert their old account on another website to Snipplr, I’ll happily do it for them - but I won’t just grab all the snippets from every site. That would be stealing. What Snipplr offers is no different than GMail importing users’ Yahoo! address books. Or Firefox offering to import your Internet Explorer bookmarks.

• Snipplr (unlike the other websites) is a two-way street. We have an open API that lets people do whatever they want with their snippets. It’s their code afterall, right? People are free to export their snippets whenever they want. You can get your code out of Snipplr just as easily as you put it in. Offering an import script for the other snippet websites doesn’t put them at a disadvantage since they’re free to do the same as well. In fact, I even give directions on how to do it

I hope you find the import option useful. I’m sure some people will flame me for doing this. Maybe even call me a thief. But in the end I think this benefits users rather than any individual website.

As always, comments, questions, and flames are welcome below.

This morning I added a list of the top ten most active members on Snipplr to the Popular page.

Also, last night I announced that Snipplr can import your existing snippets from other websites such as BigBold.com and ProgrammingIsHard.com. All of your snippets will be added to Snipplr automatically - even your tags. This morning I enabled importing from TextSnippets.com as well.