I’m proud to announce my latest project is now available as a beta release. Firedoodle is a Firefox Add-On that allows you to mark up any page as if it was projected onto a white board. You can download the plugin at Firedoodle.com and if you register an account, any highlights you created can be saved (and later shared).
I hope you like what I’ve created. Since this is a beta release, there may be bugs. If you run across any problems, please post a response here about them.
Thanks!
March 22, 2007 at 2:14 pm |
I can see this being used for reviewing web sites in production instead of the more complicated process of creating PDFs for annotation or, worse, printing hard copies for faxing when developers are remotely located or scattered.
Have you considered adding text entry or “rubber stamps” to the process? I think this would make it even more useful.
March 22, 2007 at 2:53 pm |
Received following in the Error console.
Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004003 (NS_ERROR_INVALID_POINTER) [nsIDOMHTMLBodyElement.removeChild]” nsresult: “0×80004003 (NS_ERROR_INVALID_POINTER)” location: “JS frame :: chrome://firedoodle/content/firedoodle.js :: DSGHigh_CancelDrawingTool :: line 187″ data: no]
March 22, 2007 at 6:45 pm |
Nice work! This plugin will be become very useful once you’ll add support for sharing saved doodles. Is this feature coming soon?
March 22, 2007 at 8:00 pm |
Sharing is coming soon and also down the road is the ability to collaborate in real time with a group of people. I will be adding the ability to add a stickie note to a site as well. Thanks for the response!
March 22, 2007 at 11:30 pm |
Doodles can only be saved if I register? Does this mean my doodles are not stored locally; they are sent to your website and you’ll know every doodle we make?
March 23, 2007 at 12:00 am |
Very cool, looking forward to the sharing feature, how about being able to share via a static link as well? This would be handy for web QA to highlight a page and then link (or share) their highlight with the developer, much better then a screen shot that has to be edited and attached. Jira plugin then?!
March 23, 2007 at 7:37 am |
@Aaron: Yes, doodles are saved at firedoodle.com to support the sharing features that are in the works.
@magicaj: Sharing will work very similar to what you mentioned.
March 23, 2007 at 7:48 am |
This looks like a cool tool, but it doesn’t appear to work for me. I am running Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. When I click the New button to start highlighting the webpage becomes blank. All text and graphics disappear. Any ideas?
March 23, 2007 at 7:49 am |
Sorry, just saw the bug reports link. I’ll post the above comment over there.
March 23, 2007 at 11:46 am |
Is there a way to edit a currently saved highlight? It would be nice to bring up old notes and add on to or amend them. I’ve been playing around but no luck.
March 23, 2007 at 12:00 pm |
Really interesting tool…as we have come to expect! I will be thinking of artistic implications! But the practical ones speak for themselves! Very inspiring.
March 23, 2007 at 12:06 pm |
What are the licensing terms for FireDoodle?
March 23, 2007 at 3:18 pm |
awesome stuff… was thinking about doing this after seeing this…
EDIT ANY WEBPAGE
GO to any web page, clear the address bar, and paste this: “javascript:document.body.contentEditable=’true’; document.designMode=’on’; void 0″ (without the quotes) and hit enter. Feel free to edit whatever you want on the page!
cheers… keep up the good work!
March 24, 2007 at 2:33 pm |
> Sharing is coming soon and also down the road is
> the ability to collaborate in real time with a group of people.
Real time sharing would be very cool.
March 27, 2007 at 9:10 pm |
I agree with Mike’s initial comment — I can’t wait to try this out at work (I’m an IA at a medium-sized company in Cambridge, Massachusetts). It beats all the usual methods (Powerpoint, Acrobat, etc.) for marking up websites, and it means I don’t have to print them out, mark it up, and scan it back in.
Haven’t tried it yet, but this may also work great with Pearl Crescent Page Saver (http://pearlcrescent.com/products/pagesaver/). I’ll post back here with my results, later.
Your Demo video, while informative, didn’t really satisfy me; it’s too long, and it took too long before you started actually drawing with it. Have you considered making a five- to ten-second version, that just shows how you log in, and what you can do?
March 28, 2007 at 5:34 am |
I can’t save because I’m not logged in, I can’t login because I’m not registered, I can’t register because it says I’m allready registered!!! What’s up??
March 28, 2007 at 7:51 am |
@Christos – Thanks for the comments! I may go back and redo that demo video, but rest assured that all new features, when released, will have a short video focusing on just that part of the tool. Short, and to the point.