ScreenSteps Live Updates – API Docs, RSS, Search Widgets and Lesson Linking
We have been working on quite a few changes over the last couple of weeks with ScreenSteps Live and just wanted to make you aware of some of the new features that are available on your account if you are a ScreenSteps Live user.
Updated API Documentation and API Change
Over the last few weeks we have been doing a lot of work on the ScreenSteps Live API. We are little embarrassed to say that our documentation of the API has been a little lacking. But no more. We have expanded the API section of our documentation with example xml from all of the different documented API calls. We have also consolidated all of the API resources into a single manual to make it easier to get information.
One important change – While working on the documentation we noticed a problem in the xml for the tag information of a lesson in a manual. Currently the xml node for tag information for a lesson in a manual looks like this:
<lesson>
<tags>
<name>The Tag Name</name>
</tags>
</lesson>
It should be:
<lesson>
<tags>
<tag>
<name>The Tag Name</name>
</tag>
</tags>
</lesson>
There was a missing tag node. This will only affect you if:
- You are using the API to display the contents of a lesson AND
- The lesson is in a manual AND
- You are displaying the tags for that lesson via the API
View the New API Documentation
RSS Feeds For Spaces, Buckets and Manuals
We have added RSS feeds for your spaces, buckets and manuals. With RSS feeds your users can keep up to date on new lessons that you are adding to your space, manual or bucket. If you are using the standard template, then the RSS feeds are already active in your account.
If you are using a custom template then you will need to add the new rss tag inside of the <head> tag of your custom template. The new tag is:
{{ rss }}
New Search Widget To Add To Your Site
We have also released a new ScreenSteps Live Search Widget that uses standard HTML and Javascript. This means you can insert it anywhere on your website or in other web applications that let you add custom HTML and Javascript. Here are a couple of links that can you started with the widget.
Adding a ScreenSteps Live Search Widget to Your Site
Or you can look at one of the implementations we have created using this widget in FogBugz:
Adding a ScreenSteps Live Widget to FogBugz
Linking Between Lessons in Manuals
ScreenSteps 2.8 is just about ready for release. One of the key enhancements is the new ability to link between lessons in a manual. You can see an example here. This really adds a lot of flexibility when publishing your manuals to ScreenSteps Live.
If you would like to get the beta you can download it now:
Download the ScreenSteps 2.8 Beta
