At long last, the next update to the Ultimate Explorer gadget has been released! And it is a doozy, so here is a list of the things that got added and changed:

• PriceRunner Engine Added: That’s right, you too can compare prices with the best of them in the gadget now. The menu system is a little odd because of space, so when selecting categories, the category menu will change to allow you to pick sub categories. Other than that, we reccommend the “Search 20″ setting for the best results. Don’t worry, you can skip band and forth in the flyout for more details for individual products from the list.
• eBay Engine Overhauled: It looks better, works better, and now works for Canadians and Brits. We went to town with this engine and improved the speed, result sets, overall look and feel, and added more options. You can also specify more types of searches based on the time left on the auction. If you haven’t checked this engine out before, now is a perfect time to do so. (And I don’t want to hear anything about no RSS reading. You know who you are. :p )
• Search Button Changed: Yeah, I know I said I wasn’t going to do it, but in the end, there will be no mistaking the search button for anything else. Ever.
• Individual Engine Options: One of the more peculiar things people will probably notice with this update is the appearance of a strange little icon in the lower right hand corner of the gadget on certain engines. The curious people out there might even mouse over it and perhaps click this wonderful little button, thus opening up a custom options menu for the engine you are currently on! Oh, I hope there are lots of curious people out there because we now have a lot more room for added functionality because of that marvelous little button that looks like a hammer and spanner (Hint: It’s our logo).
• Settings Panel Re-Organized: Well, since we didn’t have to worry about specific stuff, we can now focus on adding more general options to the Settings Panel. If you open it up right now, it might a little emptier, but don’t worry, we’ll figure out how to fill it up over time. Oh, and if you’re looking for the Snap Search selection, it’s now under the Search tab.
• Snap Search Selections modified: Don’t worry about going over the snap search select limit anymore, we fixed it.
• YouTube Search Issue: Fixed an issue were you could scroll past the results of smaller searches.
• Toggle Links Are Not Links: Found out an interesting thing about IE7 and how it handles CSS, keep an eye out, because next update, we’ll be tweaking the gadget to get rid of those ugly looking link borders on most of the elements.
• Multiple Search Words: Fixed. You can now have 3 or more words in a web search and it will indeed, work.
• Groundwork: This update lays the foundations for future updates, so as we go along improving existing engines and adding new ones, we won’t have to do so much overhauling to get everything to work in really limited space anymore.

Still waiting for approval on our 1.2 update from Live.com Gallery, but we do host the gadget on a number of other places.

Download:

Gadget @ Live.com Gallery

Gadget @ Widgipedia.com

Gadget @ WinCustomize.com

Gadget @ BuildAGadget.com

P.S.: We’ll be re-writing the gadget manual sometime soon as much of the information has changed somewhat. Also be on the lookout for a gadget promotional site we’ll have in the works soon.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
and is filed under Development, Gadget Stuff, News & Updates.



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