Build A Gadget » XM Online Radio

XM Online Radio For Google 1.4

The Staff — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:29:20 +0000

We have patched in the new links and got the XM Online Radio gadget for Google Sidebar up and running again. Let us know if you run into any issues.

Download XM Online Radio 1.4 (Google Gadget)

XM Online Radio 1.9.1

The Staff — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:27:44 +0000

Today Sirius XM changed all of their player links and broke every 3rd party player in existence. Every. 3rd. Party. Player. We were not happy and neither were quite a few of you who wrote in. We have good news though, the 1.9.1 version of the gadget switches the links and player around and should work for everyone. We currently have the Vista version up and running and the Google version should get fixed pretty soon as well.

As always, let us know if you run into any issues and we’ll do our best to get them resolved. Thanks for everyone’s patience on this.

Download: BuildAGadget.com – Widgipedia.com – Live.com Gallery

XM Online Radio 1.9

The Staff — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:05:44 +0000

After 1.8 went up with so much fanfare (We’re lying, 1.8 was kind of a terrible release and we apologize deeply), we decided to go over the code for the gadget one more time and came up with version 1.9. We even tested this one. There are a few differences and upgrades, some under the hood, others visible, here’s a list:

Updates:

The channel list will be downloaded into a local file. This is for speed and stability.
You can now go to the settings panel to update the channel list
All functions were looked over, most were deemed worthy, some less so
Several re-writes were made for stability testing and speed
Links flyout has been majorly updated to include a help FAQ
Adsense was added to the bottom of the channel flyout
Scroll options added for the up and down arrows on the gadget face
Scroll options: by station number, by original list, or by favorites
If you have a flyout focus problem, we’ve added an option for you
Changed “Username:” on login flyout to “E-Mail / Username:”

There are other things we’re still toying around with. Tune select options? Yeah, if we can figure out the least annoying way to implement them. Bouncing the XM data through our server to *hopefully* eliminate stability issues? On the to-do list. Channel listing archiving? Maybe someday. Integrating this with weather, time, date, calendars, and a cute animatronic cat? Probably going to be a different gadget if we ever decide to do that.

If you run into an issue with the gadget, don’t panic. If you can, click the XM logo on top of the gadget and peruse the help menu for instructions. This thing isn’t foolproof yet and the occasional glitch will happen (statistically it’s gotten lower, but it’s not completely gone), instructions for resetting the gadget, restarting the sidebar, they are all in there.

Why would we want to use a gadget that can still glitch up on rare occasion?
Because it’s one of the best, most compact and easy to use XM players out there for free.

Download: BuildAGadget.com – Widgipedia.com – Live.com Gallery

If you run into any issues that the help menu doesn’t cover, have any ideas, suggestions, etc. Please feel free to send us an e-mail from the site or post on the blog. Enjoy!

P.S.: Special thanks to Eric Putnam for helping us catch lots of errors and typos.

XM Google Patch Updates

The Staff — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:08:26 +0000

When Google Desktop 5.8 came out this past week, some of the new ways that it parses code broke our XM gadget on the sidebar. Since then, we’ve released a patch, but we have a second patch to release today. The current version is now 1.3. If you haven’t gone and re-downloaded it, please do:

Download XM Online Radio 1.3 for Google Sidebar

This patch fixes problems with favorites and the channel selection should be working now. Problems such as no sound and no initial channels have been reported, but not en masse and we haven’t been able to replicate the issues in house as of yet.

If you run into any issues with this version of the gadget, please document them below with as much detail as possible so that we can recreate the problem and hopefully be able to include fixes in upcoming versions.

Thanks.

New XM Landing Pages

The Staff — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:02:02 +0000

It’s been a while since our last update but be assured that we aren’t sleeping on the job. We’ve recently revamped our XM landing pages and we’re including more stuff than what was there previously. The new design is cleaner, more to the point and hopefully more useful with the additions of the What’s On and XM-Sync pages.

The What’s On page is similar to the channel view of the gadget, it gives you a real-time listing of the currently playing track and information on a per channel basis. Think of it like watching the weather channel, but for music instead.

XM-Sync is something new we’re working on for our various XM gadgets and players. The idea is to be able to back up your favorites and settings so they can be retrieved and / or updated from the players themselves. We’re still working out the kinks, but it will be available on the next platform we release an XM player for and we’ll retrofit the rest of the gadgets.

The service is privacy friendly, we go over the details on the landing page, which when it’s finished, will allow you to log in and modify favorites and settings at will (all authentication is off from XM’s servers).

We’ll try to keep the details coming as we move ahead with our next projects.

Minor XM Update

The Staff — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:34:55 +0000

Another quick XM update for everyone. Nothing too major here, but we’re preparing for some channel group swapping to be going on in the future. As of right now, the AOL channels are no longer on XM Online, so it’s a matter of time before we know if they are to be replaced with another group or if that’s it.

Otherwise, couple tiny tweaks to the gadget:

Buttons cleaned up for size and clarity
Channel up and down now use arrows instead of + / -
Minor tweak to bad channel handling in favorites

As a word of caution, export your favorites (Settings -> Favorites -> Export) to the desktop. Just in case.

Download XM Online Radio (For Vista Sidebar)

XM Online Radio For Google Sidebar / Windows XP

The Staff — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:13:42 +0000

You read it right. We now have the XM Online Radio available for Google Sidebar. This means you can run it on Windows XP! It’s not quite as nice as its Vista cousin, but this gadget still maintains favorites, stream settings, all your favorite buttons, and is pretty stable and easy to use. You will need to download and install Google Desktop if you aren’t already running it.

Download XM Online Radio 1.0 (Google Gadget)

Enjoy!

P.S.: Do let us know if there are any issues and we’ll do our best to resolve them. Thanks.

Quick Update For XM 1.7

The Staff — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:17:20 +0000

Hey everyone, we made a couple quick updates to the XM gadget recently to address a couple issues that cropped up. Here are the details:

1.) Channel Rebuilding in the channel flyout (when the original build channels doesn’t fire) should be working better now.

2.) Flyouts have a self focus timeout now that should help people who have to click the flyout twise to get it working.

3.) Favorites issues should be resolved at this point. If you have a bad favorite, it will be removed when the favorites are built in the channel flyout.

Also, just got an update to the channel list done this morning:

Channel 120 (THE PAPAL VISIT) added to XM Exclusives group.
Channel 63 (XM THRILLER) has been removed.

XM Online Radio 1.7

The Staff — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:29:15 +0000

At long last, we are ready to release the newest version of the XM gadget. Yes, the beta gadget is right below this one, but we’ll go over all the changes in a bit more detail on this post.

So for starters, we re-wrote this gadget practically from the ground up. Hopefully this will help out on any stability issues some of you have experienced and allow for a faster and more efficient music listening experience. Let’s hit up the rest of the changes:

Changes:

1. New Start Button: Finally, a proper way to get this gadget started.

2. Redesigned Channel Flyout: Lots of new stuff here. The flyout is 25px longer, the expand and collapse buttons have been redesigned and there is a new channel search (#3). Also, the channel lists are a little bit tighter, which should make it feel more integrated. Song preview’s also work better as they will update every 15 seconds or so if the auto-preview option is on.

3. Channel Search: In the channels flyout, you’ll notice a new bar. Type in this bar a channel number, name, or search for anything currently playing and it will display the search results for you. Pretty handy so far if you don’t want to skim down a long list. No TuneSelect features yet, but this is the closest we’ve come to that.

4. Login Save Is Gone: Oh, well, it didn’t really work anyways. Besides, we replaced it…

5. XM Logo Now Clickable: Clicking the top logo pops out a links flyout with some handy links and options like re-building the channel list (without re-adding to the sidebar), and logging out of the gadget (erases the password and refreshes the gadget).

6. Images Optimized: Not a real big one, but it’s nice cause it gives us the ability to add stuff like…

7. Player Themes: There are now 6 player themes (player only, flyouts are the same, sorry). We have the default (XM Dark), Pink, Khaki, Blue, Green, and Red.

8. Settings Panel Updates: Reset has been broken into parts and assimilated into the panel better. there is a new tab under reset called “Delete” with instructions for the persistent settings fix should it be needed.

9. Channel Flipping More Stable: More timers, but it should be even better now.

10. Music Search Integration: Is a bit better, especially with YouTube videos.

11. Larger DPI Tested: Gadget should work much better with the 120 DPI. Anything larger than that is unaccounted for though.

12. Lots of “Under The Hood” Changes: For the more javascript minded: The loops are tighter, reduced unneccesary try catch statements, reduced global variables and made it more user friendly, re-organized names of just about everything but functions.

Download:

Download @ BuildAGadget.com

Download @ Widgipedia.com

Download @ Live.com Gallery

Enjoy!

XM Online Radio 1.7 BETA

The Staff — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:43:20 +0000

We’re trying something out for the next release of the gadget. That’s right, a public beta. If you’re a regular reader or just randomly here, you get a sneak peak at the next version of the gadget.

We are looking for feedback on features, bugs, comments, anything at all really. We’re especially interested in migration to the new gadget as it can cause some issues in older installs. Also, you may want to back your favorites up before installing (just in case).

Download XM Online Radio 1.7 BETA Gadget (Beta has ended)

One last note: Since the gadget file name is different, you’ll see a second icon in your gadget panel. Just click “Show Details” on the bottom left and look for the 1.7 version.

We’ll run down a very quick list of changes to this version:

Code completely re-written for stability and speed
InfoSave checkbox removed
XM logo clickable, creates links flyout
Logout link now exists In links flyout
Channel flyout redesigned, tighter look and feel
Live channel search added to channel flyout
Images optimized
Player themes! (5 including the default)
Settings panel modified a bit
Persistent settings fix instructions inside settings now
channel flipping more stable now

That’s the short list, but quite a few changes were made under the hood, so those are mostly the additions.

Have fun and let us know if anything goes wrong!

Note: Just made a quick update to the beta gadget. Links are renamed, Stream changing should be smoother, flyout close on search auto-un-mutes the gadget. (04/03/2008)

Note 2: Made a couple bug fixes. Also added a link to the links flyout called “Update Channel List”, hopefully this will help out people looking for channel updates without re-adding the gadget. (04/04/2008)

Note 3: More changes: Channels flyout reconfigured with the collapse and expand buttons re-expanded and on top of the channel search, the channel search bar has had some cosmetic changes made to it and the overall flyout is 25px longer. Also tweaked the start buttons. (04/05/2008)

Note 4: Almost there: Channel search re-colored and a search button added for re-searching after section change and for more confortable feel for some users. Red theme added to the player themes. (04/06/2008)

Thanks,
BuildAGadget Staff