A couple of updates sneaked onto Windows Live Gallery over the past few days, but I haven't had time to post an announcement until now.  So first things last:

The second of the updates was for Play.com Search, and went live today.  Nothing major here folks, Play.com terminated their affiliate program with Tradedoubler which stopped the gadget from working altogether.  We know there were quite a few users so we made the decision to update it.  The new version uses new links, and some behind the scenes code changes improve efficiency and Windows 7 support.

The first update was for Postage Calculator (UK), which has seen its biggest update since the initial release in October 2006.  Not only are the prices updated for April 2009, but it's grown by almost quarter of an inch to accomodate a new box and it's also sprouted international postage rate calculation and full keyboard accessibility.  Get the full run down by clicking the read link.

Download Play.com Search from Windows Live Gallery
Download Postage Calculator (UK) from Windows Live Gallery

Probably the first thing updating users will notice is the increase in height.  Usually, we prefer to keep a gadget as small as possible but, in order to accomodate the new features we had to grow the gadget by 17 pixels.  This extra space is taken up by a box for what I call "price modifiers".  These are options you can apply to a service that add a set amount to the calculated price.  For instance, Recorded Signed For™ is a price modifier because it adds 75p to the cost of 1st or 2nd class postage.  A service with a single option will show this as a checkbox, whereas a service with multiple options will transform it into a drop down select box.

One of the behind the scenes improvements was to change the data format of the prices to XML.  This makes updating the prices a doddle, as well as making them much easier to read.  It also made the task of adding extra services rather trivial, which brings me to the next feature improvement, international postage rates.  This was a much requested feature but would have been tricky to implement until now, mostly because we were limited to the constraints of the previous interface.

Something I've been looking at lately is the lack of keyboard accessibility in our gadgets.  Most gadgets have at least a small element of keyboard accessibility; there's the built-in Win+G shortcut key to switch between gadgets and using the Tab/Shift+Tab keys to move between interface elements is natural behavior for any windows application.  However, the elements in Postage Calculator (UK) and other gadgets are custom drawn so they didn't behave like standard windows elements.  This is no longer true (of this gadget, at least) and users can now tab between each element as well as use the space key to "check" the option box, and the up/down arrows to change the options in drop-down boxes.  The currently selected element lights up too, so you can quickly identify where you are and what you're doing in the gadget.

So that's the major feature improvements, but there's more.  Weight is now inputted in grams for all services and there's quite a few under-the-hood performance gains.  We've also done away with the flyout window, instead taking advantage of our custom balloon tip for displaying the "Your package is too heavy" message.

Please note that all prices were inputted by hand and we've done our best to check it for mis-types and other errors but, as usual there are no guarantees that the prices are 100% accurate.  If you do notice a pricing error, please post on the forums with the selected service, options, your parcel weight and the expected price would be handy too.