Basecamp is a popular and powerful web-based project collaboration and management service from 37signals, makers of other TUAW favorites like Backpack and Highrise. Fortunately, even though Basecamp is web-based, 37signals provides a rich API with which 3rd party developers can make all sorts of neat apps and widgets that tie into the service. A group of students did just that for a class project, resulting in Avalanche, a free Basecamp widget for Yahoo! Widgets.
While I don't use Basecamp to any serious degree, Avalanche seems to be pretty feature-filled, offering access to all your Basecamp messages, todos, time entries, contacts and milestones. Going above and beyond, however, the 37signals blog reports that Avalanche includes features not found in Basecamp, such as auto time entry, spreadsheet generation of time reports, time estimate tracking and contact exporting (which I thought Basecamp already did).
Ultimately, Avalanche looks like an impressive widget for a service loved by its vast and growing base of users. Of course, as with many other widgets, Avalanche is offered free from Avalanche-widget.org.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-19-2007 @ 10:06PM
Wayde Christie said...
Dashboard version PLEASE!!!
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7-20-2007 @ 12:41AM
David Chartier said...
#1: No kidding - I didn't realize people were actually using Yahoo! Widgets. :)
(I keed, I keed)
Seriously though - I wonder how hard it is to 'port' widgets from one engine to another.
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7-20-2007 @ 12:53PM
D.L.M. said...
Your link to Highrise is incorrect. It should be www.highrisehq.com instead of www.highrisenow.com (which is the wrong site).
Cheerio!
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7-20-2007 @ 6:51PM
Daniel said...
Hey guys,
I'm Daniel, one of the creators. It is actually pretty hard to port widgets between engines. We deliberately chose Yahoo's because it is supported by both Windows and Macs, so users of both platforms would be able to use Avalanche.
The source code is available on the site at http://www.avalanche-widget.org, so if someone wants to try their hand at a Dashboard version, I'd say feel free, as long as you say where the original code/inspiration came from.
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