XKit

I know it’s pretty early to say this¹ (unless you are in New Zealand or Australia, I guess), but I just would like to wish you a happy new year and thank all of you for your support this year.

I just can’t thank you enough for the promotions, feature suggestions, bug reports, donations and of course, the nice messages I receive. XKit would not be what it is today without your support.

And I would also like to apologize for the lack of updates and replies to your asks for the last 7-8 days, I will be replying as soon as possible. I also got some great new feature suggestions recently, so I will be implementing them real soon.

_{¹ I will be leaving to get drunk soon (timezones!) so this is my last chance.}

Apologies for the lack of (major) updates this/last week, I’ve been busy with school and work. New extensions are coming soon.

XInbox

• Added “Reply” button to private answers you receive so you don’t have to open the user menu or visit their blogs to reply to them (enabled by default).

One-Click Postage

• Added “Clear Tags” button to popup (disabled by default).
• Small bug fixes.

One-Click Reply

• Bug fix for line breaks not working on In-Dashboard Reply window.

Tag Replacer

• Now allows you to “append, not replace” tags.
• Now allows you to search tags in a case-sensitive mode.
• Now also allows you to delete tags.
• Small bug fixes.

Find Inactives

• Now lets you set the time to pass in order to mark a blog as “inactive” (you can choose between 2 weeks, a month, 2 months, 4 months and a year)
• Small bug fixes.

Color Quotes

• Added 4 new color themes.
• Small bug fixes.

Outbox and Auto Tagger

• Small bug fixes.

The XKit Guy

• Having problems answering asks since there are a lot of them after the other day’s server catastrophe, will reply to you as soon as possible.

Once again, I’m terribly sorry about what happened.

I’ve found the problem and it turns out my web hosting provider started putting tracking code in all PHP pages, which broke the JSON code that XKit expects, causing it to hammer the servers.

I’ve bought a backup web hosting plan, and updated XKit on Chrome to connect to that server if everything else fails.

If you are on Chrome, you can follow the instructions below to get XKit working again:

1. Click on the “Three Lines” on the top right of the window
2. Select Tools > Extensions or click on Settings, then select Extensions from the left menu.
3. Click on the “Enable Developer Mode” checkbox
4. Click on “Update All Extensions Now”
5. XKit should now say it’s on version 7.3.5 or higher.

I’m working on Safari, Opera and Firefox ports, and updates will be posted as soon as possible.

Also, while trying to wake up, I’ve recommended some people deleting the “xkit_updates” extension. Although I’ve removed the instructions, that does prevent XKit from updating itself. I’m working on the code to fix that, but in the meanwhile you can reset XKit to get the updates working again.

Again, I’m terribly sorry about this. I’m working hard to fix this and prevent something like this from ever happening again.

The XKit servers are completely down. So here is what I believe happened, posting because of my transparency policy:

1. I went to sleep.
2. Because of a spike in the network activity, not sure if legit or a (successful) DoS attack, Yahoo, which provides my webhosting, shut some of the subdomains down to protect the servers (which I believe is completely fair.)
3. XKit, unable to update itself when the time for automatic updates came, started hammering the server again and again hoping it would reach it, caused other subdomains to get shutdown also, and is still doing that.

The last time this happened, I just created a bunch of new subdomains and redirected XKit to use them, but unfortunately, they are now preventing me (or having some technical difficulties) from doing the same, so I don’t know exactly what to do, and still am searching options.

In the meanwhile, if you are getting the popup, just ignore that little bugger and do not reset XKit.

If you did reset XKit, I’m terribly sorry to say this but the only way to access Tumblr on a computer with XKit installed is to temporary disable it. Instructions are available on the FAQ.

Again, I am terribly, terribly sorry about this, and working hard to fix it as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

I just woke up, and yes, the XKit servers are down.

I have no idea what is going on, but I’m trying to find the cause and fix it.

In the meanwhile, please do not reset XKit.

I’m terribly sorry about this, and I thank you for your patience.

As you know, the less time I spend answering asks, the more time I can spend working on new features and bug fixes, so I would like to address two popular subjects of my inbox:

1. OCP-408 Error

As I’ve written about before on this blog, the XKit News panel, and the huge red banner across the screen on the top of this blog, you need XKit 7.3.0 or higher for One-Click Postage and XInbox to work properly, due to recent Tumblr changes. I know this sounds harsh, and I’m terribly sorry about this, but after answering 80+ asks in the last 2 hours, most still using 7.2.3 or below, I have to stop answering any asks about this subject from people who still haven’t upgraded to 7.3.0.

Please check your XKit version from XKit Control Panel > About + Support and upgrade if you are not on 7.3.0. If you are on 7.3.0 or higher but having the same error, please feel free to send me an ask.

2. Find Inactives + Unfollowing

A common suggestion for this new extension is to add an unfollow button to the list or automatically unfollow everyone on that list. As I’ve written on the post, I’ve developed it to just check who has been gone for a while, not to mass unfollow people. It’s something I can not condone since they might be sick, on vacation/hiatus, etc. so it doesn’t sound very fair to me.

Again, you are free to use it in any way you like, but I would rather not add that feature, at least not for now. Thank you for your understanding.

This is a major update to View on Dash, most of it’s features made possible by me switching to Tumblr API v2 (hope this doesn’t get anyone mad), bringing lots of new features such as:

1. You can now view the whole blog, unlike the previous version, which just showed the last 20 posts.
2. Support for more post types.
3. Now shows post source, notes count, and if reblogged, which user the post was reblogged from.

Audio, video and photosets are still not supported, but I’m working on that.

Since it’s still at version 0.3, it’s quite experimental, so please let me know if you find any bugs by sending an ask. Thank you!

Version 7.3.0 is now available to download for Opera users. This version should fix the One-Click Postage errors, and brings improvements to the XKit backend. You can get the new version by just re-downloading XKit from the download page.

I’m really sorry about the delay, and thank you for your patience and understanding.

The XKit Control Panel icon, which got broken because of a recent Tumblr update is now fixed.

To fix it, just click on the now huge XKit Control Panel icon and go to Other > Update All. After refreshing the page it should be back to normal again.

I’m aware of the drunken control panel icon, it’s because of a recent Tumblr change. A fix will be provided really soon. I’m sorry about that.

As I’ve said yesterday, I like to keep personal things personal. That being said, I’ve recently come across some posts about a terrible rumor that I would like to address, because I know how fast things like that spread on this website, and this is making me really sad and mad at the same time.

Read mored, I apologize deeply if you are on mobile.

Keep reading

A recent Tumblr change added an extra layer of security, breaking most of XKit features that deals with editing or creating posts.

Eight extensions are updated to work with the changes. You can wait for a while for XKit to update itself, or o get the updates immediately, you can go to XKit Control Panel > Other > Update All.

Important! You need to have XKit version 7.3.0 or higher for the updates to work. (More information for Safari and Firefox. On Chrome XKit is automatically updated.) Please update if you haven’t so.

If you are still getting errors publishing posts or asks after updating every extension and upgrading to 7.3.0 or higher, please send me an ask. Thank you!

A recent Tumblr change added an extra layer of security, which broke XInbox. Luckily, I was preparing for this (starting with One-Click Postage, a couple of days ago), so XInbox is now updated to work with the changes.

If you can’t publish asks, go to XKit Control Panel > Other > Update All or wait for XKit to update itself, which might take someplace between 10 minutes to 1.5 hours, so Update All method is recommended.

I usually try to keep “editorial” posts on this blog to a minimum and only make them when it affects the XKit community (me being sick, on vacation, etc, preventing me from updating XKit or answering asks) but I would like to bend the rules a little today.

I woke up today to an inbox full of the nicest messages possible, and my PayPal account accumulating more than ~3 months worth of donations in less than 24 hours. I’ve tracked a few posts which I think are responsible for this and let me say that just knowing that XKit made people’s blogging experience a bit better makes me happier than you can imagine. 

Thank you, everyone, so, so much for your support.
I will do my best not to disappoint any of you.

Also, since a lot of people asked me this yesterday, and I’ve seen a few posts under the tags I track, I must say that I quite like being just “The XKit Guy”, so think of me as The XKit Guy living in The XKit Guy Land.

Although it shouldn’t be hard at all to find my personal blog, I would like to keep that to myself (I wouldn’t like the whole XKit community to know that I just ate a 2 days old pizza, which genitals I like most or how drunk I am, etc.) and I should also say I don’t have any accounts on any website except Tumblr (no Twitter, etc, and I’m certainly not this person, although that made me laugh.)

As always, thanks for reading, and for using XKit!

I’m terribly sorry about this, but there was a problem in 7.3.0 which totally broke XKit on some Safari versions. XKit 7.3.1 is now out and should fix this.

Again, to install, just go to the XKit download page, install it and restart your browser. If the problem continues after updating, please send me an ask. Thank you!

This version fixes a lot of problems that were in the older versions of XKit for Safari, and brings some back-end changes that the upcoming updates are dependent on. Please update as soon as possible.

To update, just go to the XKit download page and download XKit again, then restart your browser. If on the control panel XKit still says it’s “7.2.1”, you might need to remove and re-download XKit. (This is a bug in some versions of Safari.)

Important: This update “resets” XKit! Please back your settings up using XCloud so you can restore them after installation. I’m really sorry about this, but I had to make some changes to the storage to improve stability.

It looks like the gray boxes are here to stay, so I’ve written a simple extension called “Auto Load Images”, now available on the extension gallery, that loads the photos without you clicking on them first.

Now, there seems to be a problem uploading images to text posts, it looks like Tumblr forgot a slash on the Javascript code. It is not related to XKit, and it will probably get fixed really soon.

Here are some upcoming changes to XKit, disclosed since I like transparency. In a nutshell:

1. I will be applying some rules to asks.
2. There won’t be many updates to XKit in the upcoming weeks.

Reasons are listed after the read more to not clutter your dashboard. I apologize if you are on mobile.

Keep reading

Version 7.3.0 brings some features that will be required for XKit to work properly in the upcoming weeks and some bug fixes.

If you are on Chrome, chances are high that you already got the update, since Chrome updates extensions itself.

If you are on Firefox, just go to the download page and download XKit again. Your settings will be preserved and XKit will update itself. (This update should also fix “document.location is null” popup problem)

I’m working on Safari and Opera updates, and they will be made available in a few days. When they are ready, a popup will appear on your dashboard asking you to update. 

Find Blogs was designed to see blogs similar to the ones you follow, but I’ve seen a lot of people wanting to see blogs similar to the ones they have.

So Find Blogs 1.1 adds a button on the sidebar when you go to a posts dashboard of any blog you have (ie: /blog/xkit-extension) so you can check out what blogs are similar to yours.

This version also corrects the API key used to make Tumblr calls, and some bug fixes.

Separator

• Now works on dashboards without endless scrolling.
• Added “Jump to” button for people who have endless scrolling off.

Audio Downloader

• Now works on posts on your queue and draft.
• Small bug fixes.

Classic Search

• Fixed suggestions opening the new search page.

XKit Patches

• Bug fixes and minor new development-related functionality.

Please note that updates made to Audio Downloader and Separator are dependent on changes to XKit Patches, so please wait XKit to update itself or use XKit Control Panel > Other > Update All.

A few people reported and I’ve confirmed that scrolling down on the dashboard, tagged pages, inbox and other pages does not load new posts right now.

This is not related to XKit since I’ve just tried it on a computer that never had XKit installed before, and the problem is present there too.

I don’t know what is going on (all I know is there is an error on the browser console from a script called dashboard.js, which is by Tumblr), and again, it is not related to XKit and there is absolutely nothing I can do about this.

In the meanwhile, you can turn off endless scrolling from Tumblr Settings > Dashboard page.

A recent Tumblr change broke Post Crushes on server side, and it should be fixed now. Thank you for the bug reports =)

Not much updates today, except adding “Disable Like / Unlike Animation” to Tweaks extension and some bug fixes.

Some new features are coming this week though.

I’m also again a little behind on asks since I spent the weekend at another city, I will be replying to all as soon as possible. My apologies for the delay.