Microsoft® Popfly™ Explorer Alpha Documentation
Microsoft® Popfly™ Explorer Alpha is an add-on component for Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 that enables you to create and share Visual Studio® projects on the Popfly Space network. To use Popfly Explorer you need to have a Popfly account already.
There is a list of known issues available on our Release Notes page.
Supported Systems
Popfly is supported on the Visual Studio 2005 product line:
Visual Basic Express 2005
Visual C# Express 2005
Visual C++ Express 2005
Visual Studio Standard 2005
Visual Studio Professional 2005
Visual Studio Team Suite 2005 products
We have tested it on Windows® XP Service Pack 2 and Windows® Vista®.
My Popfly Page
Each Popfly member has their own Popfly web page. This page is accessible through Popfly Explorer. Right-clicking on your account name and click Show My Popfly Page. A web browser window will open to your Popfly page.
From your Popfly page you can see your Popfly web presence: your banner picture, friends, incoming friend requests, RSS feed, and three most recent projects. On your Popfly page there are also links to your projects page and invite a friend (send someone an invitation to the Popfly alpha).
Projects
My Projects
You can only access Popfly Visual Studio projects from Popfly Explorer. A Popfly Visual Studio project contains a single solution. You cannot view any saved mashup or web page projects that you created on the Popfly site.
Create New Visual Studio Project and Saving it to Popfly
Create a project as you normally would in Visual Studio: On the File menu, click New Project. In Popfly Explorer click Save to Popfly or click Save to Popfly through the Popfly menu. You will be prompted to save your work to your computer if you haven’t already done so.
Popfly will then save your project to a specific location on your computer, and it will be reloaded from this location in your Solution Explorer. At the same time, your project will be saved to your Popfly Space. Your project will appear under your MyProjects list.
Open Project
To open a project, select a project and either double click on it or click Open Project from Popfly Explorer or on the Popfly menu. If a local copy of the project exists on your computer, you will be asked if it is ok to delete it and open the version that is saved on Popfly.
After opening a project, the Solution Explorer window will appear, and will display the contents of your solution.
Save Project
Local (on your computer):To save a local copy of your work, click the Save button on the Visual Studio toolbar or click on Save in the File menu.
To Popfly:To save a copy of your work to Popfly, click Save to Popfly in the Popfly Explorer window or through the Popfly menu. You will then be able to access your project from any computer with an internet connection and Visual Studio with Popfly Explorer.
Your project will be saved to a specific location on your computer, and will be reloaded from this location in your Solution Explorer . At the same time, your project will be saved to your Popfly Space. Your project will appear under your MyProjects list.
Find Project
To find a shared project click Find Project on the Popfly menu or in Popfly Explorer. There are three search options for finding projects: search my projects, search Popfly projects, and search Popfly users.
Entering a blank search term will return all results to a maximum of 100. Select and open a project to open a copy in your Solution Explorer. You can save a local copy or save a copy to your Popfly account.
Share Project
Shared projects are shared with the entire Popfly community. To share a project that you have saved to Popfly, right-click on the project name and click Properties for the project. In the Properties window, there is a Sharing Level. By default, projects are not shared. Click on the Sharing Level and select All Popfly Users to share your project.
Delete Project
To delete a project from Popfly Space, select the project in Popfly Explorer and click Delete on the Popfly menu or right-click on the project and select Delete from Popfly. Your project will only be deleted from Popfly Space; any local copies of the project will remain.
Rate Project
In Popfly top projects are highlighted on the Popfly home page. To determine the top projects, a very scientific method is applied: Popfly members rate projects from 1 to 5. The projects with the highest average rating are highlighted. You cannot rate your own projects: That would be cheating.
In Popfly Explorer you can only rate projects that belong to your friends. Select a project that belongs to a friend. In the properties window you will see the average rating and your rating. Click My Rating to rate the project. A value of 1 is the lowest rating, 5 is the highest.
If a rating is displayed for a friend or another Popfly member, this rating is an average rating of all of their shared projects.
Friends
Add a Friend
To add a friend click Add a Friend on the Popfly menu or in Popfly Explorer. You can search for a Popfly member by entering all or part of their account name. Select the Popfly member you want to add as a friend, and click Add to Friends.
A friend request will be sent to the Popfly member. The Popfly member can either accept or reject your invitation to be their friend. If your request is accepted, the Popfly member will appear in your friends list the next time you refresh your friends list. If your request is denied you won’t receive a message.
Friend Requests
When another Popfly member requests to add you as a friend you must approve their request before you are added as their friend. Incoming friend requests are found in the Incoming Friend Requests directory, which is located in the My Friends directory in Popfly Explorer.
You can approve or deny a request to be your friend. To do this, right-click on the name of the requestor, and select either Accept Friend Request or Deny Friend Request.
Your Friend's Popfly Page
To view a friend’s Popfly web page, and any web page or mashup projects that they have shared, right-click on their account name in your friends list and click Show Friend’s Popfly Page. A web browser window will open to your friend’s page.
Sign Out from Popfly Explorer
To sign out click on Sign Out on the Popfly menu.
Feedback
Forums
You can post questions to the Popfly forum here.
Email
If you want to reach the Popfly team directly, write to puff@nospam.microsoft.com (remove the nospam).