Finalized Achievement Feed for Blogger

Well... the brains at Google are reviewing my work to ensure it's acceptable, but I've submitted the achievement feed you can see off to the right over to Blogger for actual inclusion in the Blogger Gadgets.

In the meantime (or assuming it's rejected for some reason), you may add this by performing the following steps.

1. Copy this source code (hosted on googlecode.com as wow-blogger-achv):
   http://wow-blogger-achv.googlecode.com/git/wow-achievement-feed-for-blogger.xml
2. Open up your Blogger blog in Layout mode, and click Add Gadget in the section you want the achievement feed to display.
3. Click "Add your own" and paste in the source above.



Paste in URL



4. Enter the configuration parameters.



Enter your choices

1. The Character information (region, server, character name)
2. The formatting information (to keep styling consistent with your view).  The default styling is populated, but these are CSS style entries (Hex Colors, font-family, etc).
3. If you do not want to show the full character name, un-check the Show Character option.
4. If you do not want to show icons in the list, choose the 0px icon size.

If you experience any issues, hit me up here or on Twitter!

Thanks!

Achivement Feed Gadget

I'm looking for some volunteers...

I have written an achievement feed in Google for use within the Blogger platform, and it works for me, but I'd love some feedback from others before posting it all official-like.

If you care to help out...

First, /hug. You are awesomer than awesome.

Second, please edit your blogger design and add a gadget to any sidebar / section area. So far, with me?   This is just like adding a regular gadget.

Here's where its different: Click the "Add Your Own" option.  I promise, there is no malicious code here. Nothing's gonna break your blog!

Copy this hosted XML (Go go google gadgets!):

http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104245060944445812083/wow-achievement-feed-google-gadget.xml 

Paste that into the box and click Add By URL.

There are fields you need to complete -- character name, geographic realm (I've only tried with US, so any EU players feedback would be simply fantastic) as well as some formatting so that it looks consistent with your overall theme.

Any issues?  Let me have 'em in the comments.

You guys rock!

Shared Topic: Flavors of WoW

The weekly Blog Azeroth Shared Topic comes from Cymre:

It would not be uncommon to hear about the initial release of World of Warcraft as Vanilla or Classic. In terms of ice cream or gelato (which is my preference), Vanilla was once considered the most popular flavour of it’s time. So if Vanilla represents Classic WoW, what flavours could represent the following expansions?

Really?!? A post topic combining ice cream and Warcraft? Epic win!

Original

Flavor: Vanilla

Vanilla

First of all, I have to admit I'm partial to vanilla. Both in WoW and in ice cream. And, if I'm buying ice cream, I'm partial to Breyer's brand, so shameless liberation of images from breyers.com.

I really enjoyed the vanilla expansion set before it got 'remodeled' in Cataclysm. I leveled both Horde and Alliance characters, and I hung out in the Plaguelands all through my late 50's because that lore with the Argent Crusade was so cool.

My point?  There's absolutely nothing wrong with vanilla. It's perfect all by itself.

Burning Crusade

Flavor: Chocolate Chip

Chocolate Chip

So what happens next? Well, there's a new threat of the Burning Legion and a long lost space continent of the Outland.

Blizzard added some new races: Dranei and Blood Elves. These races led to additional enemies (Sunwell in particular for the Elves).

In my frozen dessert analogy, we've got a baseline of vanilla, and now we're adding some chunks to it.

Who doesn't like chunks in their ice cream?

Wrath of the Lich King

Flavor: Mint Chocolate Chip

Mint Chocolate Chip

That formula of Burning Crusade worked; you could level up in Azeroth and then hit the Outland for end game. Well, why not do it again?

I view Wrath as the same formula: Blizzard took the existing game, and mixed it up some more by adding a frozen continent back in Azeroth and a repackaging of the Plaguelands factions to battle the scourge.

This isn't a bad thing.  If I'm not picking up Vanilla at the market, I'm grabbing Mint Chocolate Chip. It's still damn tasty.

Wrath was FUN! I like the factions based on tabards. I liked daily raid and instance quests. There was a lot of good stuff to do in Wrath.

It's like Chocolate Chip, cooled with Mint. Get it?

Cataclysm

Flavor: French Vanilla

French Vanilla

For whatever reason, someone thinks vanilla is boring. So Blizzard tries to reinvent vanilla. We get a new talent structure. We get flooding of old zones. We remodel some capital cities.

It's vanilla, repackaged, but the final product isn't any better than the original.

Think back to the eighties (those of you around then).  Remember "New Coke"?  What a flop that was?  The back-pedaling the Coca-Cola company had to do once they realized that New Coke sucked?

That's Cata in a nutshell for me.

So let's get back to basics and add to the elements that work.

Mists of Pandaria

Flavor: Neopolitan (Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry)

Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry

Enter MoP.

If I'm a marketing guy at Breyers, I know that French vanilla bombed. Back to the old drawing board.

So what do people like?

They like vanilla. Well, lets add in both chocolate and strawberry to that mix.  We have always had Alliance and Horde. The've fought.

Put them back into confrontation on those classic lines; Chocolate is flavored vanilla. It's still a simple flavor, but it's a new twist.

Now, add some Pandas that don't know which side they're going to take and offer a disinterested position (the Strawberry).

We have an upheaval. A cleansing. (Seriously - take a bite of vanilla or chocolate, and then take a bite of strawberry.  The berry washes away the others!)

Now, here's where it gets fun...  When I eat a bowl of mixed flavor ice cream, sometimes I'll eat up all the vanilla, then the chocolate, then the strawberry. Other times, I'll mix 'em all up into one flavor and enjoy the soup.  MoP will give me that option! It looks to have flexibility to essentially do what you want to do.

Conclusion

Not only can't I wait for MoP, I need to make a run to the store for some frozen desserts.

Discovering OpenRaid

Where the hell have I been? How did I have no clue that there was a group that coordinated cross-server raids? If I had only known this sooner, my inner achiever would be ever so much more satisfied, but alas! Ignorance prevailed. Huh?

Check out OpenRaid. The basic premise of this is to allow folks across servers to coordinate the available raids -- vanilla stuff like Molten Core or Blackwing Lair all the way up to the original cata raids (To4W, BoT, BWD).

This raises the possibilities in my raiding from slim to probable, and it's huge for me.  Why?  Simply because I can't allocate a consistent time each week to raid due to my personal schedule. It's not fair for me to ask a raid team of 9 or 24 other folks to include me and then not be available reliably to help the progression. As a result, the only raids I was able to run (outside of LFR) have been random trade chat encounters. Sometimes, those go well, and other times not so much.

Enter OpenRaid. I can search for a time where I know I can be online. Then, I can either browse for raids being run (PVP or PVE) during that time and sign up. It's that easy.

Granted, there is some setup. You need an account with OpenRaid, and you need to prove that you own the character(s) you want to raid with. Depending upon the raids, you may also need ventrillo access, but I look at that as pretty standard stuff.

My only complaint? OpenRaid sends me an email when a raid leader approves my participation in a raid. I'm now all excited!  I was all set to run ICC 25m on Friday night. Well, you can also be un-approved if that raid leader needs to bring in guildmates or other friends. So, I was camped out at the entrance to ICC at 9:45 pm for my 10:00 start... and I waited... and waited... and waited... and at 10:05 I tabbed out to check OpenRaid. I had been un-approved (but there's a gap that you're not emailed letting you know that you've been un-approved).

I admit, I was disappointed that I had planned to be online and run a raid. After moping and cussing for a few minutes, I started searching more and found another ICC 25 last night.

Why it works?

I think the reason why OpenRaid works is that you have reputation points. Once your raid completed, you rate the raid leader AND the other participants. So if the Raid Leader was a jerk, downgrade them. If a player was cluelessly unaware and unable to follow any level of instructions, downgrade them. I believe that the online reputation points makes players perform at their best -- after all, you will be graded, right?

Oh if I only knew about this a few months ago, I'd probably have a few more meta's under by belt.  /sigh

Hoping to see you in a cross-server raid soon!

Shared Topic: How has WoW Changed Your Life?

This week’s Blog Azeroth shared topic post comes from Effy at Effraeti’s RP:

Very simply:
How has WoW changed your life?

It's a simple question.  My answer is far from simple, however.

Consider this your warning: I'm about to blur... No.  Actually I'm about to absolutely obliterate the line between a blogger's opinions about a game and his life experiences while playing that game.

What you're about to read will be personal. It will be raw. Sad. Not just <sniff> <sniff> sad, but for me a level of sadness that has taken me to some very dark, scary and lonely places where I wasn't sure how the hell I was ever going to get back from. This may just be as difficult to read as it has been to write.

Shared Topic: Are you playing in the WoW Beta?

This week’s Blog Azeroth shared topic post comes from Frinka from Warcraft Street:

Are you playing the MoP Beta? Why or why not? How much time are you spending there vs. the "live" servers.

When I subscribed to the annual pass option, I was guaranteed a MoP Beta key. That wasn't why I fired off the annual pass, however. I was going to be playing in some form or other, so why not get a free copy of Diablo 3 to muck about with at the same time. The account wide mount was okay too for up and coming alts. The beta key? Worthless to me. Absolute rubbish.

Paying for the Privilege to Beta

In my professional role ( switch talent spec to Project Manager), I find myself constantly beta testing either base software code or integrated data solutions within a standard software code base. In any event, I spend a substantial chunk of my waking hours ensuring things work as expected and advertised.

When I get free time, the last thing I want to do is ensure a game I'm paying a fee to not only purchase but also play on a monthly basis is also working as expected and advertised. I'm shelling out dollars to a company to develop that software, after all. I expect Blizzard to pay staff to perform that role.

Now, now! Don't get me wrong! The more exposure and the more people that are testing something, the better the final product becomes. Beta testing from a general public polishes the product into something better than Blizzard could have imagined or marketed in the first place. It's an open exchange of not only "can I log in and not blow up?" but also "the lore here doesn't jibe... what if...". I'm indebted to those folks that are beta testing! They are helping make my eventual play experience all that more seamless, magical and satisfying.

But, if I only have a few hours to play, I'm going to play the final polished product (even Cata in the doldrums of a pre-expansion period). I'm not going to pay Blizzard for the privilege of testing their software for them as well as purchase a copy of the same game I would have tested. It's a stand on principle.

Surprise Me

The other main factor on why I never activated my beta key? Surprise! When Wrath was being released, I was an avid reader of Big Red Kitty's hunter blog (c'mon, who wasn't?). BRK was communicating tidbits of the beta pets, gear, zones, etc. When Wrath hit, I felt like in all the focus of pre-expansion TBC on Wrath content, I missed  out of an element of discovery in Wrath of that same content for myself. In other words, I got so worked up on researching Wrath that I missed out on experiencing a part of Wrath. Part of the fun for me in a new expansion is exploring the new content. Learning (and failing) make it more fun.

You may notice in my reading list, however, there are blogs that cover the MoP beta. I am reading, but as posts get into the details and mechanics, my reading becomes a skim. I don't understand in the least, for example, how a pet battle works. I just know that there are pets that will now go all Pokemon as needed.

I also know there will be Pandaren, and they will start neutral, and somehow that Pandaren will choose to align with either the Alliance or the Horde.  I know there is a new class, the Monk, and that the class will be like a druid only in that it can be played as any of the three main roles: Tank, Heals or DPS.  Although there are sites covering this information, I'm not actively reading them -- again I want to experience this for myself.

By the same token, I know the talents are totally being revamped. I will review the class sites for my characters after I've messed around with talents on my own. By merely applying someone else's experiences to a new spec, I'm losing the ability to experience that on my own.
My favorite part of Wrath, hands down?  The Death Knight character experience from birth to graduation at 58. In Cata?  The starting zones for the Goblin and Worgen races. I don't want to risk spoiling any of the freshness MoP will add for the Pandaren or the Monk class with previews or guides.

So, no... you won't find me on the beta realm. To those that are there, kudos and thank you very much for your contribution! It's just not something I'm willing to do.

Illidan was right: I'm not prepared

and so it begins...

Patch 4.3.4 ...

and I had all these grand plans, absolutely none of which got done.

Life Lessons from Questing

Mor'norokk speaks Truth

Rule to Live By

Stop it, you tiny angry woman! I'll tell you everything! What do you want to know?

Enough said. Following this truth makes my life much simpler. I have to believe I'm at least as smart as an ogre, right!

Occupying my Time before Mists with Blog Tinkering

Lately, I have been neglecting my characters. I think I've been able to get online and actually play for about an hour since Friday what with vacations, work and the rest. That's not to say I haven't had any free time; I have. However, I've not spent that free time in the game world but rather in the Matrix behind the game.... Yeah, minus 50 DKP for mixing in a Keanu Reeves movie reference, despite the fact that it's one of my favorite films.

 Anyways... What have I been doing? Tinkering with the blog! I have added a characters page to the navigation bar. It's still undergoing some additional tweaks, but I've gotten myself indoctrinated in the language of the Armory and now I'm feeling comfortable in pulling character data to display on my own little corner of the world. If you check it out, I'd love feedback on what works and doesn't work (the whole detail section is to be coded). In designing something like this, I asked myself what do I care about when I hit Blizzard's Armory or Wowhead? And from that, I get current equipped items, current title, total achievement points, recent achievements, PVP stats and reputations. Cool! But, you can also retrieve all of you hunter pets. Oh that's sharp. And each companion and mount. Ummm... schwing! Progression? Cool!

So now I have entirely too many things I want to do out of game and in game before the expansion drops!

In game, my list is really only two things (though one is a two-parter):

• I want to ding my mage and my rogue to 85. That will leave me with only a warrior and the eventual monk on my server. 
• Apparently, I also need to make friends with a wealthy goblin because I have just learned about the Grand Expedition Yak (an upgrade to the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth or Repair Cow as I call it). Last I heard, this sucker was gonna be a 60,000 gold sink! Definitely need to multiply my gold base. Maybe I could place it all on a roulette wheel.... Yeah, if WoW had a casino, I'd never log off. In reading AH blogs, a few folks have pondered stocking up on bags.  With all the questing I'm doing in Outlands, Northrend and Cata zones, I should have plenty of cloth... perhaps it will work! 

 Hope your week's are treating you well!

If my hunter lived here...

A few months back, I caved into frivolous spending desires and purchased a Mekgineer's Chopper for my hunter. I've already purchased or won over 108 mounts for him, but I had been having a pretty good run on the Auction House and Blizzard announced that mounts would be consolidated across servers. I immediately figured out how to rationalize such a large out of pocket expense. Spending 14,000 even in pixelated gold gives me pause. However, across 10 characters, the expense becomes only 1,400 gold per character. With Mists, I'll add an 11th so it drops to 1,273g per character. I was convinced, and it's been great fun tooling around.

What If?

But, a curious question has popped into my brain. What if somehow the situation were reversed? What if my hunter actually logged into RL? The mounts in my RL life are far from sexy; you have your choice of a ten year old Honda Accord or a Honda Odyssey.

No way would "P" mount up on a minivan, even if it does have a movie player. Nah! So not his style. He's a Hunter! A stalker! Something much more rugged and sporty.  He's also been around the block a few times, so there's no need to be flashy. Hmmm...

I've got it! Without a doubt, he would would get himself a Ford F150 4x4 complete with a camouflage paint job. And a gun / crossbow / bow rack for the back window.

Can you picture a worgen and a wolf tooling around in this?

I can totally picture a Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Rifle hanging on a roof rack and a Wolf or a Bear sitting in the passenger seat with their tongue lolling about as they cruise down the road listening to ZZ Top!

Now I'm wondering what my other toons would drive?

Crazy %$#^ You Only See in WoW

Druid Porn?

Ok, so I wanna know what was going on in the minds of the devs when they designed Mount Hyjal. This may be seen in the Grove of Aessina. I've run 6 different characters through here (and saved the poor fawns each time), but I just noticed this the other night. /boggle

Not to be obvious, but they could have chosen different flora for the ground cover, couldn't they?
I'll spare you the picture, but from behind this poor tree has a large vertical crack at it's base. /speechless

Shared Topic: Professions

I discovered Blog Azeroth the other day and among all of the great resources offered, the shared topic intrigued me. This week's topic was offered by Effy who asks:

Professions are fun for some and a necessary evil for others. Some of us have farming professions. Some of us have crafting professions. Some of us have a little bit of everything! Professions are leveled because they fit our style of play, help us in raiding, allow us to outfit our alts, and make us money. What professions do you have on your main? Do his/her professions fit their personality? Why did you choose them? If you chose professions based on your character and not on gaming needs, would that change some of their professions they use? (This can include the secondary professions of archaeology, fishing, cooking, and first aid too!)

Primary Professions

My Hunter began life as a skinner and a leatherworker. They just seemed to fit, you know?  He's out, well, hunting things. The whole "waste not want not" mantra repeated for him - if you have skins, use them to make yourself cool things. Up to Wrath, I wouldn't argue that my hunter got much of a benefit game-wise from either choice. My favorite reason for  a max level leatherworker in BC was the Stylin' Hats, but that's just because they looked awesome. I forget now which expansion added the bonuses (thinking Wrath), but all of a sudden skinning offered a Master of Anatomy bonus to critical strike rating, which became a nice benefit. Leatherworking now had an amazing wrist enchant for agility and a cheap leg armor enchant, so there were gaming elements there that were nice bonuses.

Recently, I dropped skinning and learned engineering. Why? I was at 16,000 honor kills and had my sights set on reaching the 25,000 kills achievement prior to any account-wide consolidations. The combination of a Disengage and Parachute Cloak! I will never PVP again on a hunter without my disengage macro that also fires the 'chute; the next thing you know I'm flying from the ramp of the Ally stronghold in Twin Peaks to the bridge. So much fun! The other perks to engineering for me have been less of the cogwheel enhancements and more having Jeeves and Moll-E. They are great when you're out and about farming old content!

As far as alts go, I've maxed all other primary professions.  The priest has enchanting and tailoring, the paladin is a blacksmith, the shaman is an alchemist and a jewelcrafter, and the warlock is an inscriptionist. Of these, the priest was my first alt, and again I felt like tailoring would fit (being able to make my own robes was cool). Enchanting was also appealing for the bonus to spellpower on rings (more so in TBC).  The rest of my stable?  Their professions were chosen not as much for fit as for gold grubbing speculation. I love being able to craft most of the items in a profession and shoot it to an alt (or guildmate). I also like being able to craft things as suggested by TSM and make a bit of gold. It adds a nice layer to the game!

Secondary Professions

I am a completionist. I have maxed out all secondary professions: archaeology, cooking, first aid and fishing. However, no other alt has even bothered to learn secondary skills.

Archaeology has potential. You can dig up some great stuff from it (the mount and the pets). But, the downside to me is that it's only in four places on a continent at the same time. That's too much travel time to be flying all over Kalimdor to then prospect a dozen times only to mount back up and fly across the continent. I wish digsites were more plentiful and didn't include so much travel time, and my complaints would lessen.

Cooking wasn't necessarily bad. Prepared food offers nice buffs as you're leveling and the good old 'feasts' are part of the ritual of raid preparation. I actually really dig that; before you and 9 or 24 of your friends attempt to down some bosses, you engage in a communal breaking of bread. It has a bit of ritualism, doesn't it? When it came to alts, however, I just can't be bothered with leveling up cooking.

First aid has it's uses. As a hunter, the ability to heal yourself is nice. While leveling, it's a nice outlet for all that cloth that drops from humanoids. I'm running into a priority conflict; do I consume that embersilk cloth for bandages or zip it to the tailor...  And for my AH speculations tailoring is a clear winner.

Fishing has improved a bit in the base UI, but it's still a matter of spending hours doing absolutely nothing other than clicking and listening for the fish ding.  All I can say is multi-task. This is a drag!

Why did you choose them?

Back to what I interpret as Effy's central question.  Why, indeed?  For my hunter, the profession choices are about gaming. In PVE, he got a bonus to crit from skinning and he got the bonus to agility on wrists.  For PVP, he gets the mobility of the cloak plus retained the wrist enchant.
For all the other alts, it's about opportunity: the opportunity to craft most items for myself without having to pay premiums in the Auction House as well as the opportunity to craft many items and then sell them at a premium in the Auction House!

How about you?

Your Very Own Blogger Achievement Feed

I've been struggling with Blogger to display a feed of recent achievements for my main character. There is a gadget available that other WoW Bloggers are successfully using, but no matter what I tried it just wasn't working for me.

Maybe I could make one up? Some Google searches led me to Blizzard's Website and Mobile Feedback forums. There are some great examples of tricks which are mostly PHP solutions to retrieve from the Blizzard APIs.  However, without my own server, PHP is not an option. I needed a JavaScript option to stick into a HTML / JavaScript Gadget. A post by Brawrz outlined a method for realms. Now we're cookin'!

After some trial and error, I'm happy to have an achievement feed over on the sidebar for my main character, a Worgen Hunter.

The Achievement Feed Source

Should you wish to recreate this for your own Blogger site, here's what I did.

Update the Template

First and foremost, we need to add an external script to the template. In Design mode, select the Template option. Then, Edit HTML. You'll be cautioned against this route, but go ahead and proceed!

Search for the ending of the <head> element in your template.  Just before that </head> element, insert these lines:

1. <!-- JQuery Script -->
2. <script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.5.2.min.js"></script>

Create the Gadget

Back in Design mode, now we need to go to the Layout option and add a new gadget: HTML/JavaScript. Give this a title and then in the Content section, place the following code (replacing your realm and character name in lines 7 and 8):

1. <div id="charProfile"></div>
2. <script type="text/javascript">
3. var intMax = 10; // define maximum number of achievements to display
4. // assemble the JSON URL
5. var bnetRegion = "us";
6. var bnetUrl = "http://" + bnetRegion + ".battle.net";
7. var bnetRealm = "REALM_NAME"; // borean-tundra or velen for example
8. var bnetChar = "CHARACTER_NAME";
9. var url = bnetUrl + "/api/wow/character/" + bnetRealm + "/" + bnetChar + "?fields=feed&jsonp=?";
10. $.getJSON( url, function( data ) {
11. // format the base character profile data
12. var strCharProfile = "<div><h4>Total Points: " + data.achievementPoints + "</h4></div>";
13. // write the string to the div
14. $(strCharProfile).appendTo("#charProfile");
15. // initialize counter at zero
16. var intCount = 0;
17. // loop through each feed entry in the JSON source
18. $.each(data.feed,function(f,feed){
19. // only output the feed entries that match the ACHIEVEMENT type and
20. // ignore the loot drops and boss kill entries.
21. if (feed.type=='ACHIEVEMENT') {
22. if (intCount < intMax) { // this is an achievement, so ensure we haven't exceeded our max
23. // assemble the icon image source url
24. var blizzIcon = "http://us.media.blizzard.com/wow/icons/18/" + feed.achievement.icon + ".jpg";
25. // assemble the wowhead.com tooltip lookup
26. var wowheadUrl = "http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=" + feed.achievement.id;
27. // format the achievement entry string - icon and link
28. var strFeed = "<div class=\"charProfile\">" + "<img src=" + blizzIcon + "></img>" + " " + "<a href=" + wowheadUrl + ">" + feed.achievement.title + "</a></div>";
29. // write the achievement entry to the div
30. $(strFeed).appendTo("#charProfile");
31. intCount++; // update our good count
32. }
33. else { // we hit more than counter so terminate the .each loop
34. return false;
35. } // end counter if
36. } // end ACHIEVEMENT match if
37. }); // end $.each
38. }); // end $getJSON
39. </script>

Define the Output

First, we define a container in our gadget to contain text. Line 1 creates a <div> and assigns a unique ID to that <div> called "charProfile".  Later, after we've created a string of text and formatted that string with HTML markup, we add that string to the existing <div> with the ID of "charProfile in Line 14.
By the same token, we format another string with the actual achievement feed data and add that string to the existing <div> in line 30.

Get the Data

Next, we're lookup up a character's profile using the Blizzard Community Platform API. Years back, you used to be able to retrive character data from an XML / RSS feed.  No longer! It's all good, though. The forums have some great examples on how to use JQuery to grab the JSON data from the API.

In this case, I wanted the summary of total achievement points and the ten most recent achievements completed.  So let's get cracking.

The URL for my character and region is created in lines 5 to 8, and then line 9 retrieves that data from BattleNet and saves it in an object named 'data'. Great, we have data! Uh, we've got a lot of data. Let's pick out what we want.

Rinse and Repeat

Line 18 starts looping over the results; specifically the 'feed' entries in the results.  For each 'feed' entry contained within the source 'data', we have a function that does something with that selected feed (and it's children). This is where you get the achievement's ID, icon reference, timestamp and other bits.

Validate Selection

However, the 'feed' contains a combination of achievements, boss kills and loot drops. We don't want all that, so how do we skip the unwanted result entries? I'm sure there are more elegant ways, but we're going with the if ... else construct. Line 21 checks if the current 'feed' entry selected above in line 18 is for an achievement. It it is, let's handle it. If not, don't do anything and loop back up to select the next 'feed' element.

But wait, there's more! Not only do we only want achievements, but we only want up to a maximum of ten to show. Otherwise, the entire side bar is achievements!  Line 22 checks that we have not already selected more than our maximum value.  If we are over our max, we don't continue looping through each remaining 'feed'. Nope! Line 34 terminates the loop as soon as we've successfully read our maximum entries.

Display the Goodies

For the output, a sub-heading is written to the gadget first, and then we'll write each selected achievement read during the each loop. Furthermore, with the graciousness of Wowhead's tooltip script, we can link the achievements in a nice pretty tooltip. We're borrowing Blizzard's media by using the reference to the icon within. That's the function of lines 23 - 30.

All in all, I'm happy to have an achievement feed in Blogger. I'm sure that there are more refined ways of accomplishing this, and I may give an actual Google Gadget a go, but for the moment I'm happy.
Thanks for stopping by!