webDotWiz has a site for this column at www.webDotWiz.com (you might be reading this column online at the site) and has his Waranga Basin Windows Live Space. For convenience, both for himself and others, he uploads his photos to his photo albums on Waranga Basin but to view these photos we both need to browse to that site. So why hasn't he a viewer on webDotWiz.com that shows off his Waranga Basin photos, or for that matter, his tutorial screenshots from his webDotWiz Space, or photos from any other Live Space?

Well, webDotWiz could go to the Windows Live Developer site and find out what programming code he needs to use, write up the required code, work out how to display the photos and test, test, and test until the job is done. Years ago he might have had the time (and fresh, agile grey matter) to do that sort of programming but now he's happy to let the younger ones do it.

Of course, there are far more people whom we'll call "non-developers" - they don't want to start learning to write programs but they'd love to be able to improve their Live Spaces and web sites with more relevant information for their readers.

So that's the goal of Microsoft Popfly - an online interactive visual tool for non-developer people to build up new modules (gadgets) for their Live Space or web site.

In Popfly, blocks are used to represent a source of data (e.g., photos from a Live Space) or a way of presenting the data (the photos) on a web page. So to build a module (gadget) to show photos from the webDotWiz Live Space photo album, we'd drag the Live Spaces photo album block onto the creation pane and tell it to look at webDotWiz's space. Then we'd choose which photo display type we'd like to use (e.g., a simple rectangle table layout or a 3D sphere display) and drag the appropriate block onto the creation pane. To get the photos to display, all we need do is connect a line to join these two blocks. Job done!

After a save and check all is working as it should, we can add this module to our Live Space with a simple click on the Add to Windows Live Space button.

There are a myriad of other mashups that can be made just as simply as our photo viewer. For example, a couple of webDotWizards are putting together Live Map collections using photos they've taken on trips to show where they travelled and let us see some of the sights along the way. Currently it's a manual job to place a pushpin on the map and enter a link to where the photo is stored online. Using Popfly, all the hard work is done for us - we only have to upload our photos to our Live Space (which we'd do anyway so as to share them with friends).

Currently Popfly is in early testing and you need to ask for an invite if you want to get started now. All sorts of possibilities open up with Popfly. By the way, if you want to do some programming then don't feel left out - you can use Microsoft Visual Studio Express to customise blocks or build your own.

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