From Two 2 Twelve

Transforming XMG Image to v2 on Rails

From the inception of XMG Image, it’s goal has been to provide a simple, effective and easy-to-use way to upload and manage your images online. Trying to offer a more intuitive system than others like ImageShack and something a little less social and more robust like Flickr.

Unfortunately, XMG Image v1 was designed and coded in a time before Ruby on Rails and inevitably declared an end-of-life system almost as soon as it was released. But, with my newly acquired knowledge of RoR, I decided there was no better time than the present to shift development towards v2. In doing so, Rails has not failed to deliver as an immensely powerful development framework which completely streamlines the development, testing, and deployment aspects of building a robust web application.

But even as v2 reaches it’s proverbial beta testing phase, the general public, even XMG Users, have no tangible evidence that development for v2 is even taking place (except for this flashy splash page). So here, I present a quick screen shot of the new customer dashboard, and I must admit, it’s dead sexy…

The initial release date is still hard to predict since private beta testing is currently going on. Also worth mentioning, v2 makes heavy use of Ajax/Javascript, so testing has been a challenge.

As for the service itself, there will be 2 plans offered, a completely free plan, and a yearly subscription plan (roughly around $14/year), which will give you access to tons more features and our built-in support ticketing system.

More info on the release will be available here and on the XMG forums as it gets closer.

Feel free to leave a comment/opinion on the new interface!