Wordcycler 2.0 and the future of Wordcycler

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James Sulak

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Dec 18, 2011, 5:56:35 PM12/18/11

to Wordcycler

It's been a long time coming, but I've released a new version of
Wordcycler. You can download it at http://www.wordcycler.com. There
is only one major change - now, instead of scraping the site,
Wordcycler uses the offical Instapaper full API. This means two
things for current users:

1. Wordcycler will be more reliable and future-proof. Since
Wordcycler was nothing but a glorified site-scraper, it has always
been one minor Instapaper site upgrade away from being completely
broken. We've been lucky so far, but it's a bomb waiting to go off.
The official API is guarranteed to keep working.

2. To use Wordcycler, **you must be an [Instapaper subscriber][1]**.
Only subscriber accounts have access the full API. It's only $1 a
month and helps keep Instapaper running, so I recommend you subscribe
if you haven't already.

I realize this is a trade-off, so if this is a deal-breaker you should
not upgrade. But I will not be updating the 1.x versions of
Wordcycler, so if Marco Arment changes the Instapaper HTML and breaks
Wordcycler, you will be on your own. Using the full API is the right
thing to do, both technically and just to be a good Instapaper
citizen.

There are a few other minor consequences of the change. Large article
queues have always been problematic, but that should be solved now.
Wordcycler will download up to the 500 article limit that the
Instapaper API imposes. Bundle downloads will be a bit different,
since they are now assembled in Wordcycler instead of on Instapaper's
server.

[1]:http://www.instapaper.com/subscription

## The Future of Wordcycler

As many have surely noticed, development and community participation
on my part has been slow. I apologize for this. The fact is, I don't
use Wordcycler myself on a regular basis anymore. I own a Mac now,
and I do most of my Instapaper reading on my iPhone. Wordcycler is
not a money-making project, so my time and attention has been spent on
my day job, my personal life, and other projects - the usual reasons.
Wordcycler 2.0 has been sitting on my drive half-finished for about
six months, but I wanted to finish it up to leave things in a good
spot.

So that's a long way of saying that this will be the last release of
Wordcycler. It's been a fun ride, and It's been very gratifying to
see so many people get use out of it. But it's time to stop kidding
myself that I have the time to maintain it, especially now that I'm no
longer an active user myself. I'm exploring the possibility of open-
sourcing Wordcycler, but no promises yet.