It's Done - Grooveshark Widgets (WARNING TO ALL MANDERS, FUCKING LONG POST)

Grooveshark came through in stellar fashion. I think I was able to do almost exactly what we wanted. Check it out on the on the right, just under the rug. There's a playlist made from some of the more recent Shanty posts.

For those of you that have already checked out Grooveshark, you know that it lets you compile a playlist with a little more functionality than Pandora (you can skip back, forward and rearrange tracks). What's more is that I have yet to find that Grooveshark doesn't carry the music that I'm looking for. It's great. And they make it really easy to embed the playlist on The Shanty. Here's how.

Compile a playlist, you monkey. It's not that hard, but you have to create a free account. After you're done with the playlist, you'll want click the "embed" button. It's located on the bottom right, right of the playlist in the middle. Move your mouse over the button and it should read "embed."

After having clicked embed, you'll be taken to a different screen where you'll need to choose your widget. There appear to be only two available, the "chameleon" and the "single song." The choice shouldn't be too hard. Having chosen your widget you may or may not want to make some adjustments.

You can adjust the colors by choosing a color scheme or by choosing the "advanced" option. That will allow you to choose each color by yourself for each portion of the widget. You can also adjust size, which will end up being more important, depending on where you want to put the widget on The Shanty. See below.

Skipping ahead, having chosen your color and your size, you'll have a last minute opportunity to add or remove any songs on your list. After clicking "Finish," you'll asked where you'd like to post your widget. This is the important part. For the playlist that I've posted, I've chosen the "Blogger sidebar." You also have the option of choosing "Blogger." With this option, the playlist will appear as any other post, and will be bumped down the line as other posts are. Posting on the sidebar will prevent the playlist from being bumped down; it'll stay there just under the rug.

But the sidebar has some size constraints. If you want your entire playlist to appear in the sidebar, you need to be sure to adjust the size accordingly. See above. I've found that a width of about 200 pxls should be about right. The height can be whatever, but try to keep it under 500 or so. For aesthetic reasons.

So there you have it. The Shanty now has a playlist. And we can make new ones. Go nuts.