More EuroalertSearch Gadgets and Widgets

Recently we have seen some important improvements to the Euroalert search engine euroalertSearch. Making the most of your suggestions (which we have not been short of) and some of our own ideas, that until now we had not be able to implement, we believe that we have significantly improved the quality of our search results. In any case, we are continually updating and making improvements on a weekly basis whether or not they appear in our blog. If you find an area of information for which EuroalertSearch does not provide sufficient quality of contents or, you think does not highlight the relevance of a particular website, do not hesitate to contact us so that we may analyse and resolve the issue.

Along with this update, we have taken the opportunity to release the EuroalertSearch search engine widget code so that you may install it on your websites or blogs as we said in our previous post about the installing euroalertSearch in the search bar of your browser.

Those of you that use iGoogle can also install euroalertSearch with the gadgets of your profile page. The point of this gadget is similar to the euroalertSearch plug-in for the search bar of browser which we released recently. We created it so that you can perform optimum searches on European topics easily without having to go to Euroalert.net website.

So, we hope that the users of distinct services and programmes will be able to reap the benefits of euroalertSearch's capabilities. You can install the euroalertSearch gadget to your iGoogle profile by clicking on the link or review the more detailed information available at Euroalert.net. As always, if you have any doubts or need support with any of our tools you can contact us by email at issues@euroalert.net.

All the information about our euroalertSearch gadgets and widgets is in the section Widgets and tools for the Euroalert.net community. This is where all future tools will be published for the Euroalert.net community.

euroalertSearch in the search bar of your browser

Despite being nearly in Easter, and we would all rather be on another Easter bunny's treasure hunt and eating chocolate eggs, we have managed in the last week to include a few more novelties to the euroalert.net international edition. Cast your eyes to the left hand side of the page. We have published an opensearch plugin with which you can add euroalertSearch to your own browser's Search Bar. Installing it means that you can use our specially configured search engine, without having to visit the euroalert.net website every time you want to find European Union information.

It is fully compatible with Mozilla Firefox as well as Internet Explorer 7. To install and try it, you simply have to click on this link (or on the image at the beginning of the article) and accept the dialogue box. If you are not convinced after having tried it, to remove it is very simple through the preferences menu of your navigator search bar. We have published more information in the Euroalert.net widgets section and if you have any doubts email us at issues@euroalert.net and we will try and help.

We have also published a larger variety of euroalert.net icons and buttons for making links to the m information sections, as we said we would last week. For each section we have used icons with the regular size of height 17 pixels. The width of each icon varies slightly according to the text it holds. However, none exceeded 104 pixels so that you may use them in lateral columns (1 o 2) of websites on the right or left of the main text.



We intend to release very soon the widget code for the euroalertSearch search engine, which can be used to include euroalertSearch on your website or blog. We hope you like and in the mean time we will continue working on euroalert.net to make its services even more efficient and useful for you all.

Icons, buttons and linking euroalert.net

When it comes to making links to other websites, one thing that I have always liked is that we are offered a small set of buttons to make the process fast and simple. It is not that they are essential but always welcome. We have all been down this boring and unproductive path before, in which to create a link we have to start by editing the logo of the host organisation and for some strange reason they always seem to insist on making it as difficult as possible by covering the site with animated logos in inaccessible places, or worse still animated.

To avoid these sorts of problems when linking to the Euroalert.net international edition, either from a blog or another website, we have included in the widgets section the page Euroalert.net icons & buttons. There we have published some icons and buttons of various sizes and colors for you selection. Together with the icon or logo, we have included an example code so that making the link is as easy as possible.

At the moment every example code makes a link to our home page, but in the next series you will have specific icons available (Calls for proposals, Calls for Tenders, etc.) for those of you only interested in linking a particular section of euroalert.net.

However, if you still haven't found the right button or icon to suit your website, do not hesitate to contact us at support@euroalert.net. We will be delighted to send you a new one.

About the euroalert.net blog

In the past few days the new international version of Euroalert.net was born and, as with the launch of any new services, there has been little time to stop and think and even less to write. Now that all its vital signs are stable, although being a basic version, we have been able to start the euroalert blog in English.

As you can imagine, this is the classic opening post for a blog. A declaration of our intentions which we probably won´t complete, despite trying, and a great speech describing the trials and tribulations that have brought us to this point (the reality of this is that the first paragraph has done nearly all of that for us without realising!). However, don´t worry everything to come will be much more interesting.

For now, we will start with a simple task. The blog articles will mainly focus on improvements to services and new characteristics which we are including in euroalert to avoid having to find them on the off chance. We will describe new options so that you understand their potential uses and also that any suggestions you wish to make, may help us improve them further. We thank you for all your feedback. Send us your criticisms as well. To start off, we ask you to subscribe to the euroalert.net newsletter and to our blog.

Our aim is that euroalert.net is the most useful and practical tool for your work with programmes and initiatives from the European Union. Although you may not be traveling to Brussels every week, this will be a good point of contact for being up to date with Calls for proposals and business opportunities (calls for tenders) which are announced at an European level.

For the future we are feeling rather ambitious and hope that this blog becomes somewhat of a "ecosystem" through which you can exchange ideas and opinions about subjects such as research and development, education, regional development, citizen, cooperation, etc. Who knows, perhaps forge new relationships that will give place to winning future projects.

However, all this will take place at little further in the future. It has been your confidence and loyalty to euroalert.net, these past ten years, that has made all this possible. Welcome to all newcomers and to all others, we hope that you stay with us.