IMified “BudgetBot”

Discovering that IMified launched an easy-to-use API for their service, I was soon thinking about what to implement with it.

And then I remembered Adam Pash’s BudgetBot presented on LifeHacker. Unfortunately you have to set it up on your own server and it only works with AIM, limiting its use to the more tech-savvy and AIM-using people out there. So there we go: BudgetBot on IMified!

I use the ‘budget.pl’ code by Adam Pash and rewrote the front-end to this in PHP for the IMified API. I submitted the widget via the IMified “submit widget” form, but until it shows up in the widget database you can easily try “BudgetBot on IMified” yourself:

Go to the Add Widget Page, select “add by url” (small link next to the search bar) and enter:

  • Name this Widget: BudgetBot
  • Widget URL: http://www.logfile.ch/imified_budgetbot.php
  • Type: Basic

You can use the widget in Basic type, which is the preferred mode, but the world won’t collapse if you select “Advanced” (read: it’ll work just the same).

After that procedure BudgetBot should show up in your IMified main menu - just select its number and you can use all the commands described in the LifeHacker article. I did change the categories a bit, though: There’s a new “dining out” section and “car” was renamed to “transport” to cater to all the Non-Americans who actually use public transport.

By the way : If you want to clear your data you can remove the Widget and add it again. This is also a warning: If you remove the widget your budget list will be gone.

For now, the IMified BudgetBot doesn’t do anything the Lifehacker one doesn’t - just to keep it simple. I do plan on adding a few features, though: Choosing your own categories is one, CSV export to applications such as iFinance (which I use to track my budget) is another one. If you have specific BudgetBot needs just post a comment!

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