MyLitecoins gadget

Do you ask yourself these questions?

• How can I watch the litecoin exchange rate?
• What amount of litecoins have I mined, but not yet transferred to my wallet, and how much are they worth?
• How many total litecoins did I mine since I started mining?
• How many litecoins do I currently have, both unpaid in pools and in my wallet, and how much USD can I get for it?
• I don't mine, but how much is my investment in litecoins worth in USD (or any other currency) at this moment?

MyLitecoins is a Windows gadget (Vista sidebar or Windows 7) which displays two values: the amount of litecoins you have, and an estimated value of those litecoins in your preferred currency.

Features

• retrieves data from up to three litecoin pools
• retrieves LTC-USD exchange rate from a litecoin exchange
• uses The Free Currency Converter API to convert USD to any other world currency of your choice
• Accepts arbitrary correction amount (positive or negative) which is added to the litecoin amount. This is where you can, for example, enter total amount of the litecoins you bought if you wish it to be included in the sum, or simply use it as a litecoin calculator.
• alerts with red or green color when a value is below or above defined amount

You can specify any mining pool or exchange which has JSON API (most of them do). The only thing you need to know is URL and JSON keys.

Configuring exchanges and pools

By default, the gadget is configured to use BTC-e API to obtain exchange data. If we wanted to use a different exchange, for example Vircurex, first we need to find out JSON API URL. Vircurex has a bit different API, but this page details all that is needed to use the API. Let us create the URL which returns last LTC-BTC trade exchange: https://api.vircurex.com/api/get_info_for_1_currency.json?base=LTC&alt=BTC. The data returned looks like this:

{"base":"LTC", "alt":"BTC", "lowest_ask":"0.00379998", "highest_bid":"0.00352","last_trade":"0.00379999", "volume":"1357.57892737"}

The exchange rate we need is in the "last_trade" JSON value. So, to configure MyLitecoins to use Vircurex, we have to enter above URL and JSON key "last_trade". We could use secondary exchange to track up to three additional values (for example highest bid and lowest ask), or simply clear all secondary exchange JSON keys.

Configuring gadget to use pool APIs works in the same way. The only difference is that you can configure up to two JSON keys for pools, since you're probably interested in both paid and unpaid amounts.

Changes

• version 3.4 - bug fixes
• version 3.3 - upgraded third-party currency conversion API (The Free Currency Converter API) due to change in the licensing terms
• version 3.2 - switched away from Yahoo! currency conversion API as it stopped working
• version 3.1 - default exchange switched from BTC-e to Poloniex as BTC-e is no longer operational
• version 3.0 - a bunch of bugs fixed and new features introduced:
  • updated Litecoin background/logo
  • trailing stop alerts
  • support for very large or very small values (more than 9 digits or less than 8 decimals) using for example 1G for 1,000,000,000
  • two additional pools added as some a bit megalomanic people were complaining that three pools are not enough
  • although originally correction could be a negative number, at some point this stopped working due to incorrect regex which is now corrected
  • if only paid or only unpaid JSON key for pools was used, value was not calculated; a bit impractical workaround was to use both fields is no longer needed
  • note from settings now shows on mouse hover
• version 2.0 - added ability to choose and hide fields; improvements to better work with exchanges; new note field added to settings
• version 1.4 - fix for bug in anti-caching code
• version 1.3 - higher/lower color notification and better error handling (corrected possible NaN on bad correction configuration)
• version 1.2 - now works for all international Windows versions and allows Javascript to extract JSON key values
• version 1.1 - updated default: ticker URL for BTC-e exchange has changed
• version 1.0 - initial version

Like this gadget?

If you find this gadget useful, you can support it by sending any amount of LTC to the following Litecoin address: LcJ5GinEXzyHzvYB3NfycARqhAYN8Jh8mo

Thanks to StewartJ for inspiration and beta testing.