Hi everyone, I would like to propose a series of features to allow arbitrary information (the context) to be defined for widgets and pages in Rave. At render-time a widget instance would be given its context in the same way an OpenSocial gadget using embedded experiences is given a context, and most likely via the same mechanism. The context is arbitrary information that could take one of two forms: it could be attached to the widget definition and all widget instances would receive that context; or, it could be attached to a page and the page would provide the context to all widget instances on the page. The page context would take precedence over context attached to the widget definition in the case of conflict.
If everyone thinks this is a good idea, I'd like to take a staged approach focusing on OpenSocial first and tackling the following user stories in roughly this order: 1) Allow the creation of context in the database for a widget and pass that context to widget instances 2) Allow the creation of context in the database for a page and pass that context to widget instances 3) Allow a Widget to appear multiple times in the catalog with different context values 4) Allow the configuration of context in the admin UI for a widget 5) Allow the configuration of context in the admin UI for a page There are probably other features that could grow out of this proposal, but this is the scope I'm focused on now. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! -Stanton
