Hi Matt,

On Apr 6, 1:52 pm, Matt Kruse <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Apr 6, 3:25 pm, "Dan (Google)" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > I'm sorry that your gadget has been disabled, but the deprecation
> > process has been public for some time now (http://
> > igoogledeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/08/changes-to-inlined-
> > gadgets.html)
>
> I'm obviously aware of this, but to quote the page:
>
> "All other inlined gadgets will continue to operate, but the gadget
> XML will be in read-only mode, served out of Google's cache. It will
> still be possible to update these gadgets, by filing a request to
> recache the gadget in the legacy issue tracker. We strongly recommend
> that the authors of these gadgets move to supported APIs."
>
> I thought the part about "all other inlined gadgets will continue to
> operate" meant that they would continue to operate.

Well, we've increased the threshold of "few active users" slightly,
several times, over the last few months. It just seems that this
particular bump caught a few more developers than previous ones (or at
least more active or attentive developers, such as yourself). The
threshold is still quite low.

>
> > The fact that inline is required in your
> > case, suggests, at least to me, that the gadget demonstrates
> > particular behavior that we weren't encouraging as part of the gadgets
> > API.
>
> Obviously, but as I've said before, you are discouraging community
> improvement to the iGoogle portal by eliminating the ability for
> skilled developers to enhance the experience. Since the API is very
> static and features are added/fixed very slowly (if at all), the
> gadget platform has become less than thrilling to develop for. Even
> this group has become pretty dead.

iGoogle is in a transition period and large changes will not come
until gadgets.* and OpenSocial are released.

>
> > In short, in order to provide a consistent and secure experience
> > for iGoogle users, some inlined gadgets will need to be disabled.
>
> I don't buy this argument. Keeping inline gadgets such as mine that I
> rely on (along with 500 other people) would certainly hurt no one
> else's "experience". You should just say that it needs to be done to
> lock down functionality and to make sure that gadgets can continue to
> be embedded in gmail, gcalendar, and everywhere else you want them to
> be ported to.

Deprecating inlined gadgets will certainly make such portability
easier, but it's not the primary goal.

>
> The Google-developed gadgets continue to work in inline mode. Why? If
> your developers had to play the same rules as all the other
> developers, we would either see a return to allowing inline gadgets or
> much-improved API capabilities.

These gadgets are, generally-speaking, designed as inlined in order to
improve latency. I don't receive too many requests from developers
asking for ways to improve latency of their gadgets, so I'm not sure
if this is a valid argument. :)

>
> > Have you thought about using Greasemonkey for customization?
>
> I use a variety of browsers across different machines to access
> iGoogle. That's one of the main benefits of it for me, so fixing
> functionality using GM wouldn't be a good solution. I'm also not sure
> that the same functionality would be possible with GM, or that the
> time invested would be worthwhile.

I'm pretty sure you could accomplish the same using GM (or maybe GM
and something else, such as Gears), but you are correct this would be
browser-specific.

>
> Just compare the before 
> screenshot:http://mattkruse.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/igoogle01-whole-page-...
> to the after 
> screenshot:http://mattkruse.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/igoogle07-minimized-a...
>
> You're sending me from #2 back to #1 by disabling my gadget! I
> wouldn't be so annoyed if the default RSS behavior on iGoogle wasn't
> so horrible. It took me one day to write my RSS Customizer gadget. I
> would love it if Google would invest a few hours into making their RSS
> interface more usable. I know that Google Reader is supposed to be
> God's Gift To Humanity, but I still prefer to get my RSS content
> through iGoogle along with all my other junk. :)

I'll raise your concerns with the product team, but I can't promise
anything.

Thanks,
Dan

>
> Matt Kruse
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