Hi Dan, As a daily user of iGoogle improved with Matt's gadget, I must intervene in his favor: iGoogle's default RSS feeds are awful and Matt's tool made it a great experience. Now that I'm back to this ugly interface with which I can't even access more than the last 9 items of a feed I'm seriously considering giving up iGoogle and try NetVibes instead. Like Matt I never did find any interest in GoogleReader when iGoogle combined wit RSS Feed Customizer allows me to browse the web exactly the way I feel it.
I'm not sure what would be the consequences for the Google developper team to just keep the few necessary API needed by Matt but I can assure you it is definitely worth it! Hoping you'll make a move in this direction. Benjamin User from France On 6 avr, 23:37, "Dan (Google)" <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "iGoogle Developer Forum" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Gadgets-API?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
