Code-breaking change to gadget support on Gmail
Sometime in the last 48 hours, a change was made to the Gmail gadgets platform that broke most of my gadgets. I've been digging into it since I noticed the change (time permitting), and here's what I've found. Previously, gadgets were served from subdomains of gmodules.com, such as: http://1.gmail.gmodules.com http://2.gmail.gmodules.com Where each gadget on the page had a different number at the beginning. This is congruent with iGoogle gadgets generally, they've always been served from gmodules.com, regardless of host platform. Now, the host for Gmail gadget iframes look like this: https://psglh63b1qffbcf6jeem59as0o0j9vro-a-gm-opensocial.googleusercontent.com https://lukvq4do2r6js9qajiqsd92jqq9p3qel-a-gm-opensocial.googleusercontent.com Again, the exact subdomain is different, but apparently the long string at the beginning is a hash of the gadget URL - you can't serve one gadget from another's subdomain, whereas before, the numbers were generic. That's no big deal, and might actually enhance security. But note the base domain is different. This in itself broke all my map gadgets at a stroke. The GMaps API requires a domain-specific key, and while it recognizes certain domains (like gmodules.com) as Google- owned and not requiring a key, googleusercontent.com isn't one of them. There is a workaround (register an API key for googleusercontent.com), but it requires changing the gadget source code. The other issue, affecting non-map gadgets as well, is that the iframe is now served via HTTPS. This is good, in that the mixed content security warning can now be avoided on IE, but there's a serious downside. For gadgets that retrieve additional content via XHR, those retrievals now fail if they don't also use HTTPS. So again, a code change is required to make any such gadgets work again on Gmail. Here's the bottom line: This is abominable behavior from Google for a published API, even one that is still in Labs. The very least they could have done was warn us that this was coming, on the Gmail Gadgets Developer's Group... what's that you say, there is no such group? Oh yeah, there is that small problem. There isn't anywhere that support is offered for this. Come on Google, you know better than to treat developers like this. Communication is vital. String ------------- Cross-posted at the Gmail Labs Help Add Any Gadget group and the iGoogle Developer Forum because, like I said, the gadgets API on Gmail is an illegitimate child and doesn't have a group of its own. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
