Dan, thanks again for your feedback. On Aug 4, 6:28 pm, "Dan (Google)" <[email protected]> wrote: > 2. I have tried to address any issues that were reported with regards > to the legacy API.
Dynamic height still fails for me in some cases. Support for broken legacy API functionality was so slow and random that it was as if the API was not supported. I know that things like toggle are basic, but when it results in broken gadgets, emails from users, etc, it is very frustrating. When the change isn't immediately reversed and instead gadget developers are required to modify their code and wait for their xml to be re-cached, that feels to me like the legacy API is not supported. > 5. Migration from the legacy API to gadgets.* is, in many cases, as > simple as find and replace. There is no loss of functionality when > moving from _IG_* to gadgets.*, as the legacy API is currently running > (through a wrapper) directly on top of gadgets.*. It also requires reading and understanding. If I were continuing to develop gadgets, I would look into it. As it is, I am just trying to support existing gadgets that get randomly broken. > 8. iGoogle's conduct with regards to inlined gadgets has alienated a > number of iGoogle's oldest developers, I'm aware of this. However, I'm > surprised that these developers do not understand the necessity of > disabling inlined gadgets. I understand that things must progress in the direction that Google wishes. I do not think this is a "necessity" but rather a convenience. If my gadget continued to exist and function, for example, I'm not sure what harm that would cause. Especially considering that Google gadgets still function as inline. It's annoying that Google doesn't play by its own rules. If it did, it would see how frustrating it is. But, it's not the fact that API's change or that functionality is removed that is most frustrating to me. It's how things are handled. >From my perspective, it goes like this: - Announcement that all inline gadgets are going away - After some complaints, it's decided that some inline gadgets will remain - No one ever knows quite what the criteria is for inline gadgets to remain functional, or for how long - At random intervals, inline gadgets become disabled with no notice - After some complaints, mine is re-enabled, and I was told it was a mistake - At a later random time, my gadget breaks again - This time I'm told it's permanent and we were told a long time ago that inline gadgets were being disabled! What annoys me is that I thought that the inline gadgets that remained enabled would continue to be enabled. There was nothing said about them all going away permanently. Further, when it did go away, there was no advanced notice or any explanation after the fact. My iGoogle page just became instantly unusable. It's still unusable. There is very little communication to developers. Developers are the ones handling annoyed and angry users, trying to explain to them that _we_ didn't break anything, Google did. And reproducing problems is unpredictable due to caching and different rendering engines being rolled out to different users with no way for us to know about it. Our user counts drop, we spend time answering emails, we get angry comments and one-star ratings from users in the directory who think our gadget now sucks, etc, etc. This is a hostile development environment for gadget developers. I am certainly not trying to prove a point or make it personal or anything. It's just very annoying and frustrating, and for me it's gotten to the point where it's not worth it anymore. A lot of the cool stuff that I was experimenting with is no longer possible. The development environment is such a pain and so unpredictable that the rewards do not justify the effort. I don't want to keep responding to annoyed gadget users who complain to me and demand quick fixes because their page is broken. I'm tired of trying to explain to people that Google broke things, not me. I don't think that gadget development has much of a future anymore, and while I thought that iGoogle was an amazing portal originally, it's now so limited and locked down andI have to play by all the Google rules, that it's no longer a great concept. In short, if Google thinks the default RSS implementation in iGoogle is even _close_ to satisfactory, then I have no faith in the platform. It's horrible. Unusable. So I'm just not interested in participating to the same degree anymore. *shrug* 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
