Hi Rob, You mention that iGoogle will support the legacy API till September. If I recall correctly, this was announced in September 2009. However in December Dan posted http://igoogledeveloper.blogspot.com/2009/12/update-on-legacy-api-deprecation.html . I thought this meant the Legacy Api deprecation was halted for an indefinite period/till further notice. I'm a bit at a loss about the plans for the deprecation. Did the actual deprecation never stop or did I miss the unpause message?
Thanks for any clarification.... Rik On Apr 27, 12:26 am, Rob Russell <[email protected]> wrote: > Okay, lots of stuff going on in here. > > I've been talking with developers on the iGoogle team about the best way to > go forward here and it looks like keeping UserPrefs in the query string for > type url gadgets is the thing to do. The fact that we have documented the > urlparam attribute > athttp://code.google.com/apis/gadgets/docs/reference.html#Userprefs_Refis > relevant but I also see there's something wrong in the code snippet there > since it uses _IG_Prefs instead of gadgets.Prefs. It looks like that was > copied straight from the legacy docs > athttp://code.google.com/apis/gadgets/docs/legacy/reference.html#Userpr.... > We try not to break gadgets in any event but in this case it looks > like > we've stated in the docs that this is the intended behavior (that UserPrefs > end up in the query string). That said, I haven't heard any problems with > changing the location to the fragment for type="html" gadgets so either they > all use the Javscript API to get the parameters or the code to pull out the > parameters wasn't badly affected. > > iGoogle does still support the legacy API until September (as previously > announced), so in the short term it doesn't matter which part of the API > this is documented in. I'm going to have to correct the documentation, at > least the example code, for the docs on UserPrefs on the gadgets.* API (time > to toss that example down the memory hole). > > Longer-term, it's possible that the UserPrefs will be serialized (i.e. > stored, saved, passed, etc) in a different way. The documentation should be > updated and the change communicated significantly before that happens. If > you can avoid relying on the structure of the url then this can reduce the > impact of any such change on your gadget. > > I do still believe that for many cases the user experience is better using > the structure I showed earlier. Of course that's up for debate and I'm > interested in seeing performance comparisons. > > Roy, I expect there's some different processing that happens for your > gadgets that use the library injection than what happens for gadgets that > don't. In the syndication set up page, I see the white box but I don't see > the reason for it yet. I'll have a look in to it and see what I can come up > with. > > Thanks again for your patience, > Rob Russell > Google Developer Relations > > > > > > On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 6:29 AM, Roy <[email protected]> wrote: > > I find that I have to agree with Gavin and Jeremy. I certainly > > always thought that the "urlparam" described in the gadgets reference > > > http://code.google.com/apis/gadgets/docs/reference.html#Userprefs_Ref > > > implied that the passing of preferences to url-type gadgets in the URL > > was, in some sense, a documented and approved way of doing this stuff. > > > I appreciate that, as a gadget hacker, I'm basically playing in > > Google's > > sandpit and it's entirely up to Google what toys are provided. > > I also appreciate the point that using the API is, by many measures, > > "the right way to do it". However, the fact is that user preferences > > have been available in the query string for a long time - perhaps > > since > > the inception of gadgets. This of course made it trivial for whatever > > was at the end of the URL to grab and use these parameters as > > required. > > It's natural enough that people might use this to feed their gadgets. > > I'm not saying that makes it the correct thing to do, just that it's > > understandable that this has come to pass. That said, I think there'd > > be a lot of happy URL-type gadget developers out there if it were to > > be > > resolved to keep user preferences in the query string for the longer > > term. > > > One aspect of this recent change I have some trouble reconciling is > > that > > the parameters passed to a gadget appeared to differ, depending upon > > whether the gadget was sitting on an iGoogle page or on an external > > webpage. > > During the whole affair I found my gadgets that had ended up on > > webpages > > to be unaffected, happily receiving userpref values in the query > > string, > > as always. Perhaps this is one of the joys of using what turns out to > > be an undocumented feature, but it will be interesting to see how this > > may change in the future. > > > Rob, thank you for the example code you posted in the other thread... > > my knowledge of javascript is certainly rising towards zero. > > I've had a crack at incorporating this in to a gadget I'm working on > > at the moment (switching it from type "url" to "html"), and I do have > > a question, please. The gadget seems to work well when added to an > > iGoogle page, e.g. > > >http://fusion.google.com/add?source=atgs&moduleurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.t... > > > However, if I try to use the "Add this gadget to your webpage" > > previewer, e.g. > > >http://gmodules.com/ig/creator?synd=open&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telesco... > > > I just get a white box. Clicking "Get the Code" gives exactly the > > right > > code to make the gadget work on a webpage, it's just that the gadget > > doesn't > > appear in the previewer box. I have only managed to get it to appear > > if > > I omit all of the "gadgets.*" calls. Is there something else needed > > in the > > XML file to make the gadget appear correctly on that /ig/creator page? > > Is there something that I'm doing wrong in my boneheaded ignorance? > > > Thanks!! > > > Regards, > > Roy > > > -- > > 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]<Google-Gadgets-API%2Bunsubs > > [email protected]> > > . > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Gadgets-API?hl=en. > > -- > 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 > athttp://groups.google.com/group/Google-Gadgets-API?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "iGoogle Developer Forum" group. 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