[OpenSocial] Re: why so difficult?
Howdy More FC examples!!! WooHoo! I wanted to do something with OpenSocial and OpenId etc. for a while but was not sure where to jump into that ocean. FC was a great way to get my feet wet. I set up a simple page and put some of the examples on and then put a few example gadgets on iGoogle then my FC site. It's starting to make sense. I did stumble around at first. I did not get that I had to login to FC and set up a site THEN log in again when I came back to manage my FC. It seems simple now, but I was confused at first. I just worked with someone that hit some bumps getting started. He did not want to d/l the two files (he has learned that d/lding files can be uhhh bad) and then we had to smooth some more bumps to get his first app running, I used my site as an example and he was up and social pretty quick. He wants to hook a javascript database to his apps. I did not get any details and am not sure how he can save the state of the d/b easily with FC. I installed shindig and my helloworld example from my FC test just worked. I will be interested in any FC examples. It's a lot to get all at once for me. I'll get there. Examples help a lot :-) Thanks Gary --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups OpenSocial Application Development group. To post to this group, send email to opensocial-api@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to opensocial-api+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-api?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[OpenSocial] Re: why so difficult?
Hi sorry to appear to be bitchy earlier, i just felt a little deflated with opensocial, your marketing dept sure did a good job :p anyways i think i found what i needed and i described what i needed to do here http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-client-libraries/browse_thread/thread/9f64a8b34e066ba6 Regards On Feb 12, 11:30 am, Chris Chabot chab...@google.com wrote: Hey yelims, First of all please take a deep breath, and please tell us what exactly you want to do, do you want to write OpenSocial applications, or do you want to allow your site to contain OpenSocial apps? In the first case, it does indeed save you from having to write logins and all that, the social network sites in which your application runs does all that for you, and using the OpenSocial API you can query for who's viewing the page, who owns the page, get friends, etc etc. A great start for learning about that is the tutorial:http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/tutorial/tutorial-0.8... In the second case, where you'd want to create an social network site, which can host OpenSocial applications, then the burden of implementing logins, and lots of other details, is upto you .. OpenSocial is a standard which allows an 'social gadget' to run on any social platform, but not a 'social network site' product, it's just the API for OpenSocial. If you want to create a container, you'll be happy to hear that there is a PHP version of shindig available, see the PHP directory underhttp://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/shindig/trunk/also there is an example available of how to use this in Partuza:http://code.google.com/p/partuza/(and a live demo is available atwww.partuza.nl). There are some step-by-step guides for installing that available for mac and win, and a rough guide for *nix (to many varients to make a walk-through guide for, and most *nix admins don't really need it either):http://www.chabotc.com/php/setting-up-shindig-and-partuza-on-a-mac/http://www.chabotc.com/generic/setting-up-shindig-and-partuza-on-wind...http://code.google.com/p/partuza/w/list There is a possible third and fourth scenario, from your email it's a little hard to judge what exactly your looking for, or what exactly you think OpenSocial is or should do. Option 3 is using hybrid OpenID and OAuth to allow users to authenticate their identity (for example let google verify that I'm 'Chris Chabot' and my gmail id is 'chab...@gmail.com'), and get an oauth access token to get access to, for instance, our OpenSocial people end point, so that you could also retrieve (and by storing the oauth access token, keep refreshing every day/week/whatever) the friendlist for that person. This doesn't alleviate the need for making your own local database and storing the ID's, but it does make the login easier, allows people to not have to remember another login and password, and take their friend lists with them to your site too. If that's what your interested in (do note this isn't 'OpenSocial' but 'OpenID, OAuth, and OpenSocial for the friend lists'), these are a great starting point: The spec:http://code.google.com/p/step2/ announcement:http://googledataapis.blogspot.com/2009/01/bringing-openid-and-oauth-... live demo:http://googlecodesamples.com/hybrid/ php example code:http://code.google.com/p/gdata-samples/source/browse/#svn/trunk/hybrid and also a great resource for getting started is Plaxo's 'A Recipe for OpenID-Enabling Your Site' :http://www.plaxo.com/api/openid_recipe This technique (hybrid openid and oauth) is pretty new but has been a huge success in the initial live trials:http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/comcast_property_sees_92_success... You can also use similar techniques to login to social network's REST API's using 2 or 3 legged OAuth and importing social information from those social sites, there's a preview of a new PHP library for doing those kind of things available at:http://opensocial-php-client.googlecode.com/files/opensocial-php-clie... The fourth option is 'Google FriendConnect', for which the main URL is:http://www.google.com/friendconnect/FriendConnect is intended for if you really don't want to write any authentication code or store anything in your local databases, and just want to add 'social' to your site without any headaches of implementation, it allows people to loging with their openid, google, yahoo or aim account and connect their friend lists from various social networks (at the moment a somewhat short list, but much more is coming in the near future). Again this isn't to be confused with 'OpenSocial', it does use OpenSocial under the covers to get friend lists and post activities and does allow you to host OpenSocial apps on your site through FriendConnect, but it's not at all the second case I've described above, it's letting Google taking care of all those details for you, and very easily add social features to your site. It
[OpenSocial] Re: why so difficult?
Great post, Are the 4 options in a faq? Is Friend Connect an example of option 3? and I wasv also feeling somewhat deflated. We have some small social groups, mostly mailing lists with some stuff on web pages and getting them more social sounds like a good idea. I tried Friend Connect and it went well to build a few hello world kinds of examples. I was about to install shindig (php version for that first test) but now think I need to also look more at OpenID and OAuth. Lots to look into. Gary --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups OpenSocial Application Development group. To post to this group, send email to opensocial-api@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to opensocial-api+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-api?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[OpenSocial] Re: why so difficult?
Hi lets take the friendconnect route that was mentioned signup + login is very easy just add the widgets (so far so good) but thats where the fun stops since these are done in iframe? theres no way for the underlying php app accessing this info So maybe an article on how to use php5, friendconnect and opensocial api to help add further functionality (from the underlying server layer not yet more javascript) Thanks P.S: seems ZDnet are thinking along the same lines http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1040 On Feb 12, 10:20 pm, Chris Chabot chab...@google.com wrote: Hey Gary, It kind of makes sense when your familiar with the history of OpenSocial, first we had a JavaScript API (gadgets) and people who offered that API (containers as we call them), and then we added a REST API to allow for all kinda of nifty things like using OpenSocial on mobile devices and/or in server to server situations. Add some OAuth and OpenID to the mix, and Google Friend Connect became possible, as well as many other interesting applications. You can really pick whatever makes sense to you. For people who have a great idea it's a real time saver to make a social app, so you don't have to attract an audience to your site, deal with advertising, writing login handlers, a cms, etc etc.. Simple write an OpenSocial app, and put it on the existing social sites and leverage their existing user base. If you have a site where you would like to add social too it, if you have the resources and technical know-how, using shindig gives you all the freedom and flexibility you want, but again it does take a bit of work .. For people who don't have the time, resources or background to do that, FriendConnect is an amazing option, cut and paste some html and your already a social site that can host OpenSocial apps, using GFC's login , friend lists and posting activities back to those social networking sites (so their friends see it, and visit your site too, great way to make the attention circle connect). And indeed, as the last option, using what we often refer to as The Open Stack, a combination of various technologies allowing people to authenticate, grant access and retrieve social information in a portable and open way (meaning Open as in: open source, open spec open specification processes) with technologies like OpenID for identity, OAuth for granting access to resources, and PortableContacts and/or OpenSocial for social information (friend lists, activities, messages, etc); An example of such server to server scenario would be, well say that you had a site with movie quotes ranked by popularity .. using OAuth and OpenSocial's people end point, you could import someone's friend list and show not only the general ratings, but also the much more valuable and interesting ratings and comments of your friends. Friend Connect in it's self is indeed also a great example of how to use these technologies, OpenID ( a few others) for identity, OAuth for permission, and OpenSocial's people and activities end points for as the data exchange standard. A fun resource to learn a bit more about what's happening in this 'Open Stack' area is the social web tv:http://thesocialweb.tv/ On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 10:54 PM, Gary gary.freder...@jsoft.com wrote: Great post, Are the 4 options in a faq? Is Friend Connect an example of option 3? and I wasv also feeling somewhat deflated. We have some small social groups, mostly mailing lists with some stuff on web pages and getting them more social sounds like a good idea. I tried Friend Connect and it went well to build a few hello world kinds of examples. I was about to install shindig (php version for that first test) but now think I need to also look more at OpenID and OAuth. Lots to look into. Gary --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups OpenSocial Application Development group. To post to this group, send email to opensocial-api@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to opensocial-api+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-api?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[OpenSocial] Re: why so difficult?
I'm happy to hear these comments because I'm currently working on a sample that does just this :) Technically this is possible with the client libraries and some workarounds today, but the FC team is working on making this a lot easier for developers, and we're hoping to have a fully functional demo site open sourced soon in order to show you how this is possible. ~Arne On Feb 12, 3:36 pm, cornelius smileyreco...@gmail.com wrote: Hi lets take the friendconnect route that was mentioned signup + login is very easy just add the widgets (so far so good) but thats where the fun stops since these are done in iframe? theres no way for the underlying php app accessing this info So maybe an article on how to use php5, friendconnect and opensocial api to help add further functionality (from the underlying server layer not yet more javascript) Thanks P.S: seems ZDnet are thinking along the same lineshttp://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1040 On Feb 12, 10:20 pm, Chris Chabot chab...@google.com wrote: Hey Gary, It kind of makes sense when your familiar with the history of OpenSocial, first we had a JavaScript API (gadgets) and people who offered that API (containers as we call them), and then we added a REST API to allow for all kinda of nifty things like using OpenSocial on mobile devices and/or in server to server situations. Add some OAuth and OpenID to the mix, and Google Friend Connect became possible, as well as many other interesting applications. You can really pick whatever makes sense to you. For people who have a great idea it's a real time saver to make a social app, so you don't have to attract an audience to your site, deal with advertising, writing login handlers, a cms, etc etc.. Simple write an OpenSocial app, and put it on the existing social sites and leverage their existing user base. If you have a site where you would like to add social too it, if you have the resources and technical know-how, using shindig gives you all the freedom and flexibility you want, but again it does take a bit of work .. For people who don't have the time, resources or background to do that, FriendConnect is an amazing option, cut and paste some html and your already a social site that can host OpenSocial apps, using GFC's login , friend lists and posting activities back to those social networking sites (so their friends see it, and visit your site too, great way to make the attention circle connect). And indeed, as the last option, using what we often refer to as The Open Stack, a combination of various technologies allowing people to authenticate, grant access and retrieve social information in a portable and open way (meaning Open as in: open source, open spec open specification processes) with technologies like OpenID for identity, OAuth for granting access to resources, and PortableContacts and/or OpenSocial for social information (friend lists, activities, messages, etc); An example of such server to server scenario would be, well say that you had a site with movie quotes ranked by popularity .. using OAuth and OpenSocial's people end point, you could import someone's friend list and show not only the general ratings, but also the much more valuable and interesting ratings and comments of your friends. Friend Connect in it's self is indeed also a great example of how to use these technologies, OpenID ( a few others) for identity, OAuth for permission, and OpenSocial's people and activities end points for as the data exchange standard. A fun resource to learn a bit more about what's happening in this 'Open Stack' area is the social web tv:http://thesocialweb.tv/ On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 10:54 PM, Gary gary.freder...@jsoft.com wrote: Great post, Are the 4 options in a faq? Is Friend Connect an example of option 3? and I wasv also feeling somewhat deflated. We have some small social groups, mostly mailing lists with some stuff on web pages and getting them more social sounds like a good idea. I tried Friend Connect and it went well to build a few hello world kinds of examples. I was about to install shindig (php version for that first test) but now think I need to also look more at OpenID and OAuth. Lots to look into. Gary --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups OpenSocial Application Development group. To post to this group, send email to opensocial-api@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to opensocial-api+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-api?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
