OpenSocial 0.8a

[Chris Chabot]

Dan Peterson suggested the idea to move to a 0.8a revision of the OpenSocial specification to allow us to move forward on some of the issues we've met. To try to get the ball rolling on this I've created an overview of the things that are currently being discussed and I hope we can include / resolve for the 0.8a specification. 

If people generally agree with the concept and topics proposed, we can start up the threads to discuss & vote for them.

Improve & simplify Batching in the REST API

Louis has been kind enough to champion this and write a proposal & engage in conversion w the community about this, though nothing is final yet. However there is a strong feeling that the current method of multipart posts is unwieldy and we hope to come up with a better alternative.

http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/browse_thread/thread/23ed1a36bc8b2502?hl=en#

Align OpenSocial the RESTful API with PortableContacts

John Panzer & Joseph Smarr have been working on a proposal to align the OpenSocial REST API and PortableContacts API so that we support this from day 1. This is a really exciting development & introducing it now would save the pain of having to change the RESTful API after people are already using it.

http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/browse_thread/thread/c7edaa02a40a7287?hl=en#

Retrieve Container Supported fields through REST API

The REST API consumer needs to have a way to find out what fields the container supports (rest counterpart of the JS API for this). Current suggestion is to add /people/@supportedFields & /activities/@supportedFields which returns a json/atom array with all the supported fields.

http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/browse_thread/thread/4857f9ac3bdf803c?hl=en#

(scroll to the lower part of the thread for that discussion)

REST fetch people, don't fetch all fields by default & add an ?fields={*,@all} to fetch them all

Always returning the complete profile information would consume to much bandwidth & server resources. Return a default set when nothing is specified, and add support for a fields={*, @all}

http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/browse_thread/thread/4857f9ac3bdf803c?hl=en#

REST vs JS API feature parity

Currently the RESTful API spec _implies_ that you can add friends by posting to your friends collection, however no such functionality is present in the JS API. Should we have feature parity between the two for at least most of the actions?

http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/browse_thread/thread/2c89a6b509f24ac6?hl=en#

Expand & clarify RESTful API specification

Various bits are missing from the documentation and are likely to confuse the consumers of the RESTful API service; Expanding and clarifying will hopefully improve on this & allow for a better and smoother adaptation of the REST spec.

http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/browse_thread/thread/e05963e1769c10db?hl=en#

http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/browse_thread/thread/94cec72052e9e34a?hl=en#

http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/msg/136d4fac5b51323f?hl=en

OpenSocial Templates & Data pipelining

Templates are set to be slipstreamed into the 0.8 specification because their important enough to do so :) Chris Bissell (& friends) from myspace have been working on a proposal to expand the templating specification to allow a more 'standard web development' usage of the templating system, which is looking really good. Should we try to finalize & vote for this for the 0.8a time frame so we can introduce it together with the purely-JS-oriented templating system?

http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/browse_thread/thread/4ed62c2dcc065613?hl=en#

 

[Krishna Sankar (ksankar)]

Yep, agree that we should move forward. As Eiji pointed out, wouldn’t 0.8.1 be better ?

Cheers

<k/>

[Ropu's iPhone]

+1 for 0.8.1

Sent from Ropu's iPhone

[John Panzer]

+1 to 0.8X (where X is a don't care for me)

Note that there are already threads on this mailing list not listed below addressing some of the concerns raised -- probably we do need to start up voting threads to consolidate and clarify positions.  Two thoughts:

1. Re: Batching -- I'm personally ready to call the 0.8 spec batching an experiment that didn't work out, given the feedback from implementors over the past several days.  It appears to be one of the blocking issues for moving forward on other things so I suggest it get fairly high priority.

2. Re: Discovery: Do we want to call out discovery as an issue?  (_Is_ it an issue for clients?)  I would like to see if we could get at least one client implementation to try out the 0.8X discovery mechanism is before calling it done.  Portable Contacts and the RESTful API both currently call for XRDS-Simple, an XML based format for discovery, which is effectively the same as Yadis and OpenID discovery.  Something simpler would probably work but would need to be spec'd.

John Panzer (http://abstractioneer.org)

[Kevin Brown]

I agree with these items, and would also like to use this opportunity to clarify gadget rendering issues (specifically, xml processing and how it relates to javascript calls).

This has been a sore point for a while. I've written up an extremely detailed revision to the current spec, but it might be too big of a change to include in this discussion, as some parts of the existing specification are so vague that any person's interpretation might be viewed as a change. I primarily based the document on the expected behavior from the opensocial developer's guide, the existing specification, and common implementations (mostly shindig). It's here:

https://docs.google.com/a/google.com/View?docID=dcskdn58_9hh4km8g5&revision=_latest

On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 2:17 AM, Chris Chabot <cha...@xs4all.nl> wrote:

[Chris Chabot]

"Welcome to google.com, please sign in with you @google.com account"

Could you maybe flip the 'public' bit ? :-)

-- Chris

[Kevin Brown]

I thought that was the public url...d'oh. I knew I should have just kept it in the original HTML version.

I'm not much of a word processor person, so I never bothered figuring out how to publish the docs correctly. Copying it to a the public docs seems to work though, so try this:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgf9q4v4_2wkcbvn3z

I'll re-convert to plain HTML at some point and publish it on the group instead.

[Chris Chabot]

We have 5 +1's so far on the 0.8{.1 / a} proposal currently. If anyone else has a opinion either way, please feel free to chime in.

I'll start the threads on these topics so we can consolidate and clarify positions tomorrow (tuesday 22nd), so if there are any objections please voice them before that :)

-- Chris

[Paul Lindner]

I'm +1 as well.

Just don't call it 0.8bis :)

Paul Lindner

plin...@hi5.com

[Louis Ryan]

This looks like a good list so +1

Any objection to adding the content-rewriting proposal which is pretty baked already and has good consensus?

[Chris Chabot]

It's already live on some of the SNS's and available in Shindig (php and java) so I have no objections to paving over the beaten path if no one else does.

-- Chris

[Arne Roomann-Kurrik]

For an incremental / clarifying update to the spec, I think there's a couple weaknesses that could be addressed:

1.) Version the gadgets spec - Gadgets and OpenSocial have been moving at different rates.  People have incorrectly been using 0.8 to refer to gadgets features which are in production on some containers and not on others.

2.) Remove the "background" section from the OpenSocial specification - This really needs to be taken out of the spec and put into its own non-specification document.

3.) Move to a non controversial version of Kevin's specification draft - The gadgets XSD lists a lot of elements (preload, link, icon, oauth, etc) which are not suitably documented in the spec itself.  My vote would be to move to Kevin's document minus any "changes" which people feel are unsuitable for a minor version numbered release. 

~Arne

--
OpenSocial IRC - irc://irc.freenode.net/opensocial

[Kevin Brown]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 1:48 PM, Arne Roomann-Kurrik <kur...@google.com> wrote:

For an incremental / clarifying update to the spec, I think there's a couple weaknesses that could be addressed:

1.) Version the gadgets spec - Gadgets and OpenSocial have been moving at different rates.  People have incorrectly been using 0.8 to refer to gadgets features which are in production on some containers and not on others.

There really should be one version of the spec. Otherwise we get into bizarre situations like mixing opensocial-0.9 and gadgets-0.x where gadgets-0.x isn't compatible. The whole thing should be versioned together. Right now no container can claim to support 0.8 based on the published spec.
 

2.) Remove the "background" section from the OpenSocial specification - This really needs to be taken out of the spec and put into its own non-specification document.

3.) Move to a non controversial version of Kevin's specification draft - The gadgets XSD lists a lot of elements (preload, link, icon, oauth, etc) which are not suitably documented in the spec itself.  My vote would be to move to Kevin's document minus any "changes" which people feel are unsuitable for a minor version numbered release. 

There aren't any changes in here -- this is based on the interpretation of the existing spec used by the developer's guide and what exists in Shindig today.

Unfortunately, the current spec is entirely too vague on many items to adequately cover them without a huge amount of new language to clarify the spec.
 

[Gonzalo Aune]

+1 for 0.8X =)

G.-

[Michael Ryan (Software Developer)]

Just to chime in… +1 to 0.8.1 over 0.8a … J  I know I’m a bit late in on this, but was out on Monday.

 

--

Michael J. Ryan  --  Software Developer  --  Apollo Group

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[Andy(AnandKSharma)]

Hi to All
i checked out latest Shindig code of Revision no : 686151
I have created my own PHP shindig Basic{People,Activities,Data}.php
and few gadgets like "helloworld.xml" , "GeoLocation.xml" are working
absoultely fine,
THX to Chris who help me out so that shindig PHP is working fine.
But whenever i am running any gadget which is using
Basic{people,activities,data}.php , it has some probs.
suppose whenever i am running ListFriends.xml file in Shindig PHP ,
its giving response in firebug as :
1.
POST
http://localhost/shindig/php/social/rest/jsonBatch?st=6%3A6%3A6396%3Ashindig%3Ahttp%253A%2F%2Flocalhost%2FGOSDemoAppPHP%2Fgadgets%2FListFriends.xml%3A0
(1062ms)


POST:

{"viewer":{"url":"/people/@viewer/@self?
fields=id,name,thumbnailUrl&startIndex=0&count=20&orderBy=topFriends

&filterBy=all&networkDistance=","method":"GET"},"viewerFriends":
{"url":"/people/@viewer/@friends?fields

=id,name,thumbnailUrl&startIndex=0&count=20&orderBy=topFriends&filterBy=all&networkDistance=","method"

:"GET"}}


RESPONSE:

{"responses":{"viewer":{"response":{"6":{"aboutMe":"Its all abt the
fact :-)","dateOfBirth":"1985-11-22"

,"id":"6","name":
{"unstructured":"ak47"},"isOwner":false,"isViewer":false}}},"viewerFriends":
{"response"

:{"1":{"aboutMe":"\tWhen I am working on a problem I never think about
beauty. I only think about how

to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is
not beautiful, I know it is wrong

.\r\n","dateOfBirth":"1991-01-01","id":"1","name":
{"unstructured":"Venkata Suresh"},"isOwner":false,"isViewer"

:false},"2":{"aboutMe":"\tI am a man of fixed and unbending
principles, the first of which is to be flexible

at all times.","dateOfBirth":"1992-02-01","id":"2","name":
{"unstructured":"Ganesh Kumar"},"isOwner"

:false,"isViewer":false},"3":{"aboutMe":"\tI always try to believe the
best of everybody -- it saves

so much trouble.\r\n","dateOfBirth":"1993-03-01","id":"3","name":
{"unstructured":"Ashok kumar"},"isOwner"

:false,"isViewer":false},"4":
{"aboutMe":"Kool!!!","dateOfBirth":"1985-01-01","id":"4","name":
{"unstructured"

:"Sanjeev Srinidhi"},"isOwner":false,"isViewer":false},"5":
{"aboutMe":"nagraju mast maja maadi !!!!!

!!!!","dateOfBirth":"1985-12-11","id":"5","name":
{"unstructured":"nagraju"},"isOwner":false,"isViewer"

:false},"7":{"aboutMe":"Devil also scare to enter in my
domain","dateOfBirth":"1985-11-22","id":"7","name"

:
{"unstructured":"machi"},"isOwner":false,"isViewer":false}}}},"error":false}



As far i know that i am getting right response but i cannot able to
see these response as my result of gadget(ListFriends.xml) output.

i think according to my own BasicPeople.php , i have to change any
other files.

if is it so then please let me own the way .

may be i going in wrong way .


Cheers

Anand

[Chris Chabot]

Hey Andy,

Could you please stop hijacking threads to ask your questions? It
tends to confuse things a bit when such off-topic replies are given.

The best place to ask shindig related questions is the shind...@incubator.apache.org
list, see http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/#tab-support for
details on how to sign up & post there.

Thanks in advance :)

-- Chris

[anand sharma]

Hi Chris
really sorry if i did smething wrong by mistake ...
but now i m also trying to post my question @ appropriate place .
sorry for any inconvenience.

Thx for ur suggestion
cheers
Anand