Remove UserPrefs from OpenSocial

[Scott Seely]

During 0.9, we had a discussion around a feature for adding UserPrefs to REST that culminated in a discussion about how AppData supersedes UserPrefs.

 

I propose that we remove the UserPrefs feature from the next rev of the specification. Containers can support UserPrefs through 0.9, but can remove those APIs for any later apps.

 

If necessary, it should be possible to create a helper JavaScript outside of the OpenSocial spec process that one can include to translate UserPrefs to AppData calls.

 

Scott Seely

architect

email  sse...@myspace.com

 

 

[Lane LiaBraaten]

I'm in favor of this.  -Lane

[Evan Gilbert]

To completely replace user prefs, I believe we will need private app data - app data that is only visible to the user whose data it is.

I'm planning on proposing an extension soon for this, and hopefully we can get a some containers using it well before the 1.0 timeframe so that we can feel comfortable with the full deprecation.

Evan

[Adam Winer]

I agree with Evan - appdata is not a 1-to-1 replacement without
support for private content.

[Paul Lindner]

Adding an options param to appdata seems wise.  I'd like to also see options for expiration and retention.  This would allow the application to use appdata as a nearline cache, or trade-off durability for speed..

sent from a G1

On Apr 16, 2009 8:25 AM, "Evan Gilbert" <uid...@google.com> wrote:

To completely replace user prefs, I believe we will need private app data - app data that is only visible to the user whose data it is.

I'm planning on proposing an extension soon for this, and hopefully we can get a some containers using it well before the 1.0 timeframe so that we can feel comfortable with the full deprecation.

Evan

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Lane LiaBraaten <llia...@google.com> wrote: > > I'm in favor of ...

[Charlie Jiang]

I think this is the right direction.

-Charlie

---

From: opensocial-an...@googlegroups.com
To: opensocial-an...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu Apr 16 08:24:40 2009
Subject: [opensocial-and-gadgets-spec] Re: Remove UserPrefs from OpenSocial

To completely replace user prefs, I believe we will need private app data - app data that is only visible to the user whose data it is.

I'm planning on proposing an extension soon for this, and hopefully we can get a some containers using it well before the 1.0 timeframe so that we can feel comfortable with the full deprecation.

Evan

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Lane LiaBraaten <llia...@google.com> wrote:

[Ryan Boyd (Google)]

I have a use case I'd like to see solved in any new mechanism of
handling UserPrefs.

Right now, some containers parse the UserPrefs section defined in the
spec in order to present a list of questions to the end-user. For a
world clock application, things like the configured timezones, format
for time display, analog versus digital, etc are all very important
information. Currently iGoogle can prompt the users to enter this
information based on what's defined in the UserPrefs.

There's also another potential use case-- thinking of something like
Google Friend Connect where the 'user' is actually the site owner. In
their directory, they currently ask the site owner a bunch of
questions before they generate the HTML code to copy/paste into a
website to install an OpenSocial gadget. These questions are not
currently based on UserPrefs, but UserPrefs would be a great format to
define them in to enable an automated directory based on the XML spec.

I understand that UserPrefs and App Data are duplicate in
functionality for storage of the name/value pairs, but UserPrefs do
seem to have additional functionality in pre-defining the set of
parameters required for the app to run properly.

Would it make sense to leave the UserPrefs XML structure as part of
the spec, but switch the implementation to store the data in App Data,
or are there other solutions that would help preserve the important
functionality UserPrefs currently handles? (Perhaps using data
pipelining would be another solution)

Thanks,
-Ryan

On Apr 16, 9:54 am, "Charlie Jiang" <cji...@yahoo-inc.com> wrote:
> I think this is the right direction.
>
> -Charlie
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: opensocial-an...@googlegroups.com
> To: opensocial-an...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Thu Apr 16 08:24:40 2009
> Subject: [opensocial-and-gadgets-spec] Re: Remove UserPrefs from OpenSocial
>
> To completely replace user prefs, I believe we will need private app data - app data that is only visible to the user whose data it is.
>
> I'm planning on proposing an extension soon for this, and hopefully we can get a some containers using it well before the 1.0 timeframe so that we can feel comfortable with the full deprecation.
>
> Evan
>

[John Panzer]

Blogger & Google Friend Connect have the same issue for skin parameters (see recent post regarding GFC/Blogger skin parameter values).  We'd like gadgets to be able to declare metadata in their xml regarding what skin values they care about; this is exactlythes ame use case as for UserPrefs, and we could have used UserPrefs, but they seem to be not long for this world based on this thread.  So perhaps a more general pattern for declaring metadata suitable for auto-creating configuration dialogs, based on the UserPrefs metadata format, would be useful. 

--
John Panzer
Technical Manager + Ailurodean Drover
jpa...@google.com / http//abstractioneer.org / @jpanzer

[Paul Lindner]

I think two small changes might make the appdata a more general solution that solves most of these problems.

The first change would be appdata preloading.  Declare which appdata you want and have it directly loaded and usable via template substitution, perhaps substituted server-side.

The second would be appdata namespaces.   No namespace implies 0.9 compatible appdata.  The namespace gadgets/userprefs could encapsulate the userpref values, and gadgets/ui could cover skins and other such data.