FIG - Feature Inspector Gadget

[Nenad V. Nikolic]

Recently I had an idea to write a gadget that inspects which gadget
features are available in all those gadget/OpenSocial containers
cropping up. Apart from all the OpenSocial-compliant social networks,
there're also gadget containers like iGoogle, GMail and - Google Wave.

I thought this is going to be a snap thanks to gadgets.util.hasFeature
(featureName) method.
Alas, I've quickly found out that according to hasFeature method any
feature is supported as long it is declared as required or optional
feature.

Then my colleague and I decided to write the aforementioned gadget
anyway, only by inspecting whether the JavaScript objects
corresponding to every feature are present or not.

The result of this work Feature Inspector Gadget a.k.a. FIG and the
latest version can be found here:
http://shonzilla.com/gadgets/fig.xml

To make things useful for wider audience, we've added links to
documentation and tutorial pages. That way, FIG might be also used as
a table of contents for all the relevant documentation for all the
features that FIG supports.

You're welcome to try it out in your gadget or OpenSocial container of
choice. Several containers are already supported but surely there are
more containers and their custom features that need to be supported by
FIG as well.
If there's a feature supported by a container and it's not in the list
shown by FIG - change the code yourself or let me know if you're too
lazy (boo!).
FIG project is hosted at: http://github.com/xing/feature-inspector-gadget
so if you want it - you can fork it.

Enjoy!

Cheers!
Nenad

p.s. Shortly before posting this, I've checked and found that there's
an issue for hasFeature bug: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SHINDIG-803

[Lane LiaBraaten]

Cool app Nenad!  Do you have plans to provide more granularity, like showing which methods or fields are supported?

One suggestion:  The links to documentation should point to resources on wiki.opensocial.org or www.opensocial.org/specs whenever possible.  Most of the content on code.google.com/apis/opensocial is out of date.

Cheers,

Lane

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OpenSocial and Gadgets Specification Discussion" group.
To post to this group, send email to opensocial-an...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to opensocial-and-gadg...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec?hl=en.

[goosemanjack]

Great to see someone taking the initiative on this. This already
flagged a couple errors for us.

I put together a wiki page with pointers to this so it isn't lost in
the discussion threads:
http://wiki.opensocial.org/index.php?title=Compliance_Test_Gadgets
--
clc

On Dec 29, 10:15 am, Lane LiaBraaten <lliab...@google.com> wrote:
> Cool app Nenad!  Do you have plans to provide more granularity, like showing
> which methods or fields are supported?
>
> One suggestion:  The links to documentation should point to resources on

> wiki.opensocial.org orwww.opensocial.org/specswhenever possible.  Most of

> the content on code.google.com/apis/opensocial is out of date.
>
> Cheers,
> Lane
>

> > opensocial-and-gadg...@googlegroups.com<opensocial-and-gadgets-spec%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

[Nenad V. Nikolic]

Glad you like it, Lane.

Inspecting available methods would be a nice addition, making FIG even
more useful to gadget developers.
I guess more granularity during inspection would get more people to
use it more frequently, so your suggestion goes into the TODO list.
You mentioned fields as well. How would one detect them?

Re documentation/tutorial links, I'll update the documentation links
in the next release of FIG.

Cheers!
Nenad

On Dec 29 2009, 7:15 pm, Lane LiaBraaten <lliab...@google.com> wrote:
> Cool app Nenad!  Do you have plans to provide more granularity, like showing
> which methods or fields are supported?
>
> One suggestion:  The links to documentation should point to resources on

> wiki.opensocial.org orwww.opensocial.org/specswhenever possible.  Most of

> the content on code.google.com/apis/opensocial is out of date.
>
> Cheers,
> Lane
>

> > opensocial-and-gadg...@googlegroups.com<opensocial-and-gad gets-spec%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

[Nenad V. Nikolic]

Good to hear that, goosmanjack.

Let me know if you have ideas on how FIG could be improved and made
more usable for gadget and container developers alike.

I've created a Custom Search Engine aggregating "all" OpenSocial
resources. It's available at http://j.mp/cse-opensocial
Perhaps it could be embedded within FIG, so that any info about
OpenSocial (and Google Gadgets) that's not linked directly could be
found.

Cheers!
Nenad

On Dec 30 2009, 6:47 pm, goosemanjack <cc...@myspace.com> wrote:
> Great to see someone taking the initiative on this.  This already
> flagged a couple errors for us.
>
> I put together a wiki page with pointers to this so it isn't lost in
> the discussion threads:http://wiki.opensocial.org/index.php?title=Compliance_Test_Gadgets
> --
> clc
>
> On Dec 29, 10:15 am, Lane LiaBraaten <lliab...@google.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Cool app Nenad!  Do you have plans to provide more granularity, like showing
> > which methods or fields are supported?
>
> > One suggestion:  The links to documentation should point to resources on

> > wiki.opensocial.org orwww.opensocial.org/specswheneverpossible.  Most of