OpenSocial 0.6 and Beyond

December 21st, 2007 | Category: Social Networking

Posted by Cassie Doll, Software Engineer

We’re pleased to tell you that the OpenSocial JavaScript API version 0.6 has been defined, which updates the initial OpenSocial release to include what we’ve heard to be the most instant pain points. As per the release notes, the main changes are:

Gadgets can now be container-aware, whether essential, to build tighter integration.
Developers can easily have apps that let users navigate amoung different surface, such as profile and canvas pages.
Tighter permission controls for reading the Viewer object from the datastore as well as an optional end-user prompting mechanism.
Introduced opensocial.makeRequest, which replaces _IG_FetchContent, allows both POST and GET, and includes an option for OAuth signing or authentication
Cleaned up the Activities class: removed the Stream class, removed the summary field, and removed folders (which were deprecated in 0.5 anyway)

We’ve plus put together an overview and specification document, that describes how to comply with and extend OpenSocial, and further explains the background concepts and principles. With that definition in place, the containers are now able to update their sandboxes so application developers can write apps against 0.6. For example, after the holidays, the Orkut sandbox should be updated to 0.6 by mid-January. In the meantime, the in-memory sample container

has already been updated to reflect the 0.6 specification.

Now that 0.6 is out there, we’re looking for feedback on the JavaScript Priority List of functionality that we’re thinking about for OpenSocial 0.7. The goal of that next iteration is to meet the minimum requirements for the initial consumer launches. We’ve listed each proposed change and bucketed them according to the following priority:

1 = Top priority. that will nearly certainly manufacture it into the next iteration (in that case, 0.7).
2 = High Priority. We will do our best to construct that happen in the next iteration.
3 = Medium priority. These are likely candidates for a future iteration, but unlikely for 0.7.
4 = Lower priority. These nearly certainly won’t happen for 0.7, but are still on the radar.

We’d love to take in your feedback on the OpenSocial API group. In specific, please let us know whether there is something you’re counting on for a public launch that isn’t listed as a priority 1 or 2.

P.S. A quick note for those of you who are building apps in the Orkut sandbox, we’ve just published an Orkut-focused developer guide as well, so check it out.