I have been engaging in some hindsight about "stubs" this week as I work on the gadget stuff. Soon we will have a Gadget try-it working. But honestly I think this will prove more of a demo than an actual end-user interface. Gadgets seem even more likely to require a custom interface than the services hosted on the mashup server.
In addition, the try-it and now the gadget version of try-it, continue to grow dramatically in complexity of the code. It's no longer reasonable to expect people to generate a try-it, then strip out parts they don't need as they build their own custom UI/gadget. It would be nicer to give them a "stub" to fill in - just as the mashup editor does for custom HTML pages. Right now that "template" isn't available outside the editor, and I for one have regretted not having it to prepopulate my interface even when using notepad. And, it might be nice to be able to add even smarter templates in the future. For instance, one that includes some libraries for displaying common datatypes, like dates (calendar view), structures (tree view, tables). Maybe these templates can actually be self-editing, allowing users to drag things around and remove unnecessary items without actually editing the code. Where can we fit in these 'advanced templates'? So here are a set of artifacts that it would be nice to have in building interfaces: - HTML try-it (javascript, e4x, .) - Gadget try-it (Google, Yahoo, Live, .) (javascript, e4x, .) - HTML template (javascript, e4x, Flash, Silverlight .) - Gadget template (Google, Yahoo, Live, Vista, Apple .) (javascript, e4x, .) - HTML advanced template (javascript, e4x, Flash, Silverlight .) - Gadget advanced template (Google, Yahoo, Live, Vista, Apple .) - Stubs (javascript, e4x, actionscript .) How do we organize and name these things. Currently, we have ?tryit and ?stub, and I'm proposing ?gadget. But what should we call "templates"? Actually, these are more like traditional "stubs." Our stubs are more like traditional "frameworks" or "libraries". And does a try-it deserve a different name if it appears in a gadget? If I were starting today I might organize it thusly: - ?lib & lang=[javascript|e4x|actionscript|.] - ?tryit & flavor=[html|google-gadget|yahoo-widget|vista-gadbet|.] & lang=[javascript|e4x] - ?stub & flavor=[html|google-gadget|yahoo-widget|vista-gadget|.] & lang=[javascript|e4x] - ?ui & flavor=[html|google-gadget|yahoo-widget|vista-gadget|.] But I think we're already down the road with the misuse of "stub". How about - ?stub & lang=[javascript|e4x|actionscript|.] - ?tryit & flavor=[html|google-gadget|yahoo-widget|vista-gadbet|.] & lang=[javascript|e4x] - ?template & flavor=[html|google-gadget|yahoo-widget|vista-gadget|.] & lang=[javascript|e4x] - ?ui & flavor=[html|google-gadget|yahoo-widget|vista-gadget|.] ? Thoughts ? Jonathan Marsh - <http://www.wso2.com> http://www.wso2.com - <http://auburnmarshes.spaces.live.com> http://auburnmarshes.spaces.live.com
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