Mission: Possible - Building a Google Gadget

(My Original Blog Post: -*http://api-madness.com/post/mission-possible-building-a-google-gadget/)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwXMa8MAgFA[/youtube]

Attention! API Garbage (might be unreadable):

gadget feed Google

Him and him and him and him your mission should you choose there is builder will go to him now is fully customizable unfairly removed a few years reviewing and Google judges continue to thrive whether sports scores or pulled from YouTube to gather information from around the Internet in this way for your convenient way to buy many of the God I will direct you tell us look at how you build the gadget will thought was a full version to get more complex to go this gadget fetches and displays multiple RSS feeds from all over the web that uses multiple API features and is highly configurable but selected basic parameters so you really like R&B music in my den customizes gadget to pull together the latest R&B music additions on YouTube Amazon and iTunes as well as pull the latest entries from your favorite music blog you read a separate type for each feed you should start small by making a simple gadget XML that just has the basics you can make the gadget more complex as you go to cohere the terms of title and had the gadget now you need to add tabs to the gadget I d require Fiji equals out to the gadget XML which enables the use of the EPR type library you will generate unique content for each tab in the callback function now you have the basic gadget show with four times the next step is to pull in RSS or atom feed for each tab you ll define the default value for each URL feed that will be loaded but you ll add user press so that users can configure their own data when the user gadget from the data you can display different types of information about the feed such as its name is blaming description feed entries and summaries once you have completed this step users will be able to change it could feed URLs next within your gadget you should perform the fetch we have an API method called Eiji fetch feed as Jason on this is using far-fetched to the feed and return it is on response back to callback function that you define within the callback usage is on object to read the feed the second parameter is where you specify the callback function that their parameter defines the number of entries you want to fetch the fourth parameter is a simple true false depending on whether you want to include summaries for each entry dislodged code snippet shows the callback function that generates the HTML based on the chase on data that is returned let s see what the gadget looks like now now the gadget is able to execute the basic functions you set forth to perform how can you improve its appearance and performance first to be responsible for formatting the UI of the gadget you can add CSS rules to stylize the output for the gadget but keep in mind some key points about UI design gadgets should be as compact as possible real estate on our Google is limited you can keep God as compact by using single borderlines decreasing margins and apply formatting to times such a smaller font size take another look at the gadget to see what difference the CSS rules have made since the amount of information from your feeds will change often you can combat the changing need for space this creates the dynamic type feature this feature will automatically resize your gadget so that it will best fit the amount of information coming from your feeds it will prevent your gadget from taking up unnecessary space you can also add the analytics feature a single function call to Eiji analytics all you need is a Google analytics account which is completely free passenger Google Alex ID as the first parameter for the second parameter to identify unique paths specific to your gadget this function will report a page you hit back your account and let you know how many hits are coming from your gadget now you can put the final touches on the gadget the more customizable it is the better when deciding what s out just keep in mind the features you would like to have if you are using this gadget for instance you might want the ability to change the titles tab labels and number of feed entries to display here are a few coats of this that show what s required to make the gadget title and Titles customizable the last customizable feature you can add is to allow the user to specify how many feed entries the gadget should accept before the code as specified there be 3 feet entries you could also define a drop-down menu for the feeds we replace the hardcoded part of the number of entries with Vista user prof deny you build your gadget the last step is to put your gadget in action how to get it in the gadget directory submit your gadget to our Google in order to be able to submit this gadget you need to add some metadata about your gadget this information is what will be used to help make your gadget more searchable and I Google s directory remember users will have thousands of gadgets to choose from in the gadget directory so you must attract the user to your gadget when they are browsing some key ways to do so are two find a catchy title for your gadget make it short and descriptive users should be able to know exactly what you gadget goes by the title design attractive thumbnail and screenshot images are important as this may be the only thing that attracts the user to your gadget make a thumbnail standout and current users click on it once is listed on the I Google directory get to work on promoting your gadget on your website you can add the ads Google button there s also a shared gadget feature on my Google which lets you send it to your friends if you have questions about the gadgets API is a public discussion group that we encourage you to become involved in members of my team moderate this group can answer questions as they come up there are more than 3500 members in this and it s a great resource is often referred to as the