Google Wave Gadgets

Google Wave Gadgets are add-ons, snippets of code that complement certain types of conversations. Gadgets belong to the wave itself, rather than the user¹. This has a huge effect on what a wave has access to and what a wave can be used for. This difference means any wave has complete access to user profiles and user settings for all participants in the conversation.

Example Wave Gadgets

Gadgets at their basic level are XML files that contain configurable settings by the author, including the content to be displayed. All html for the gadget is coded into this xml file, in fact, the placeholder within the xml file for the content can be considered very similar to the tag within a normal web page. All interaction between users within the wave and the gadget is coded using JavaScript within this placeholder. Gadgets can reference external files, as long as they are publicly available and not behind firewalls or other forms of protection that stop public access.

Gadgets have one important behaviour, and that is, all users share the same gadget and therefore share the same settings during the conversation.

Gadgets can be used to tailor how a wave looks and what options are available within the conversation.

The following "Hello World" example shows the fundamentals necessary to create a gadget. This Google Wave Gadget code is available here. To see a full list of code examples.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
 <Module>
   <ModulePrefs title="Hello World!">
     <Require feature="opensocial-0.8" />
   </ModulePrefs>
   <Content type="html">
     <![CDATA[
       Hello World!
     ]]>
   </Content>
 </Module>

This code example references wiki.opensocial.org Opens in a new window

Specifying custom settings

Google Wave, or more specifically Google Wave Gadgets supports JSON Opens a new window for user preference settings.

What you need to run this 'Hello World' example

If you want to test this simple 'Hello World' example, or write your own gadgets you need to setup the following prerequisites:

A Text Editor
Web Hosting
An Orkut account
Access to the Orkut sandbox

If you don't have access to web hosting you can start by hosting your open source code on Google, available at http://code.google.com/p Opens in a new window . Failing that, you can also host your Google Gadgets on http://pages.google.com .

References

http://code.google.com/apis/wave/extensions/gadgets/guide.html#intro

To link to this page, titled Google Wave Gadgets please use the following html.

Last updated: 03 June, 2009

Disclaimer

This material strongly references the Googlewave conference available at wave.google.com and other, publicly available resources on the Internet.

Comments on Google Wave Gadgets

Benjamin 14, December 2009

We have release the Nimbb Gadget, which allows to quickly record a video using a webcam and share it with all participants. Great to share thoughts easily. Gadget URL: http://service.nimbb.com/GoogleWave/Nimbb.xml Screencast: http://www.screencast.com/users/kblade/folders/Jing/media/fa115b6d-87ef-46f4-b891-e65da77a8460 More information: http://nimbb.com/Tools/GoogleWave/ I hope you will enjoy recording videos in your waves!