July 2009 Archives

I really enjoy using Firebug to debug my web applications. Nothing like being able to inspect items on the page, log debug information to the console, and execute arbitrary Javascript on the page to test out a quick fix.

When working with OpenSocial gadgets, I usually find myself using Firebug to inspect an IFrame to get the URL of the gadget spec that is being loaded. While Firebug gives me access to this data, it's a little hard to get to, and I need to decode the URL before I can paste it into a browser. So to help with this, I created a Firebug extension which scans the current page to see if any OpenSocial gadgets have been loaded. If the extension finds any gadgets, it attempts to discover the XML spec URLs for all the gadgets on the page and lists these as links which will go directly to the gadget XML spec. (Note that this feature works for Shindig based websites, but will not work on MySpace).

Additionally, I wanted to be able to execute JavaScript code inside of the gadget IFrame (and not the container page, which Firebug lets you do normally). This kind of functionality really help debug gadgets, because you can test out JavaScript without needing to save and upload an XML file again (or even reload the page!). So I added a box below each XML spec URL which will let you execute any JavaScript you want, in the context of the gadget's IFrame.

You can find the extension on addons.mozilla.org here. Please leave a review on that site if you wind up using it!

OpenSocial has been tied to the OAuth specification almost from the start, but it can be pretty confusing to try and figure out the differences between two-legged OAuth, three-legged OAuth, and OAuth request signing -- terms which are all thrown around pretty casually in the OpenSocial documentation.

To help make sense of it all, I've updated the OAuth Use Cases page on the OpenSocial wiki. You'll find additional diagrams and clearer request flows showing how data can be transferred between social networks, users, and third party application servers. Additionally, there are hypothetical examples showing where each type of OAuth comes in handy, as well as some links to container-specific resources for obtaining OAuth keys for your applications.