Announcing 'OpenlySociable Micro' - an OpenSocial Widget Ruby Microframework

Posted by on November 9th, 2007.

What is it?:

‘OpenlySociable Micro’ is a clean, simple and concise way of writing OpenSocial widgets. It uses the Camping microframework and Mongrel to allow developers to write self-contained widgets for OpenSocial-enabled websites with none of the overhead of a full-blown Rails application.

Openly Sociable Micro Logo

Example:

Here is an example of an OpenlySociable Micro app, which implements the ‘Friend List’ app from the OpenSocial documentation site:

require 'openly_sociable_micro'

OpenSocial.make_app :ListFriends

module ListFriends::Controllers
  class Index < R '/'
    def get
      @title = "Friend List" 
      render :index
    end
  end
end

module ListFriends::Views
  def index
    javascript :friends
    div(:id => "message")
  end
end

OpenSocial.start_mongrel :ListFriends, :port => 3301, :root => "/"

Here the ‘javascript :friends’ refers to a friends.js widget-specific javascript file that lives in the same directory. OpenlySociable Micro uses the Builder XML library to wrap a view action’s results into an XML format served by Mongrel. This format is the Google Gadget format, which OpenSocial containers like Orkut and Ning recognize and display.

Getting Started:

  • Install the gem as described below
  • Read through the Camping mini-app
  • Look through the examples found here
  • Write your first widget!

Installation:

OpenlySociable Micro can be found here: http://svn.intridea.com/svn/public/openly_sociable/micro/

You can also install the gem by downloading it and running: 
gem install openly_sociable_micro-0.0.1.gem
in your download path.

Plans to integrate OpenlySociable Micro into Rubyforge are underway. For now there is a trac setup here here .What is it?:

‘OpenlySociable Micro’ is a clean, simple and concise way of writing OpenSocial widgets. It uses the Camping microframework and Mongrel to allow developers to write self-contained widgets for OpenSocial-enabled websites with none of the overhead of a full-blown Rails application.

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1 Response to “Announcing 'OpenlySociable Micro' - an OpenSocial Widget Ruby Microframework”

  1. Taylor Singletary February 7th, 2008 at 10:03 AM

    This looks great! The simplicity and purity of this approach really appeals to my sensibilities. Thanks for sharing.

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