Making a MyProxy Gadget

In an earlier post we looked at a simple example that described how to build a Web interface to MyProxy with the Cyberaide JavaScript API. Now we will turn it into a gadget. This is straightforward, and you can easily test it out with iGoogle, Apache Shindig, or Google Code's wiki. We can reuse most of the previous example, so we will only discuss changes below.

Step 0: Wrap the HTML and JavaScript in the CDATA section of a new file, MyProxyGadget.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Module>
<ModulePrefs title="MyProxy Gadget"
height="500">
</ModulePrefs>

<Content type="html">
<![CDATA[

Actual code goes here

]]>
</Content>
</Module>

It is also possible to use an iFrame for simplicity. The iframe can be embedded in the CDATA section and point to the HTML file's URL, or you can use a "url" gadget. In this case, change Content's type attribute value from "html" to "url" and provide the URL for the HTML code you want to embed.

Step 1: You will need to use full paths to all imported JavaScript libraries, images, and so on. Relative paths will not work. So for example, you import the CogKit2.js library like so:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://my.host.com/grid/CogKit2.js"></script>

where my.host.com should be replaced with your Cyberaide deployment server. Note this also applies to the Cyberaide agent server URL. This must be changed from

var url="../agent/services/agent";

to

var url="https://my.host.com/agent/services/agent";

Step 2: You will need to use a modified SOAP JavaScript library, soapclientGadget.js. This replaces soapclient24NSMod.js. This is our modification. The library is available from our SVN repository.

Step 3: Load your gadget in your favorite gadget container. To use iGoogle, create an account and log in if necessary and then click the "Add Stuff" link in the upper right. Assuming you haven't published your gadget yet, click the "Add feed or gadget" link in the lower left side of the page. Type in the full URL to your gadget and submit. That's it.