Developing for LinkedIn's Application Platform

Building OpenSocial Applications for LinkedIn’s Application Platform

Orientation

What is OpenSocial? “OpenSocial deﬁnes a common API for social applications across multiple websites. Built from standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps with OpenSocial that access a social network's friends and update feeds. By using a common API, developers can extend the reach of their applications more quickly, yielding more functionality for users.”

What can applications do? Encourage communication & collaboration between members

What can applications do? Allow members to be more expressive in how they present their professional identities

What can applications do? Provide novel functionality that leverages a member’s LinkedIn Network in a moment of need

Vocabulary

They’re not widgets

Or Gidgets...

They’re Gadgets!

And a Gadget is really just a mask for something greater...

OpenSocial Gadgets are just one face of an Application Website REST OpenSocial

Meet the Actors The VIEWER Always the Member currently viewing the gadget.

Meet the Actors The OWNER The member who owns the proﬁle being looked at. Sometimes also the owner of a canvas page.

Meet the Container A Container is a Social Network that provides an environment for OpenSocial Javascript and REST calls, “views” for gadgets to surface on, and underlying Social Data.

Meet the Views Home Page • Primary point of entry for members • Owner & Viewer are always the same • Content should be focused on the Member’s interaction with the application

Meet the Views Profile Page • Owner is the person who owns the profile • Information displayed is seen by all who visit the profile • Content should be focused on what the member does with the application

Meet the Views Canvas Page • Serves many purposes & contexts for an application • Owner & Viewer might not be the same. Owner is determined by how it was navigated to. • Content can be anything related to the application

Let’s get Technical.

Dig the new Science! • Technologies Involved • Accessible Social Data • Viral Features (Messaging, Network Updates) • Iterative Hello, World! Example

Technologies • Javascript (for Controller,View, and Model logic) • JSON (for Social Data in gadget or using in OpenSocial REST APIs) • XML (for Gadget Spec, optional REST) • HTML (for your View layer) • REST (for interacting with your server or using OpenSocial REST APIs)

Social Data • Person • friends (connections) • id • name ( givenName, familyName, unstructured ) • thumbnailUrl • aboutMe • currentLocation ( unstructured ) • jobs ( title, name, description, ﬁeld, startDate, endDate,) • schools ( name, startDate, endDate ) • urls • linkedin-ext ( require the feature in your gadget spec ) • numConnections • distance For more detail on ﬁelds available: http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/docs/0.8/reference/#opensocial.Person

the Gadget Spec Deﬁnes an Application This is all ceremony.

Virality Connection Messaging requestSendMessage() / requestShareApp() On LinkedIn, messages can be sent to 1st degree connections using this function. User will be diverted to standard message sending ﬂow. The Javascript callback will never be called. Network Updates requestCreateActivity() Creates a Network Update on behalf of the Viewer of the application. Updates should be contextual based on a user action. Good: “Taylor is reading In Watermelon Sugar.” Bad: “Taylor just installed this lame application.”

Let’s Begin. • Start with Hello, World! • Sprinkle some Social Data • Support some Views • Phone Home to your Server • Celebrate!

Hello, world! <?xml version=quot;1.0quot; encoding=quot;utf-8quot; ?> <Module> <ModulePrefs title=quot;Hello World!quot;> <Require feature=quot;opensocial-0.8quot; /> </ModulePrefs> <Content type=quot;htmlquot;> <![CDATA[ Hello, world! ]]> </Content> </Module>

Hello, world! <?xml version=quot;1.0quot; encoding=quot;utf-8quot; ?> <Module> <ModulePrefs title=quot;Hello World!quot;> <Require feature=quot;opensocial-0.8quot; /> </ModulePrefs> <Content type=quot;htmlquot;> <![CDATA[ I’m a silly joke, Hello, world! executed poorly. Still, I’d like to help ]]> you write your gadget spec! </Content> </Module>

Hello, world! <?xml version=quot;1.0quot; encoding=quot;utf-8quot; ?> <Module> <ModulePrefs title=quot;Hello World!quot;> <Require feature=quot;opensocial-0.8quot; /> </ModulePrefs> <Content type=quot;htmlquot;> <![CDATA[ Hello, world! ]]> </Content> </Module>

Hello, world! <?xml version=quot;1.0quot; encoding=quot;utf-8quot; ?> Add OpenSocial features <Module> <ModulePrefs title=quot;Hello World!quot;> <Require feature=quot;opensocial-0.8quot; /> </ModulePrefs> <Content type=quot;htmlquot;> Prepare View Content <![CDATA[ Hello, world! ]]> </Content> </Module>

Hello, world! From gadget metadata From your <Content> block

Adding Social Data 1. Setup a new DataRequest object 2. Add a new fetchPerson request for Actors you need data for, fetchPeople requests for collections like friends, arrays of member ids... 3. Execute the request with request.send, specifying a callback that will act on the data

Adding Social Data

Do something in your callback...

Tell the container to execute this on load... This is like body onLoad in normal HTML

And something like this will be your result.

Functions to Know Get a View Object var view = new gadgets.views.View(quot;viewName”); viewName in this case would be one of our supported views: canvas, proﬁle, home You need a view object to request navigation to it. Navigate Between Views gadgets.views.requestNavigateTo(view, optionalParameters) This initiates a transition from one view to another. • You can’t specify an Owner or Viewer in this context. It carries over from the last. • You use this function in an onClick event for a link • optionalParameters are JSON-format parameters to be passed only to a Canvas page. How to get these parameters on the next page will be detailed on the next slide

Functions to Know Receive URL Parameters gadgets.views.getParams() Parameters sent via requestNavigateTo (or provided by other means of generating a canvas URL) are accessible through this function in JSON Hash format. Adjust View Height gadgets.window.adjustHeight() Adjusts the height of your gadget frame, while trying to auto-magically guess how much space you need, within the conﬁnes of the allowed height. Not always accurate. • You can specify an integer representing the exact pixel height to extend to.

Add Support for Views to Your Gadget First to ModulePrefs

Add Support for Views to Your Gadget Then Change Your Content Blocks (You set the view for the block here)

Navigation Set up params to pass to canvas Inspect the params on the canvas

Navigation Your link will carry your params... gadgets.views.requestNavigateTo And you receive them here! gadgets.views.getParams()

How to Phone Home

How to Phone Home Use gadgets.io.makeRequest() Inbound to your server, you’ll receive these parameters: opensocial_owner_id opensocial_viewer_id opensocial_app_id opensocial_app_url In addition, you’ll receive an OAuth signature for parameter validation. Implementation depends on your server-side language and is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

How to Phone Home Processing the Callback • If your content type in the response is HTML, your response variable would be a string with that HTML. • If your content type in the response is JSON, it will automatically be destringiﬁed into a JSON object.

Celebrate!

What now?! You’ve got a lot of reading to do! http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/docs/0.8/reference/

http://realitytechnicians.com	156
http://www.slideshare.net	65
http://niladrisprogrammingtipsandtricks.blogspot.com	13
http://developer.linkedin.com	7
http://localhost:3000	2
http://neeruwas.cambridge.ibm.com:9080	1

Developing for LinkedIn's Application Platform

by Taylor Singletary on Oct 28, 2008

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Developing for LinkedIn’s Application Platform — Presentation Transcript