Building OpenSocial apps: a field guide to working with the MySpace platform PDF
Preview Building OpenSocial apps: a field guide to working with the MySpace platform
Building OpenSocial Apps Developer’s Library Series Visit developers-library.com for a complete list of available products The Developer’s Library Series from Addison-Wesley provides practicing programmers with unique, high-quality references and tutorials on the latest programming languages and technologies they use in their daily work. All books in the Developer’s Library are written by expert technology practitioners who are exceptionally skilled at organizing and presenting information in a way that’s useful for other programmers. Developer’s Library books cover a wide range of topics, from open- source programming languages and databases, Linux programming, Microsoft, and Java, to Web development, social networking platforms, Mac/iPhone programming, and Android programming. Building OpenSocial Apps A Field Guide to Working with the MySpace Platform Chris Cole Chad Russell Jessica Whyte Upper Saddle River, NJ • Boston • Indianapolis • San Francisco New York • Toronto • Montreal • London • Munich • Paris • Madrid Capetown • Sydney • Tokyo • Singapore • Mexico City Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products Editor-in-Chief are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book,and the Mark L. Taub publisher was aware of a trademark claim,the designations have been printed with initial Acquisitions Editor capital letters or in all capitals. Trina MacDonald The screenshots and other depictions of myspace.com contained in this book may not Development accurately represent myspace.com as it exists today or in the future,including without Editor limitation with respect to any policies,technical specs or product design. Songlin Qiu The authors and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this book,but make no Managing Editor expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or John Fuller omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection Full-Service with or arising out of the use of the information or programs contained herein. Production The publisher offers excellent discounts on this book when ordered in quantity for bulk Manager purchases or special sales,which may include electronic versions and/or custom covers Julie B. Nahil and content particular to your business,training goals,marketing focus,and branding Project interests. For more information,please contact: Management diacriTech LLC U.S. Corporate and Government Sales (800) 382-3419 Copy Editor [email protected] Barbara Wood For sales outside the United States,please contact: Indexer Jack Lewis International Sales Proofreader [email protected] George Seki Visit us on the Web: informit.com/aw Technical Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reviewers Cassie Doll Cole,Chris,1974- Bess Ho Building OpenSocial apps : a field guide to working with the Benjamin Schupak MySpace platform/Chris Cole,Chad Russell,Jessica Whyte. Book Designer p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Gary Adair ISBN-13: 978-0-321-61906-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) Compositor ISBN-10: 0-321-61906-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) diacriTech LLC 1. Entertainment computing. 2. Internet programming.3. MySpace.com. 4. OpenSocial. 5. Web site development. 6. Social networks—Computer network resources. 7. Application program interfaces (Computer software) I. Russell,Chad. II. Whyte,Jessica. III. Title. QA76.9.E57C65 2010 006.7'54—dc22 2009032342 Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education,Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright,and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction,storage in a retrieval system,or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,or likewise. For information regarding permissions,write to: Pearson Education,Inc Rights and Contracts Department 501 Boylston Street,Suite 900 Boston,MA 02116 Fax: (617) 671-3447 ISBN-13: 978-0-321-61906-8 ISBN-10: 0-321-61906-4 Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at RR Donnelley in Crawfordsville,Indiana. First printing,October 2009 ❖ This book is dedicated to my ever-suffering wife,Kristen,and our two crazy and wonderful children,Darien and Reece.Thanks for working overtime with the kids,baby . —Chris Cole To the reader,we hope this book serves you well. —Chad Russell and Jessica Whyte ❖ Contents at a Glance Contents viii Foreword xvi Acknowledgments xviii About the Authors xix Introduction xxi I: Building Your First MySpace Application 1 Your First MySpace App 3 2 Getting Basic MySpace Data 9 3 Getting Additional MySpace Data 29 4 Persisting Information 47 5 Communication and Viral Features 67 6 Mashups and External Server Communications 91 7 Flushing and Fleshing: Expanding Your App and Person-to-Person Game Play 117 II: Other Ways to Build Apps 8 OAuth and Phoning Home 153 9 External Iframe Apps 177 10 OSML,Gadgets,and the Data Pipeline 213 11 Advanced OSML: Templates,Internationalization, and View Navigation 239 III: Growth and How to Deal with It 12 App Life Cycle 265 13 Performance,Scaling,and Security 283 Contents at a Glance vviiii 14 Marketing and Monetizing 305 15 Porting Your App to OpenSocial 0.9 329 References 351 Index 355 Contents Foreword xvi Acknowledgments xviii About the Authors xix Introduction xxi I: Building Your First MySpace Application 1 Your First MySpace App 3 Creating the App—“Hello World” 3 Step 1: Sign Up for a Developer Account 3 Step 2: Create an App 4 Step 3: Enter Your Source Code 4 Installing and Running Your App 7 Summary 7 2 Getting Basic MySpace Data 9 The Two Concepts That Every Developer Should Know 9 Basic Concepts: Owner and Viewer 9 Basic Concepts: Permissions for Accessing MySpace Data 10 Starting Our Tic-Tac-Toe App 10 Accessing MySpace User Data 11 Accessing Profile Information Using the opensocial.Person Object 15 Getting More than Just the Default Profile Data 18 opensocial.DataResponse and opensocial. ResponseItem (aka,Using MySpace User Data) 19 Error Handling 24 Summary 27 3 Getting Additional MySpace Data 29 How to Fetch a Friend List and Make Use of the Data 29 Getting the Friend List 30 Filters and Sorts 31 Contents ix Paging 32 Using the Data 37 Fetching Media 39 Photos 39 Albums and Videos 41 Using opensocial.requestPermission and opensocial.hasPermission to Check a User’s Permission Settings 43 Summary 45 4 Persisting Information 47 App Data Store 47 Saving and Retrieving Data 48 Refactoring to Build a Local App Data Store 51 Cookies 56 Why You Shouldn’t Use Cookies 57 Building the Cookie Jacker App 59 Third-Party Database Storage 64 Summary 65 5 Communication and Viral Features 67 Using opensocial.requestShareApp to Spread Your App to Other Users 67 Defining requestShareApp 70 Writing the requestShareApp Code 71 Calling requestShareApp 72 The requestShareApp Callback 72 Using opensocial.requestSendMessage to Send Messages and Communications 74 Defining requestSendMessage 75 Writing the requestSendMessage Code 76 Callback in requestSendMessage 78 Getting Your App Listed on the Friend Updates with opensocial.requestCreateActivity Basics 79 Defining opensocial.requestCreateActivity 79 Using the Template System to Create Activities 80 Data Types 80 Reserved Variable Names 81 Aggregation 82
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