In Post on 2009-11-15 by Cathie
closeAuthor: Cathie
Name: Cathie Tranent
Site: http://cathiet.blogspot.com/
About: Cathie Tranent (@CathieTranent) would have loved to have been a geek (said with love and respect) except for her amazingly short attention spa... oh look at the pretty birdy! She has offered her services to this blog as the ultimate "bloody end user" and will be presenting her thoughts on Wave and what it has to offer the techalogically challenged as the adventure unfolds.See Authors Posts (2) Tagged: api, fun, gadgets, wave
Now I’m rather pleased that I can get myself around Wave, post links to my photos and generally do all the good stuff.
There are however, people of my acquaintance who are a lot more technologically ‘ept’ (it should be a word, you know — the opposite of inept) and have started mucking about under the bonnet of Wave.
One of these is Dave, and the other day he introduced me to a little gadget he calls 5×5. The object of the game is to totally fill the grid with black squares. Clicking on a square results in that square (and those around it as seen in the initial pattern below) toggling its colour. There is a solution in 14 moves.
DaveP’s 5×5
I’ll hand over to Dave to explain what it is, how it came about, and how it works.
5×5 is a puzzle I first saw as a DOS PC thing back in the late 1980s. I wrote my own version of it back then (just for fun) and, ever since, it’s sort of been my “try a new environment” project. I’ve written versions for DOS, Windows, OS/2, the old Palm Pilot and even for GNU emacs.
Some time back I quickly wrote a HTML/Javascript version so, given that that’s pretty much all a Wave gadget is, I reworked it as a gadget. The main difference with this version is that it’s coded with the state of the game held in the Wave. This means that a) you can always come back to it and it’ll be how you left it and b) everyone who is part of the Wave can see what’s happening and can also make moves.
All you have to do is use the “add a gadget” toolbar button (the one that looks like a green jigsaw) and just input this URL in the dialog that you get: http://serenity.davep.org/5x5/5x5.xml
Hmm — the fun stuff begins!
Oh, and PS … I couldn’t do the puzzle (/grin) not even using Wave’s fabulous “playback” feature!
In Link on 2009-06-13 by Joshua
closeAuthor: Joshua
Name: Joshua Nunn
Site: http://www.joshnunn.com.au
About: Joshua Nunn (@joshnunn) is a tech at a large high school who likes to keep on top of new technology as it emerges. He believes Google Wave is the only technology advancement that has a real chance to supplant email as the dominant form of communication on the web, and so is pretty excited to follow it as it grows.See Authors Posts (78) Tagged: api, embed, extensions
jWave is a jQuery plug-in that you can use to easily embed a Google Wave into your website with the grace and simplicity of jQuery.
jQuery Plugins
This jQuery plugin was one of the first community made additions on the Google Wave API page.
The Google Wave APIs come in two flavors: Embed and Extensions. With Embed, you’re able to bring waves into your own site through a simple JavaScript API. For example, embedding a wave in a webpage is a good way to encourage a discussion among the visitors. With Extensions, you’re able to write programs, which are packaged as Robots or Gadgets, that provide rich functionality inside the Google Wave web client.
Introducing the Google Wave APIs
Posted 2009-06-05 by Joshua
In Post on 2009-06-05 by JoshuacloseAuthor: Joshua
Name: Joshua Nunn
Site: http://www.joshnunn.com.au
About: Joshua Nunn (@joshnunn) is a tech at a large high school who likes to keep on top of new technology as it emerges. He believes Google Wave is the only technology advancement that has a real chance to supplant email as the dominant form of communication on the web, and so is pretty excited to follow it as it grows.See Authors Posts (78) Tagged: api, bots, debate, extensions, gadgets, use case
This is Google Wave as a Platform, one of the “Three Ps” of the Wave. The API gives developers a way to plug in to the Wave product and offer new and interesting ways of using waves. For instance at the preview, a software robot developed using the API could be added to a conversation to translate your waves in real-time into other languages.
I’ll be covering more of the ways the API can be used in later posts, but for now I’ll say it’s powerful way to make an already compelling product even more useful.
Google wants developers creating value to add to their product on day one. Hopefully someone enterprising will use the API to bridge the gap between email and waves unless Google does it first.
aves
