- From: Marcos Caceres <marcosscaceres@gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:30:36 +0000
- To: Scott Wilson <scott.bradley.wilson@gmail.com>
- Cc: Stéphane S. <stephane.sire@epfl.ch>, public-webapps@w3.org
Hi Scott, On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Scott Wilson <scott.bradley.wilson@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Marcos, > > A widget engine, in our use of the term, is a server-side web application > that publishes widgets and implements the Widget API as a web service > accessible via AJAX. As it stands all browsers will block any cross-domain > Javascript requests, and this will apply in all cases where a Widget is > making use of an external web API (e.g., a weather API, or external RSS > feed). The only other options are: > > (1) always use JSONP calls instead of regular AJAX - but this requires > changes at the service endpoint to support JSONP, which isn't really the > widget ethos, which is about exposing web services in new ways without > redesigning the services themselves > (2) constrain widgets to only invoke web services from within the same > domain that hosts the widget - but this is extremely limiting, and couples > the widget engine host to the web API host. > (3) have widgets invoke external requests via a server-side proxy offered in > the same domain as the widget engine that is serving the widget > > If the W3 work on access policy - for allowing read-only AJAX requests - > gets built into browsers, then the requirement for server-side proxies for > web widgets may be less in the future, as most widgets only make GET > requests to external web services. > > Note that Google also implements a server-side proxy for Gadgets to access > external content, with the method "_IG_FetchContent(url, callbackFunc)", > which is similar to the Palette approach. Ok, I see where you are coming from now. Our definition of widget is different. Please see the Differences from Web Widgets section in the Widgets Landscape document [1]. Our intention is to allow the interactions you describe to occur on the client side without requiring assistance from the server side. Kind regards, Marcos [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets-land/#differences -- Marcos Caceres http://datadriven.com.au
Received on Wednesday, 28 January 2009 13:31:19 UTC