Re: [widgets]

On 24 May 2011, at 15:17, Marcos Caceres wrote:

> On 5/23/11 10:18 AM, Scott Wilson wrote:
>> Within the education vertical, the IMS consortium created a basic "launch" protocol for widget-like applications including user information and custom parameters [1] and we created a shim for using it with Apache Wookie [2]. So certainly a tractable area; If anything the IMS spec could work with far fewer parameters.
> 
> agreed. Looks IMS looks far too complicated.
> 
> In most cases, all you want is:
> 
> $ engine -x y -z 123 some.wgt
> 
> Or
> 
> http://xxx/some.wgt?x=y&z=123


In Wookie its:

POST /widgetinstances 
	widgetid=somewidgetIRI
	apikey=myapikey
	userid=scott
	shareddatakey=mypage
	locale=en 

... which creates an instance and returns the instance URL and metadata for rendering.

We also have another resource endpoint for setting preferences:

POST /properties
	instance id
	propertyname
	propertyvalue

So this would support the use case, but in two API calls rather than a single POST.

(see: http://incubator.apache.org/wookie/wookie-rest-api.html)

> 
>> That said I don't think it would be difficult to construct a simple launch process for the STB that mapped parameters like programme/channel context information onto one of Preferences or Feature Parameters.
>> 
>> [1] http://www.imsglobal.org/lti/blti/bltiv1p0/ltiBLTIimgv1p0.html
>> [2] http://code.google.com/p/basiclti4wookie/
>> 
>> On 23 May 2011, at 00:51, Doug Schepers wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi, Richard-
>>> 
>>> Depending on your timeline, this could be a v2 feature...
>>> 
>>> Any interest in following that up?
>>> 
>>> Regards-
>>> -Doug
>>> 
>>> Marcos Caceres wrote (on 5/20/11 3:47 PM):
>>>> On 5/20/11 5:19 PM, Richard Felton wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hopefully this is the right place to ask this question.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'm looking at the possibility of using W3C widgets as a web-app
>>>>> mechanism on an IP connected set-top box. I've had a look through the
>>>>> specifications available and I can't see a way to pass launch parameters
>>>>> to a widget. Is this possible or has it been ruled out for good reason?
>>>>> 
>>>>> For example, if I want to write a branded media player application (in a
>>>>> widget) it'd be useful if I could allow the set-top box user interface
>>>>> to pass the identifier of the programme to be played into the widget.
>>>>> Effectively I'm looking for a way for a widget to specify something
>>>>> similar to command line options so that the launching entity can control
>>>>> the state the widget starts up in.
>>>> 
>>>> There is no standardized means to do this today, I'm afraid. However,
>>>> you could either pre-generate the widget to contain such information, or
>>>> acquire it from from the set top box through a http request. Another
>>>> means might be to create a proprietary<feature>:
>>>> 
>>>> <widget ...>
>>>> <feature name="tv:startup">
>>>> <param name="custom_config" value="{'a': 'b', 'c': 'd'}">
>>>> <feature>
>>>> </widget>
>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 24 May 2011 19:30:51 UTC