Monday, September 14, 2009

Legacy gadget API deprecation

If you're a gadget developer, you've probably used the gadgets.* API, a re-namespaced and improved version of the original legacy, or _IG_*, gadgets API. The gadgets.* API has gained wide acceptance, both on Google and non-Google gadget containers, and is the standard API for gadget development.

However, there remains a number of gadgets using the legacy API, primarily gadgets developed for iGoogle, and the time to upgrade those gadgets is now. As of today, the legacy gadgets API is officially deprecated. For a period of one year, gadgets using the legacy API will continue to be supported, and function. After that, the legacy API will be turned off for the majority of Google containers (such as iGoogle, orkut, Gmail, and Calendar).

For more specifics on how the deprecation affects iGoogle developers, and details on coming resources to help in the API transition, check out this post on the iGoogle developer blog.

2 comments:

  1. Does it affect Gadget Ads?

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  2. How can you expect people to upgrade their gadgets when iGoogle does not support the gadgets API in their country? Add support for the thing you want people to upgrade to, then maybe think about deprecating the old one.

    For the moment, not only are people in Europe not going to upgrade, but they're likely to continue building gadgets using the legacy API. And clearly if you turn off the legacy API before iGoogle supports the new one, you're not going to get any new gadgets from Europe.

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