Write a collaborative gadget with one line of code

Posted by Jeff Regan, Engineer

We've launched a new feature for iGoogle that allows people to use a gadget collaboratively, similar to Google Docs. Its now possible for multiple instances of a gadget - on the home pages of different users - to access the same user-preference data, the part of the gadget state that is hosted by iGoogle.

We've enabled this for an initial set of existing gadgets where it makes sense - see the post on the Google Blog.

If you think it makes sense for your gadget, just add this line to your the ModulePrefs section of your gadget:



This line tells iGoogle to present a new sharing UI for the gadget, prompting the user to specify friends to share data with and whether the friends should have read-only or write access to the shared data. The UI also offers the user a means to see who they are sharing the gadget with and modify access rights.

Its a simple sharing model - last write wins, and a reload is required to see changes made by others. We look forward to seeing new collaborative gadgets that take advantage of this feature, and we can always make it better - with your feedback.

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Spreadsheet gadgets: free dynamic data for your gadget

Posted by Justin Kosslyn, Google Spreadsheet Team

Want to develop new features for google spreadsheets? Want a dynamic, collaborative data store for gadgets embedded in your site? If you answered “yes” to either question, you’re in luck – spreadsheet gadgets can be embedded directly in spreadsheets or use spreadsheets as dynamic data stores.

For example, here’s a Motion Chart gadget that’s reading data from a spreadsheet. You or a collaborator can add more data to the gadget by modifying the underlying spreadsheet.



Or here's a much simpler example that just integrates Google maps with a simple spreadsheet:



You can extend any existing gadget into a spreadsheet gadget with the Google Visualization API. When your gadgets are ready for prime time, you can submit them to the Gallery and possibly get your gadgets featured on our Gadget picker within the Google Docs spreadsheets editor. So, whether you're just looking for a simple, dynamic database for your gadget, or want to integrate your other web products or services with Google Docs, check out this platform.

For more information, please check out our new developer documentation, Getting Started with Spreadsheet Gadgets.

We’ll also soon be expanding our APIs to allow your gadgets to write data back to an underlying Spreadsheet.

Give us feedback using our Feedback Form, where you can also let us know if you are interested in participating in early testing of the expanded read-write API.

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