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Use appcfg.py to upload applications 404 Not Found

by G-Apps | Sun, 05/31/2009 - 12:25

The Dashboard in Google App Engine advises:

Use appcfg.py to upload applications from your computer to Google App Engine

The URL it directs you to: http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/appcfgpy.html which returns a 404 Not Found

Use http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/uploadinganapp.html instead

Integrate and Extend with Google Apps Administrative APIs

by G-Apps | Thu, 05/28/2009 - 17:02
  Google Apps
Standard Edition		 Google Apps
Premier Edition		 Google Apps
Education Edition*
Provisioning API  
Reporting API  
Email Migration API  
Email Settings API  
Single Sign-On service  
Email gateway interface  
Shared Contacts Data API  
Contacts Data API
Calendar Data API
Documents List Data API
Spreadsheets Data API
2-legged OAuth Google Data access  
Gmail Atom feed

 

Management APIs

Google Apps and its APIs open up a wide variety of new opportunities to integrate and extend Google's communication and collaboration services. Domain adminstrators can use the APIs manage their domains, as well as migrate from and integrate with existing IT infrastructure. During adoption of Google Apps, the following APIs can be leveraged to migrate data from systems currently in use and to maintain stability in business processes through deep system integration.

Single Sign-On Service

This service interface allows you to plug in your own identity provider to authenticate users who are trying to access Google Apps services. By implementing the interface you retain ownership and management of user credentials and avoid requiring users to remember yet another password. It's based on the SAML v2.0 Standard XML-based framework for communicating user authentication information between business entities. The single sign-on service is only available in Google Apps Premier, Education and Partner Editions.

Reporting API

The Reporting API allows you to monitor the overall usage and utilization of Google Apps within your domain. Using this API, you can download a variety of CSV formatted reports about activity, storage, status, and more. This API is only available in Google Apps Premier, Education and Partner Editions.

Reporting Visualization API

The Reporting Visualiztion API allows you to monitor the overall usage and utilization of Google Apps within your domain. Using this API, you can visualize your reporting data with a variety of visualization gadgets provided by the developer community or custom visualizations for your specific needs. This API is only available in Google Apps Premier, Education and Partner Editions.

Provisioning API

The Provisioning API provides a mechanism to programmatically create and manage Google Apps user accounts, nicknames, and groups. Using this API you can minimize disruption to your organization's current processes by synchronizing user data between Google Apps and your existing user management system. This API is only available in Google Apps Premier, Education and Partner Editions.

Email Migration API

The Email Migration API enables you to migrate email from any data source into Google Apps. You can write extraction code which operates against an email server data store, interface protocol, or email client data store, then, using this API, upload the email messages to a target mailbox, specifying the correct labels, date, and status. The Email Migration API supports both end user tools and administrative tools. This API is only available in Google Apps Premier, Education and Partner Editions.

Application APIs

The application APIs use the Google data protocol to provide a simple way for reading and writing data on the web. An increasing number of Google services provide data APIs, so application developers should become familiar with the protocol. These APIs are based on the Atom and RSS syndication formats and the Atom publishing protocol, and also includes support for authentication, querying, and version conflict detection. Client applications can use any programming language that can issue HTTP requests and parse XML-based responses. Client libraries are avaialable in a variety of popular languages.

Domain Shared Contacts

The Shared Contacts API allows client applications to retrieve and update contacts that are shared to all users in the Apps domain.

Contacts Data API

With the Google Contacts Data API, developers can create client applications to manage a user's Gmail contacts. Developers can use the API to synchronize a user's Google contacts with contacts on a mobile device, maintain relationships between people in social applications, and give users the ability to communicate directly with their friends from external applications using phone, email, and IM.

Calendar Data API

The Google Calendar data API allows client applications to create new events, edit or delete existing events, and query for events that match particular criteria. This is the same API that is available to all Google Calendar developers so Google Apps developers can leverage and participate in that growing community. However with Google Apps a whole new set of calendar-based business applications become possible. Google Calendar's calendar sharing feature is that much more important in growing organizations with lots of group interactions and overlapping schedules. A client application has access to its user's private and accessible shared and group calendars. Application developers can interact with these calendars by creating front end applications powered by their event information or by creating applications that publish event information to them.

Documents List Data API

The Google Documents List Data API allows client applications to manage a user's Google Documents (spreadsheets, word processor, presentations) using the Google Data protocol. Your client application can query a user's list of documents, manage folders, request or update the contents of a document, and upload, edit, or delete specific documents.

Spreadsheets Data API

The Google Spreadsheets data API allows client applications to view and update spreadsheets content. This is the same API that is available to all Google Spreadsheets developers so Google Apps developers can leverage and participate in that growing community. Spreadsheets are at the heart of an increasing number of critical business applications ranging from modeling and analysis to communication and plannng. A client application can use this API to implement spreadsheet functionality or to extend the functionality provided by Google Spreadsheets. It can also simply use a spreadsheet as a database back end or it can publish data to a spreadsheet to provide users a more expressive view.

Email Settings API

The Email Settings API enables you to modify user-level Google Mail settings for any of the users at your domain. Using this API, you can change a user's forwarding, POP, or IMAP settings, set up an alias for them to send e-mail as, and more. This API is only available in Google Apps Premier, Education and Partner Editions.

2-legged OAuth for Google Apps Data

While OAuth authentication is available to all developers wishing to access the Google Data APIs, Premier and Education Edition administrators can enable a special kind of OAuth, called 2-legged OAuth. 2-legged OAuth allows administrators to act on behalf of end-users without their involvement and without requiring an access token as per the normal authorization flow (3-legged OAuth). As an example, administrators can use this feature to upload new documents to a user's account, add events to their Google Calendar, or create a new contact in their address book, all without the end-user's involvement.

Gmail Inbox Feed

Apps developers can utilize Gmail's Atom feed to request read-only access to a user's unread messages. To obtain access, you can use AuthSub or OAuth by requesting a token with scope=https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/.

Hierarchical navigation and other new features in Google Sites

by G-Apps | Mon, 05/18/2009 - 11:16

Google recently made a number of changes to Sites which may have altered the behaviour of some of your pages:

New Updates and Release Information

Our latest release on 5/18/09 made changes to the rendering framework of Sites and introduces some changes in the way your site looks. Here is an overview of these changes and how you can fix any issues this might have introduced.

 

Notable changes

  • The site sidebar previously was not rendering at the width specified in Page Elements. For example, by default the 150px width was rendered at 144px. The sidebar now reflects the true width entered. Sites who have customized their site sidebars with background images will have created images that are a little too narrow and will need to recreate them at the proper width.
  • Page font has been changed to "Site font" and changes the font for the entire page instead of just the content area. To override the site font in the sidebar, use the new property "Sidebar font."
  • When you set the site background color it will default to clear out the theme background image. This allows you to instantly see the background color change in the preview. If you want to keep the theme background image, you can select the "from theme" option for the page background image to turn it back on.
  • Page embeddings don't have padding by default so will collapse when put in tables. Adding padding to tables can fix this.
  • Wide header icons will be clipped in IE by the search box. Users should move long header images to be header background images.
  • There were minor spacing changes to remove layout complexity, for example the header height changed by a couple pixels. We actually removed the 5 pixels of hard coded margin on the top of the header, now background images are where they are supposed to be.
  • If you adjust your content background color this will also adjust the background of the attachments and comments area (at the bottom of the page) - this will give you more control over the look of the content.
  • Start page gadgets now match the canvas gadgets where previously they followed the sidebar gadget themes.
  • Visited Link Color customization: if you change the link color, but not the visited link color in Colors and Fonts the visited link color will be set to the user given link color. If you change the link color and the visited link color in Colors and Fonts, the visited link color will be the user given visited link value.
  • The "hr" tag is now 1px instead of 2
  • When you provide customize your site in the colors and fonts area this will override your inline html styles. Customized colors and fonts now trump inline styles.
  • Tables no longer use a gradient image for the header, instead they will use theme colors - you can adjust these colors yourself by changing the Content gadget header colors.
  • The page background image now is visible in edit mode
  • Column headers in the list page now follow the theme - you can adjust these colors by changing the Content gadget header colors in Colors and Fonts.
  • You now have specific control over gadgets that appear in the content and gadgets that appear in the sidebar. You can adjust these variables in the Colors and Fonts area.
  • We have included a "from theme" option in the colors and fonts area. During customizations you can now check the "from theme" option on any variable to revert back to the theme without having to delete all of your changes.

 >Original Article

AddOn for OpenOffice.org to export documents to Google Docs, Zoho and WebDAV servers

by G-Apps | Fri, 05/15/2009 - 13:59

Przemyslaw Rumik reports:

 

Export, Update and Import your documents to and from Google Docs, Zoho and WebDAV servers.
With OOo2GD you may export to Google Docs, Zoho and WebDAV servers:
* Documents: ODT, SXW, DOC, RTF without modification, other known to OO.org after conversion to ODT
* Spreadsheets: ODS, XLS, CSV without modification, other known to OO.org after conversion to ODS
* Presentations: PPT, PPS without modification, other known to OO.org after conversion to PPT

For Google Docs you may export, update and import all your documents, spreadsheets and presentations, for Zoho you may export documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and import documents and spreadsheets, to WebDAV you may export what you are able to open in OO.org :-)

Needs Java 6 to work.

Project Page

>Original Article