Desktop Social Networking Integration

Project Name

Desktop Social Networking Integration

Project Description

Alter The Coop experimental extension so it uses generic API instead of Facebook specifically; put the generic API in the "desktop data engine" also used by BigBoard (and hopefully other desktop apps in the future). Resources: RH online desktop team.

Project Leader(s)

Timothy Joseph Duavis

Project Details

Scope

Based on conversations (IRC and Email) with project stakeholders for determining the scope and requirment the following ideas for direction were suggested:

1. twitter status
   • issue is twitter is dependent on facebook api, but api is lacking
2. to use another facebook service to the coop
3. exchange service
4. to treat "the desktop" as another service from coop's perspective
   • query desktop for coop merging from the desktop is the set of people displayied in BigBoard.
   • query desktop for coop merging (automatically?) from the desktop is account names ("eg. someone's Twitter account. I imagine Coop would want to keep this optional, only using the special desktop info when it's available." [Havoc's email])
5. Adding support for more services to Coop
   • "is a much more direct and immediate win." [Havoc's email]
6. Look to tie in with "journal" Firefox extension; developers Bryan and Colin

Other Notes:

• Additional Thoughts from Havoc:
  • My suggestion is to think about the desktop as a single user experience and how it comes together. Our current prototype default config has bigboard on the left, the browser opens by default with the Journal, we have Pidgin running for chat, etc.

Stakeholders

Name	Title	Role	Contact
Dave Humphrey	Professor of DPS909	Evaluate Progress	To request publishing
Chris Tyler	Professor of DPS909	Evaluate Progress	To request publishing
Myk Melez	Mozilla Developer	Technical Expert	To request publishing
Havoc Pennington	Red Hat Stakeholder	Technical Expert	To request publishing

Milestone 1 - Release 0.1

To provide support for Twitter in the existing Coop API. More documentation can be found posted on my blog (Coop DPS909 Release 0.1 - Documentation). The source code can found here and requires the test method to install. Be advised that I turned debugging on.

Use Cases

For release 0.1, I will be focusing on getting twitter support and integrated into the coop. The following functionalities below will be included in the release:

1. Log into Twitter account from Coop
2. List and view Twitter friends (followers only)
3. View messages from friend

Code Walkthrough

UI Layers

• sidebar.js, sidebar.xul,
• authBrowser.js, authBrowser.xul
• addLink.js (have not walkthrough)
• addLink.xul (have not walkthrough)
• browser-overlay.js, browser-overlay.xul

Logic Layers

• facebook-client.js
• Microsummary.js (have not walkthrough)
• nsCoopFacebookService.js, nsCoopFacebookService.idl (with corresponding .xpt)

Deliverable

Figure 1 - Login page for Twitter. Started by clicking the pop-up menu item under the "friends" menu.

Figure 2 - Main page showing my friends in Twitter.

Figure 3 - A selected friend's pane and the message browser page loaded when the "more" button is clicked.

Bugs

• twitter pane times out when login into twitter account initially
• after first successful login during a session when you logout and switch to the facebook session a unsuccessful twitter login occurs.
• logout for twitter

Schedule

Task / Phase	Status	Start Date	Due Date
1.0 Create Requirements	In Progress	Sep 22, 2007	Sep 28, 2007
	1.1 Draft (Include scope, features and use cases)
	1.2 Send for feedback
	1.3 Update based on feedback
2.0 Research	In Progress	Sep 18, 2007	On-going
	2.1 Research Facebook API
		2.1.1 Create account
		2.1.2 Build / Run sample Facebook Applications
	2.2 Research Bigboard
		2.2.1 RunBigboard
		2.2.2 Build Bigboard
		2.2.3 Walkthrough Analysis of Bigboard
	2.3 Research Twitter API
		2.3.1 Build / run twitter
			2.3.1.1 Build / run twitter on Web App
			2.3.1.2 Build / run twitter on Facebook applications
			2.3.1.3 Build / run twitter on Popular third party application
			2.3.1.4 Build / run twitter on Popular fan created application
			2.3.1.5 Build / run twitter on phone device
3.0 Milestone 0.1	Complete	Oct 1, 2007	Oct 15, 2007
	3.1 Plan Use Case	Oct 1, 2007	Oct 4, 2007
	3.2 Perform Implemention of Use Case	Oct 5, 2007	Oct 15, 2007
		3.2.1 Build Add-Ons of Coop
		3.2.2 Build Add-Ons of Existing Application using Twitter API
		3.2.3 Perform Walkthrough Analysis of Coop
		3.2.4 Perform Walkthrough Analysis of Existing Application using Twitter API
	3.3 Perform Unit / Function Testing	Oct 5, 2007	Oct 15, 2007
		3.3.1 Create Tests for logging into Twitter account
		3.3.2 Create Tests for viewing Twitter friends
		3.3.3 Create Tests for viewing Twitter friends' messages
4.0 Milestone 0.2	Waiting on previous dependencies	Oct 15, 2007	Nov 12
5.0 Milestone 0.3	Waiting on previous dependencies	Nov 12	Dec 3

Resources

• The Coop
• Mozila Labs - The Coop
• BigBoard
• Twitter API Doc

Project News

1. Claimed Sept 17, 2007.
2. Updated Project Details - Sept 22, 2007
   • created project schedule
   • drafted scope based on stakeholder conversations during week of Sept 16, 2007
   • compiled list of stakeholders
3. Updated Project Details - Sept 25, 2007
   • Defined Milestone 1; approved both by Dave and Myk
4. Updated Project Details - Oct 1, 2007
   • Drafted Use Case
   • Updated work break schedule for milestone 1
5. Updated Project Details - Oct 3, 2007
   • Further defined Use Case;
   • Updated work break schedule for milestone 1
   • Updated TODO for milestone 1;
6. Updated Project Details - Oct 14, 2007
   • Completed milestone 1 - release 0.1
   • Updated bugs section for release 0.1
   • Posted screen shot of deliverable for milestone 1 - release 0.1