Google App Engine Blog: App Engine Community Update

Google App Engine Blog: App Engine Community Update

Still no word yet on support for Java.

PyFacebook frustration

So currently I'm just a little frustrated with using PyFacebook on Google App Engine. The problem is that I'm not really using Django and I'm struggling to figure out how to use the library for support for things like adding FBML to the profile page.

Facebook application on Google App Engine

I've been working on a Facebook application using Python and Google App Engine for a few days now. It is called My iTunes Purchases.

I'm currently doing a little testing of the app and thinking over some design changes.

The first thing I want to change is go back to plain iframe/HTML instead of FBML. The ability to not use Javascript with FBML is a drawback and I feel like it limits what I can do with templates and testing of the application.

One stumbling block for me was to figure out how to manage the application in different states. My first attempt was to try and use multiple templates for this but then I ran into problems trying to forward to my various templates after a form post, etc.

Finally, I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to add items to the mini feed when a user of the application purchases something. Ideally I'd like to be able to add items to the feed even if the user doesn't login to Facebook.

Google I/O content online

Slides and videos

It is like being there but having the opportunity to attend EVERY session.

hibernate3-maven-plugin and hbm2ddl

I've wrestled with this quite a bit in the past few days. I had a difficult time figuring out some of the settings from the plugin site. Here's what I finally ended up with that works properly.

<plugin>
      <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
      <artifactId>hibernate3-maven-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>2.1</version>
      <configuration>
       <components>
        <component>
         <name>hbm2ddl</name>
         <implementation>
          jpaconfiguration
         </implementation>
        </component>
       </components>
                <componentProperties>
                    <drop>true</drop>
                    <jdk5>true</jdk5>
                    <outputfilename>schema.ddl</outputfilename>
                    <persistenceunit>Developer</persistenceunit>
                    <propertyfile>target/classes/jdbc.properties</propertyfile>
                    <skip>${maven.test.skip}</skip>
                </componentProperties>
      </configuration>
      <dependencies>
   <dependency>
       <groupId>hsqldb</groupId>
       <artifactId>hsqldb</artifactId>
       <version>1.8.0.7</version>
   </dependency> 
   </dependencies>      
</plugin>

Google App Engine

Now that Google has opened up Google App Engine, I finally have an account. I never received one during the initial releases. I've been working on a simple Python application intended to manage teams. Essentially the type of team I'm intending the site to manage are youth sports teams.


iTeam

For now though I basically have the classic file maintenance pattern as I like to think of it. Essentially it is a form with a list of inserted records below the form on the same page. Very simple. However, I've been coding this same pattern in various formats for my entire career it seems. This go-around though it is in Python using Google's version of Django which I have been learning. The real power though is the ability to define a data model within Python code and then let the app engine manage the physical representation and deployment of the data. That's a lot of work off-loaded.

My goal is to integrate the site with other Google services so that a coach could create a team and then allow families to join the team in order to view the team schedule, contact list, share photos, etc. There's lots more to do.

Mario Kart Control Schemes: FIGHT

Mario Kart Control Schemes: FIGHT