08 October 2010, 1:14

Can you please check, if this works - http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99228

In that case the following URL should work: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Regards,
Gregor

08 October 2010, 21:05

Yes for both.

Is it possible to remove a/yourdomain.com programmatically?

11 October 2010, 1:39

I think it can be done.

I'll need some help with different GoogleApps URLs. If you (Dirk) could provide the URLs for some dummy Google Apps files, just to see the format of that URLs...

I would need:

• URL for Google document (which contains lorem ipsum paragraph or sometnihg like that)
• URL for Google spreadsheet (with some random numbers in the cells)
• URL for Google presentation (which should contain at least 3 slides - content is not important)
• URL for Google form - to see, if it is different than the URL of the regular Google form - I'm also trying to add support for embedding Google forms...
• URL for Google drawing - to see, if it is different than the URL of the regular Google drawing - I'm also trying to add support for embedding Google drawings...

I was thinking to also add support for embedding Picasa slideshows, Picasa albums and Picasa images... Any thoughts or comments?

Regards,
Gregor

11 October 2010, 4:28

Ive just tested this out:

http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99228

and i can confirm that this solution works. So for any url that has /a/companyname in there you can delete that and the url will still work. Obviously you still have to set permissions properly on the document; As ive noticed that if I dont log into my gmail account I tend to get a googleapps login screen, instead of the mahara view. (i.e. I click on the mahara view and I get a google log in page, and when I put in my credentials it takes me directly to the googledocs instead of the mahara view. But if Im logged into my google account prior to seeing the view - the view shows up)

In summary, your block works fine, so long as people who are using googleapp for their company/institute, remember to remove /a/companyname from their googledocs url. (Maybe you should put the http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99228 link into your comments/documentation).

As far as picasa integration is involved, that would be awesome; Id like to have one block that caters for all sorts of google apps, instead of having to download various blocks that do loads of different things. Again, id be happy to do some testing or coding if you want any help.

11 October 2010, 4:58

I think it will be possible to programatically remove /a/companyname part, but i'm interested in this: Do all company branded googleapps (documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.) ends with ccc?key= part, before the actual key begins?

As I asked before, I would need you guys, to create some dummy document, spreadsheet, presentation, form and drawing - send me the links, so I know that these documents exists (the URLs are valid) and so I'll be able to code the blocktype and than send it to you for additional testing...

G

11 October 2010, 9:37

This is quite confusing, Im not sure if googles made any changes to their googledocs URLs, but regardless of the privacy setting on the document, when I create and publish a document the URL is always in the following format (note the lack of the 'ccc?key=' part):

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=11dPWVmCP0Rr9vWAs9ftFY19CupM1wbPat6fjgfUiOpw

without publishing, the url becomes:

[public] https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=11dPWVmCP0Rr9vWAs9ftFY19CupM1wbPat6fjgfUiOpw&hl=en_GB

[anyone with link] https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=11dPWVmCP0Rr9vWAs9ftFY19CupM1wbPat6fjgfUiOpw&hl=en_GB&authkey=CLWBo-UG (this is the current privacy setting on this document - so you should be able to see it)

[anyone from my domain] https://docs.google.com/a/tdm.info/document/edit?id=11dPWVmCP0Rr9vWAs9ftFY19CupM1wbPat6fjgfUiOpw&hl=en_GB

[anyone at my domain with link] https://docs.google.com/a/tdm.info/document/edit?id=11dPWVmCP0Rr9vWAs9ftFY19CupM1wbPat6fjgfUiOpw&hl=en_GB&authkey=CLWBo-UG

Older documents have a different URL structure.  So im sure googles constantly changing the URL, and the block will need to accomodate for all the different URLS.

As for programmatically removing the /a/companyname part, IT IS absoluteley possible to remove that using PHP's substr() function.

Hope that helps.

11 October 2010, 10:18

Gregor,

I sent you a PM with credentials to the google apps account I made for you on our domain. Maybe that will be helpful to you?

Some notes:

My Boss wants it so that all google apps stuff can only be shared with users of our domain. Hence one needs to log into our domain on google apps to see the shared docs, forms etc. If its critical to have it tested without having to log in then let me know.

The form does not require login as it is.

The picasa webalbum is from my personal account as it is not part of google apps core, or at least I don't see it.

Link to doc:  https://docs.google.com/a/rvschools.ab.ca/document/pub?id=1Qite-BfKI5RIJ0LVsmZovB8g5Lb-zk7780seNFFT2XQ

Link to Spreasdsheet: http://spreadsheets.google.com/a/rvschools.ab.ca/pub?key=tgr-gRtI82L37ZVTup_Al5Q&output=html

Link to presentation:  https://docs.google.com/a/rvschools.ab.ca/present/view?id=df75h6r9_0ghcr2jff

or iframe:  <iframe src="https://docs.google.com/a/rvschools.ab.ca/present/embed?id=df75h6r9_0ghcr2jff" frameborder="0" width="410" height="342"></iframe>

Link to form:  https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/rvschools.ab.ca/viewform?formkey=dGh5bWpVaHJhd0hVVU5UVUVuVXRNcXc6MQ

Link to Drawing: https://docs.google.com/a/rvschools.ab.ca/drawings/pub?id=16pYxeHCWEZ6ZxMT9dOn9iwXMG4ot36p1reBrUQWzKKE&w=960&h=720

iframe:  <img src="https://docs.google.com/a/rvschools.ab.ca/drawings/pub?id=16pYxeHCWEZ6ZxMT9dOn9iwXMG4ot36p1reBrUQWzKKE&amp;w=960&amp;h=720">

Link to webalbum: http://picasaweb.google.ca/meyer.dirk/Samples?feat=directlink

embed:  <table style="width:194px;"><tr><td align="center" style="height:194px;background:url(http://picasaweb.google.ca/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.ca/meyer.dirk/Samples?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-1sebueAFHs/TLMouITH8LE/AAAAAAAACUU/bkRiP67eLtw/s160-c/Samples.jpg" width="160" height="160" style="margin:1px 0 0 4px;"></a></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.ca/meyer.dirk/Samples?feat=embedwebsite" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">Samples</a></td></tr></table>

12 October 2010, 0:58

thanks for the links guys - I'll try to complete the googleapps blocktype in the next week. This week I'm very busy and will not have the time.

I'll let you know about the progress and ask you to do some testing...

G

12 October 2010, 3:55

"google apps stuff can only be shared with users of our domain" - I should point out that the best way of doing this, isnt to program the functionality in (I dont think thats possible - but dont qoute me on it, I dont know the google API's too well), but rather you should use the googledocs sharing facility to restrict access.

When you create a document, on the top right of the googledoc there is a button to control who can and cannot see the document, click it and set the privacy level to 'everyone from this domain'. This will ensure that only users from your domain can see this document. Even if they have access to the mahara view (i.e. it is a public view), they wont be able to see the googledoc without valid credentials (i.e. an account on your domain).