I am trying to set up OpenSocial, and I'm finding it rather difficult to get started. I know there is an OpenSocial plugin for Elgg, but the reality is that it won't work. First of all, OpenSocial is up to version 0.9, and Shindig itself has changed as well. In addition, the new requirements are a bit higher for PHP

So, in order for the Elgg community to benefit, I thought it would be useful to create a discussion to show ourselves how to set up OpenSocial for any Elgg site. Here is what I am doing to set it up.

1) Go to Shindig website and download the package: http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/.

2) Unzip it and get the shindig folder inside, just as you would do an Elgg plugin. Rename it to shindig and upload it to your html root (i.e. right after your domain name).

3) From here, it's not too clear what you have to do. There are two options:

a. Create a new virtual host

Point your Apache to the shindig dir with a virtual host like: <VirtualHost your_ip:your_port> ServerName your.host DocumentRoot /var/www/html/shindig ... other normal settings in vhosts... <Directory> AllowOverride All </Directory> </VirtualHost> Restart apache, and point your browser to: http://<your.host>/gadgets/ifr?url=http://www.labpixies.com/campaigns/todo/todo.xml b. Run with an existing host If you cannot/don't want to create a virtual host, you can edit the file php/config/container.php or php/config/local.php (see the comments php/config/container.php for documentation of the configuration system) and change the web_prefix setting to '/shindig/php'. In this case, you should also change all paths in shindig/config/container.js (see the comments there for documentation of the JSON configuration system). Then you can run the gadget by pointing your browser to: http://<your.host>/shindig/php/gadgets/ifr?url=http://www.labpixies.com/campaigns/todo/todo.xml ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ok, so here is why this is confusing. They say that if you don't want to create a virtual host, which I assume for most people will be quite difficult, then you need to change the file found at php/config/container.php. The problem is that there isn't a folder called php/ in the first place. There is the one that you rename, shindig, that contains config/container.php and there you can change the web_prefix, but when you do that and then change all the paths in shindig/config/container.js (notice the "shindig/" now), it still doesn't work. So that's where I'm at right now. Here are some resources for using available apps once you set up OpenSocial correctly: http://www.opensocial.org/ http://www.joyent.us/developers/opensocial/ http://directory.opensocial.org/gadgets/directory?synd=cad&cat=all http://opensocialapps.com/ http://gadgets.zoho.com/zc/index.do Would appreciate for people to join the discussion and help make using OpenSocial clearer for everybody.