A real head scratcher for me was getting the colors right. All of the KML files I imported would have some of their colors off. I took me a while to figure out that color are not encoded in a standard way in KML files. Color in KML files are encoded using Hex, similar to HTML, except they also include an Alpha channel. Each Channel (red, green, blue & alpha) are given 32 bits (0-255), which is converted into two Hexadecimal characters (0 – F). All this is pretty standard. The difference is that the Channels in KML colors are written down in a different order than almost every other standard. The order of the channels in KML is Alpha-Blue-Green-Red (ABGR) as opposed to the standard Alpha-Red-Green-Blue (ARGB). Flash takes in an integer conversion from the hex format, which is easy to do. The problem is that it expects the hex channels to be encoded in the RGB order. Once I figured this out I was able to put together a pretty simple encoder/converter. It may not be pretty but it gets the job done!

private function setKmlColor(kmlColor:String)

{

var abgr:uint = parseInt(kmlColor,16);

var alphaUint:uint =(abgr>> 24) & 0xFF;

var blueUint:uint = (abgr >> 16) & 0xFF;

var greenUint:uint = (abgr >> 8) & 0xFF;

var redUint:uint = abgr & 0xFF;

var colorUint = (redUint << 16);

colorUint += (greenUint << 8);

colorUint += (blueUint);

this._color = colorUint;

this._alpha = alphaUint / 255;

}

1. First place to start out is this getting started page for posting to Blogger using Gdata.
2. There is an extension to the Zend Framework that makes it easy to work with Gdata API in PHP. You can either use entire Zend Framework, or just the Gdata Client.
3. There is an explanation for installing and configuring the Gdata Client and the Zend Framework, here.
4. I am installing this on MAMP, (a self-contained PHP, MySQL package) and was having trouble getting the php include_path to work correctly. I tried this method out and it works fine. Basically you create a symbolic link to the /library/Zend folder, call the link Zend and place it next to the php folder at: /Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/lib. You then have to change the php.ini file located at /Apps/MAMP/conf/php5 and change the include_path to include_path = “.:/Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/lib”.
5. The build for just the Gdata Client instead of the entire framework is missing a file. Just comment out line 50 of client.php. Supposedly future builds will fix this problem.
6. The sample code for doing AuthSub uses a function called getCurrentUrl(); I couldn’t find this function anywhere so I just hardcoded it.
7. The sample code gives an include block:

   require_once 'Zend/Loader.php';
   Zend_Loader::loadClass('Zend_Gdata');
   Zend_Loader::loadClass('Zend_Gdata_Query');
   

   Zend_Loader::loadClass(‘Zend_Gdata_ClientLogin’);
   This is for doing a client login instead of AuthSub, which is used for connecting to Google via another website. In order to do this you need to include the class for this. Do this by adding this line:
   Zend_Loader::loadClass(‘Zend_Gdata_AuthSub’);   

8. Another error in the AuthSub sample code. Here is the block:

   function getAuthSubUrl()
   {
   $next = getCurrentUrl();
   $scope = 'http://www.google.com/blogger/feeds/';
   $secure = false;
   $session = true;
   return Zend_Gdata_AuthSub::getAuthSubTokenUri($next, $scope, $secure, $session);
   }$authSubUrl = getAuthSubUrl();
   

   echo ‘<a href=\”$authSubUrl\”>login to your Google account</a>’;
   The scope is set incorrectly. It should not goto google.com. In the text below and the sample URL, they have it correct. It should be:
   $scope = ‘http://www.blogger.com/feeds/’;

9. Turns out that they forgot to load another class needed for the blogger. Add this line following the other Zend_Loaders. You need it in order to view all of the Blogs a user has.
   Zend_Loader :: loadClass(‘Zend_Gdata_Feed’);

Yea… so not what I would call out of the box functionality. I will add more to this as I work with the API and find other fun things to work around.

Here is the answer that took a while to find:

External Links

Gadgets that wish to direct the user to a third-party site should do so in a new window. All links should set target="_blank" in any href tags so that external links do not open inside of the gadget’s iframe.

Another great presentation at Gov 2.0 summit

They also announced the winners of Apps for America. Data Masher got the top slot, Gov Pulse got second, and This we Know got third. A great showing from everyone. Apparently the votes were very close.

Local Spending – Provides you information on the federal money being spent in your current zip code, district or state.

Local Recovery – Provides the amount of federal recovery money that has been spent in your current zip code, district or state.

While I hope I win something, I had a lot of fun just working on the apps. I got to learn a lot about using PHP to pull in information from an API and restructure it. Good times!