 the mashup editor |
EditSearching Blocks
The first thing you’re going to need to do is find some blocks to use. The block list is on the left hand side and by default it is expanded. You can collapse it by clicking on the button with the two chevrons ‘<<’ to expand it click on the ‘>>’ button again.
You can find blocks by either typing in the text box which will search all Popfly blocks for the text you type, looking in the name, tags and description fields for blocks.
Alternatively you can browse the block list by expanding one of the categories, just click on the text to expand the category. Only one category can be expanded at a time and clicking on another will collapse the previous category.
EditAdding Blocks
To add a block to the mashup design surface you can either click on a block in the block search list or you can drag the block to the design surface. To drag click on the block and then keeping the mouse button down move the mouse over to the design surface finally releasing the mouse button where you want the block.
EditDeleting Blocks
To delete the block simply click on the ‘x’ on the tool strip in the top right side of the block.
EditConnecting Blocks
Connecting blocks is how you build mashups. To connect two blocks click on one block and then click on the block you want to invoke with the 1st block. When blocks are added to the design surface they have a default operation when you connect it Popfly tries to map the outputs of the 1st block with the inputs of the 2nd block.
When you connect two blocks to one block Popfly will make them both available as inputs for the single block. E.g. in the following mashup:
 facebook to geonames to virtual earth |
In the mashup above when you zoom into Virtual Earth you will see that the drop down next to the input names for the operation have the choice of either Geonames or Facebook as their source.
What Popfly has done is say that as the first output of Facebook will invoke Geonames and subsequently the output from Geonames will correspond with the first output of Facebook. Sounds a bit confusing, but basically what’s doing is combining the results from Facebook and Geonames. So you can fetch data from another service using a block based upon something you know about the friend from Facebook.
EditZooming in on Blocks
EditZoomed In
In order to choose which function of the block you want to use you need to zoom on the block, to do this click in on the wrench.
EditSelecting the Function
Once you’re zoomed in you can see a drop down box containing a list of all the functions available for the block. Below the drop down box you can see a list of parameters for the function. This is the information that will be passed to the function when the mashup is run. The information passed to the block can either be from a previous block connected to this block (dynamic values) or it can be a value you type in (static values).
EditDynamic Values
EditStatic Values
EditZoom Out
You can zoom out again by clicking on the wrench.
EditBlocks Details
On the tool strip for a block on the design surface you can see an ‘I’ icon, clicking on this icon will bring up information about the block. The information you see is written by the creator of the block so it could be empty, if it is you can always leave the author a comment asking him or her to write something! At the moment you won’t see this information for Microsoft blocks – sorry. We welcome your comments in the forums (http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=434&SiteID=1). If you like a block feel free to comment on it and rate it that way the block author knows that people are liking, or not liking, their block.
EditBlock Suggestions
If you are not sure what blocks go well together you can trying using the suggest feature, simply click on the light bulb and you should see the list of blocks on the left shortened to just blocks that go well with that block. If there aren’t any suggestions for a block the light bulb icon will be grayed out and unlit. One more thing, the suggested blocks could be either input or output blocks – it’s up to you to experiment and find what works.
EditPanning
Sometimes your mashup can get rather complex with lots of blocks that don’t fit on the screen or you could open up a project from someone who had a lot bigger screen than you which means the blocks can’t fit on your screen.
If there are any blocks in the mashup that aren’t currently visible on the screen you will see arrows around the edge of the designer pointing to them. To go to the off screen blocks you can either click on the arrow or you can pan by clicking and holding on white space in the designer, the cursor will change to a grabbing hand, and then drag the mouse in the direction you want the screen to move.
If you’ve run out of space on the design surface you can pan to new space by clicking and holding on the white space and then move the cursor in the direction where you want to add blocks.
EditSaving
You can save your work at any time by clicking on the save icon on the top right of the page. If you want others to view your mashup it would be great if you could take a minute to fill in the description text box so that others know what your mashup is about.
You can open any of your saved projects by going to “My Projects” on the “My Stuff” menu on the top navigation menu.