Google Updates the Wave Samples Gallery

Google Wave has just been rolled out to a lot more users, though many are still waiting for their invites even as those who did get in complain about the service's apparent lack of focus and other shortcomings. Still, the project is very early on in its development and things are bound to change as it evolves and as users get more accustomed to it. Another component that should add a lot of functionality is the platform it provides and the number of apps that will start pouring in as it matures. Google knows that this part of the service is crucial so it has rolled out a couple of new features to its Google Wave Samples to spur further development.

“The Google Wave Samples Gallery has been a great way to see what developers have been creating and find starter code to build on. We added a search box to enable developers to find what they're looking for, but we heard that it still wasn't easy to find examples of code that uses a particular class/method or does one particular task. So, we've added a few new features to the gallery,” Pamela Fox, Developer Relations at Google, wrote.

Programing does allow for a large degree of freedom, but there are still some things that are generally accepted and encouraged, so Google gathered some of the samples that were considered to make the best use of a particular API feature and labeled them as “Best Practices.” These samples are now highlighted on the front page and there is a new filter to find them more easily.

Another feature that should make certain samples easier to find is the fact that the search engine used on the sample site now indexes the URLs for the location where the source code for the samples resides, be it a public SVN or GIT repository. This should make it easier to find examples of a particular API call one may be interested in. Finally, the site now allows users to submit only snippets of code that they find interesting or useful instead of releasing the entire app, though they can later change this and release the entire sample.