Google AJAX Search API Blog

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latest 15 posts

Welcome YUI!, script.aculo.us gets fresh
Local Search results now include China
SWFObject Library Added to Libraries API
Styling the SearchControl Guest Post
MooTools 1.2.1
New Languages for Translate and POST Interface
Clarifying our TOS to allow additional uses
Introducing the Transliteration API
How'd they do that?
Where is my current user?
Using the AJAX Language API while Travelling
AJAX Libraries API Update
AJAX Libraries SSL Support is Live
Recorded sessions from Google I/O now available
Introducing the AJAX Patent Search API

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Saturday November 22nd, 2008

Welcome YUI!, script.aculo.us gets fresh

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 1 month ago, 0 comments Comment

We've been hosting most of the big powerhouse Javascript libraries and so far it's been a huge success. However, without YUI!, our collection has been incomplete. Well, I'm not saying that now we're complete and won't add more libraries, just that we're less incomplete than we were... you know what I mean.

Anyways, after getting legal approval (people actually read those licenses), we pushed it live. We are equally as excited about this as Yahoo! and the Javascript community.
So let's take a look at how you use it:

<head>
  <script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
  google.load('yui', '2.6.0');
  function init() {
    var loader = new YAHOO.util.YUILoader({
      require: ["button", "calendar"],
      base: "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/yui/2.6.0/build/",
      onSuccess: function() {
        // start playing with buttons and calendars!
      }
    });
    loader.insert();
  }
  google.setOnLoadCallback(init);
  </script>
</head>
<body>
  <div id="calContainer"></div>
</body>

That code will load the YUI loader which then loads the button and calendar widgets (combined as one script) and calls onSuccess when they are loaded. If lazy loading scripts isn't your thing, then you can use the dependency configurator to configure the perfect script URL. In my case, to achieve the same results as above, I would use:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/yui/2.6.0/build/button/assets/skins/sam/button.css"> 
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/yui/2.6.0/build/calendar/assets/skins/sam/calendar.css">
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/yui/2.6.0/build/yahoo-dom-event/yahoo-dom-event.js"></script> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/yui/2.6.0/build/element/element-beta-min.js"></script> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/yui/2.6.0/build/button/button-min.js"></script> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/yui/2.6.0/build/calendar/calendar-min.js"></script>

Also, we've updated script.aculo.us to the new minor release version 1.8.2. For those of you who are using our aliases, you've already been updated!

As always, stop by in our group or IRC channel to give us a piece of your mind.

Thursday November 13th, 2008

Local Search results now include China

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 1 month ago, 0 comments Comment

We're pleased to announce the addition of local search for China. For users already using the AJAX Search API for local search, you should now be able to search for businesses in China without having to make any changes. Try typing "hotels in Beijing" in your site or app which uses the Google AJAX Search API. You should see some results:

To take advantage of local search functionality, take a look at the AJAX Search API. The samples here are also particularly useful.

If you have any feedback or comments, please drop by our Google Group or new IRC channel (irc details can be found at the bottom of this post).

Tuesday November 11th, 2008

SWFObject Library Added to Libraries API

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 1 month ago, 0 comments Comment

If you're a Flash nut then you probably know about the SWFObject Javascript library. I'm not, so I didn't. However, since I promised myself I would play with Flex soon I am very happy that a "Flasher" suggested that we add it to our AJAX Libraries API. I took a look at it and found out that it's a great little must-have library!

See, embedding a Flash video on a page is actually more complicated than it should be. You can't just throw a tag on the page with some attributes and expect it to work. In fact, to embed a Flash file there are different methods for different browsers such as using an <embed> vs. <object> as well as setting the parameters for the file.

The SWFObject library simplifies the process so that all you need to worry about is including their Javascript library and using a single method to embed your Flash on the page in a safe, cross-browser manner. It also has a few extra utility functions, such as setting a load event for the Flash object and detecting the user's Flash version.

Because this library is open source, extremely popular, and so handy, we have added it to our AJAX Libraries API so that our caching benefits can be reaped. If you want to express your extreme happiness then you can do so in our new IRC channel:
server: irc.freenode.net
channel: #googleajaxapis
http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.freenode.net&channel=%23googleajaxapis

Monday November 3rd, 2008

Styling the SearchControl Guest Post

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 2 months ago, 0 comments Comment

So, the other day, I was asked by the AJAX APIs dev team if I'd like to write a guest blog post, but they didn't tell me what to write about. I thought about telling you how the AJAX APIs revolutionized how I think about life, design websites, and slice bread, but then I realized that I buy my bread pre-sliced. So I started going back through the group looking for common questions or themes to threads, and I realized that a huge portion of the questions asked can be summed up like this: "How do I style the google.search.SearchControl?" For instance, how would one make it so that only a result's title and URL appear (i.e., the description is not visible), or even just the URL? What if you want to change some of the default colors? What if you, being the stylish computer geek that you are, want to make your SearchControl into a 24th century Starfleet console to fit in with that first-season spandex Star Trek: The Next Generation uniform you're wearing right now?

Well, you're in luck! Using Mozilla Firefox with the Firebug add-on installed (an absolute must-have for any web developer, by the way), you can do all this and more simply by inspecting the structure of the default search control and taking advantage of the fact that almost every one of its individual elements is given at least one className that can be used with Cascading Style Sheets to apply different style rules. We've put together a spectacular video to provide a very brief overview of using Firefox and Firebug to inspect the structure (and tinker with) the structure of the control.

For even more information on how you can do more with Firefox and Firebug, you'll want to check out Ben Lisbakken's excellent tutorial, which includes even more video! And for good measure, we've included the control's structure (complete with a few of my own comments) below:

<div class="gsc-control">
    <!-- FYI: This form is the same as the google.search.SearchForm -->
    <form class="gsc-search-box">
        <table class="gsc-search-box">
            <tbody>
                <tr>
                    <td class="gsc-input">
                        <!-- This next input is the search box itself -->
                        <input class="gsc-input/>
                    </td>
                    <td class="gsc-search-button">
                        <!-- This next input is the search button itself -->
                        <input class="gsc-search-button"/>
                    </td>
                    <td class="gsc-clear-button">
                        <!-- This next div is the clear button (i.e., the little x) -->
                        <div class="gsc-clear-button"/>
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
        <table class="gsc-branding">
            <tbody>
                <tr>
                    <td class="gsc-branding-user-defined"/>
                    <td class="gsc-branding-text">
                        <div class="gsc-branding-text">powered by</div>
                    </td>
                    <td class="gsc-branding-img">
                        <img class="gsc-branding-img"/>
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
    </form>
    <!-- In tabbed mode, this is where the tabs will appear; in stacked mode, this will be absent! -->
    <div class="gsc-tabsArea">
        <!-- The following div would be the active tab -->
        <div class="gsc-tabHeader gsc-tabhActive"/>
        <!-- These spacer divs will appear AFTER every tab to do exactly what their className would imply -->
        <div class="gs-spacer"/>
        <!-- And this one would be an inactive tab -->
        <div class="gsc-tabHeader gsc-tabhInactive"/>
        <div class="gs-spacer"/>
    </div>
    <div class="gsc-resultsBox-visible">
        <!-- The next divs contain the actual results. The classes in square brackets are ONLY present in TABBED mode -->
        <!-- This would be the active tab -->
        <div class="gsc-resultsRoot [gsc-tabData gsc-tabdActive]">
            <table class="gsc-resultsHeader">
                <tbody>
                    <tr>
                        <td class="gsc-twiddleRegionCell gsc-twiddleRegion-opened">
                            <div class="gsc-twiddle">
                                <!-- This next div will contain your searcher's title or label (e.g., Local), but it won't be visible in tabbed mode -->
                                <div class="gsc-title"/>
                            </div>
                            <!-- This next div will contain your search's estimated result count, but it's invisible in tabbed mode, too! -->
                            <div class="gsc-stats">
                            <!-- This is the selector that chooses 1, 4, or 8 visible results. Please note that only ONE of the options in square brackets will be visible -->
                            <div class="gsc-results-selector [gsc-one-result-active OR gsc-more-results-active OR gsc-all-results-active]">
                                <div class="gsc-result-selector gsc-one-result"/>
                                <div class="gsc-result-selector gsc-more-results"/>
                                <div class="gsc-result-selector gsc-all-results"/>
                            </div>
                        </td>
                        <td class="gsc-configLabelCell">
                            <!-- This next span will only be present if the searcher has configuration options -->
                            <!-- Also, it will only have ONE of the options in square brackets, depending on whether or not the configuration form is visible or not -->
                            <span class="gsc-configLabel [gsc-twiddle-closed OR gsc-twiddle-opened]"/>
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                </tbody>
            </table>
            <!-- This next div is the configuration form for a searcher. It is only present if the searcher has configuration options -->
            <!-- The exact className of the config form will depend on the type of searcher. So you'll only have ONE of the options below.  You can probably figure out which one your searcher will have -->
            <!-- By the way, I have no idea why it's gsc-locationConfig instead of gsc-localConfig :) -->
            <div class="gsc-config [gsc-locationConfig OR gsc-videoConfig OR gsc-blogConfig OR gsc-newsConfig OR gsc-patentConfig]">
                <!-- The exact content of the config div will vary depending on your searcher's options -->
                <!-- Use Firefox with Firebug to explore the possibilities here! -->
            </div>
            <div class="gsc-results [gsc-localResult OR gsc-webResult OR gsc-blogResult OR gsc-newsResult OR gsc-imageResult OR gsc-bookResult OR gsc-patentResult OR gsc-videoResult]">
                <!-- This is your FIRST actual search result. All results will follow this pattern -->
                <!-- Please note, again, that only ONE of the classNames in the square brackets will apply, depending on the searcher -->
                <div class="gsc-result [gsc-localResult OR gsc-webResult OR gsc-blogResult OR gsc-newsResult OR gsc-imageResult OR gsc-bookResult OR gsc-patentResult OR gsc-videoResult]">
                    <!-- The contents of this div will be the same as outlined in the documentation for your searcher's results -->
                </div>
                <div class="gsc-expansionArea">
                    <!-- This is where the REST of your search results show up, again following the same pattern as above -->
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
        <!-- And the inactive one -->
        <div class="gsc-resultsRoot [gsc-tabData gsc-tabdInactive]">
            <!-- All the rest of the structure of this is the same as above -->
    </div>
</div>

So, thanks to Firefox and Firebug, we have access to the SearchControl's structure. Now we can get to work making our control look like one of those 24th-century consoles that we see every day on the starship Enterprise! To get this done, we're going to start with the stock "Hello, world" example for the AJAX Search API. Then we're going to remove the style element that comes with it and plug in a new external stylesheet below the inline script that initializes the whole thing.

Once that's done, we need to (a) change a bunch of colors; (b) rework a number of background images; and (c) open a small hole in the space-time continuum to get ourselves a starship console to put it all on. Okay, so that last one isn't exactly possible, but we can do all the rest with a little CSS. And the whole thing, put together, looks like this.

Now, you will notice that a number of those rules have complex selectors (e.g., .gsc-resultsHeader td.gsc-twiddle-opened...). This is because Google's default CSS is rather specific in places. And it's also why Firefox with Firebug is so very important. It really makes the whole process almost painless.

So there you have it: style. Well, for your SearchControl, at least. Next time, we'll talk about why the Starfleet quartermaster abandoned spandex.

Until then, happy styling!

Jeremy R. Geerdes
Generally Cool Guy
jrgeerdes@gmail.com

p.s. What cool custom designs have you come up with? Share them in the Google Group! Ben Lisbakken has promised some Google schwag for interesting designs...

Thursday October 30th, 2008

MooTools 1.2.1

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 2 months ago, 0 comments Comment

MooTools v1.2.1 recently got released and we have received the thumbs up from the maintainers to host it, so the bits have been flipped and the pipes are ready to MOOve it over to you guys.

But wait!! Before you get started with 1.2.1, please note that the previous version we are hosting (1.11) and the new version (1.2.1) are incompatible. So as not to break anyone out of the blue (and put them in a bad MOOd) we have frozen the version "1" alias to 1.11. Here's what the aliases look like for MooTools:
google.load('mootools', '1') // gives you version 1.11
google.load('mootools', '1.11') // gives you version 1.11
google.load('mootools', '1.2.1') // gives you version 1.2.1
... you get the picture.

If you have some extra time, stop by the group and show us what you've been up to with MooTools. Happy grazing!

Tuesday October 7th, 2008

New Languages for Translate and POST Interface

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 3 months ago, 0 comments Comment

We are pleased to announce two enhancements to our AJAX Language API.

Thanks to the great efforts of the Google Translate team, the API is now able to support 11 additional languages for translation:

Catalan (ca)
Filipino (tl)
Hebrew (iw)
Indonesian (id)
Latvian (lv)
Lithuanian (lt)
Serbian (sr)
Slovak (sk)
Slovenian (sl)
Ukrainian (uk)
Vietnamese (vi)

Also, we'd like to introduce the new POST interface. Among other things, this can be used to send longer URLs by implementing a JavaScript bridge to, for example, Flash or Java using the RESTful interface. For additional information, take a look around our Google Group.

If you have not already done so, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the AJAX Language API terms .

Monday September 15th, 2008

Clarifying our TOS to allow additional uses

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 3 months ago, 0 comments Comment

As the AJAX APIs have undergone tremendous growth and adoption, developers have used these APIs in many new and exciting ways. When things move fast, sometimes details get left behind, and our Terms of Service has not been keeping up with the rapid rate of change. We want to make it clear that you can use these APIs in the context of websites, gadgets, mobile apps, desktop client apps, etc. In response to your feedback, we've dusted off and updated the AJAX Search API terms and the AJAX Language API terms. The primary change was replacing "website" with "Property" that's defined as a "website, application, or other product".

As always, thank you for the feedback. Keep your comments and suggestions coming! We look forward to all of your amazing creations using the Google AJAX APIs.

Wednesday September 3rd, 2008

Introducing the Transliteration API

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 4 months ago, 0 comments Comment

by Gokul Nath Babu and Anupama Dutta, Software Engineers

We're excited to announce a new addition to the AJAX Language API - the Transliteration API. Transliteration is the process of phonetically converting a word written in one script into another. We launched transliteration on India Labs a year ago to make it easier to type in Indian languages using an English keyboard. Since then, we've integrated this into a number of Google properties, such as orkut scraps, Blogger and search.

Now we'd like to make this functionality available to all websites through our API, which will make it easier for you to add transliteration capabilities to textfields on your webpages. Using this customizable API, you can enable users of your website to type in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. If you're looking for a finer level of control on your web pages, also check out the low-level interface to transliteration, and the font rendering support APIs that we have released.

Please try these out and let us know what you think and how you're using it. We'll also be discussing this API in detail during the Google Developer Day in Bangalore on October 18th. Please register to learn more.

Monday August 25th, 2008

How'd they do that?

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 4 months ago, 0 comments Comment

Have you ever gone to a site, looked at the page and wondered, "how did they do that?" Since we launched our 2008 U.S. Election site I am getting lots of questions about that nifty little "page element" sitting in the center of the page. Everyone wants to know, "how did you guys do that? how did you pack so much valuable and tightly scoped information in such a small amount of space?" Take a look at the page element below, play around with it a little bit and when you are ready, continue reading.

If you know how to use Firebug, then you can see that behind each tab (Election News, YouTube, etc.), there is a simple AJAX APIs JSON-P request. For some tabs the base operation is a Google Web Search or Custom Search, for others a Google News Search, and for others, a simple YouTube Search. The AJAX APIs work really well in this mode where the page author determines both the query and search options, as well controlling the end-to-end UI and resulting user experience.

But back to the tabs, and to answer the questions, "How'd they do that?", I will walk through each tab and show you the AJAX API requests that are used to generate the results for this page element:

First, the Election News tab. For this tab, we simply target News Search with the name of the candidate and a query addition of unitedstates_uselections. Something like this:

http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/news?v=1.0&q=Barack%20Obama%20unitedstates_uselections

Next, the YouTube tab. For this tab, we use the Video Search system to directly target each candidate's YouTube Channel (e.g., ytchannel:barackobamadotcom), render the results with a simple fade in effect, and then bind each result click to a dynamically created player. Very simple stuff. Check out the url we use to grab the results:

http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/video?v=1.0&q=ytchannel:barackobamadotcom

Next, the Blog Posts tab. For this tab, we built a little Custom Search Engine, populating it with several of the top political blogs. The search then becomes the name of the candidate plus a &cx= argument to indicate the Custom Search Engine to use for the search:

http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/web?v=1.0&q=Barack%20Obama&cx=010222979794876194725:pqldevwuapa

See what I mean? Take the queries above, slap on a little UI, and any application can take Google News, Custom Search, Web Search, YouTube, etc. and create a very tight little customized search experience...

The Quotes tab is very cool. Instead of just searching for News articles, this tab searches for news articles that contain quotes spoken by one of the candidates. Again, a simple News search with a &qsid= argument to scope to quotes for a particular candidate and we have what we need:

http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/news?v=1.0&qsid=tPjE5CDNzMicmMa

Finally, the News by State tab. This one has two things going on. First there is the state selector control. We use the just launched google.loader.ClientLocation property to determine the user's current location. Then, we simply use this location to form a geo scoped query for the candidate's name in the politics category, scoped with a geo restrict using &geo=. Something like this:

http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/news?v=1.0&q=Barack%20Obama%20any_politics&geo=CA,US

So there you have it. Take the above collection of page author defined queries, mix in a few hours of coding, throw in some product managers, a handful of lawyers, a few PR folks, and you have a clever little page element that delivers tons of very focused information.

To learn more about the APIs used in this page element, visit the AJAX Search API and AJAX Feed API documentation. To learn more about Custom Search Engines, check out the recently updated developer guide. To discuss the APIs with us and the community, visit us on our developer forum.

p.s. - If you really like that page element and have to have it on your site, you can iframe it in, or just include our JavaScript directly:


<iframe 
  title="In the News" 
  style="border: 0px none ; margin-left: 1em; width: 540px; height: 530px;" 
  src="http://www.google.com/uds/gadgets/inthenews/iframe.html" 
  frameborder="0">
</iframe>

Or if you prefer including the raw JavaScript controls where you can make mild UI modifications with simple CSS rules, try this approach:


<style>
  @import url("http://www.google.com/uds/gadgets/inthenews/inthenews.css");
  body {
    font-family: "arial", sans-serif;
    font-size: 11px;
  }
</style>

<script src="http://www.google.com/uds/gadgets/inthenews/inthenews.js"></script>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi/" type="text/javascript"></script>

<!--[if IE]>
  <script type="text/javascript" 
    src="http://www.google.com/uds/gadgets/inthenews/excanvas.js"></script>
<![endif]-->

<script type="text/javascript">
  google.load("search", "1");
  google.setOnLoadCallback(initialize, true);

  function initialize() {
    var options = {
      format : "513x500",
      useNav : true
    };
    new InTheNews("itnId-513x500", options);
  }
</script>
</head>

<body>
  <div id="itnId-513x500"></div>
</body>

Friday August 22nd, 2008

Where is my current user?

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 4 months ago, 0 comments Comment

Have you ever written an app and wanted to do something simple like center a map on your user's location? Consider a simple little map gadget. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to center that map on your user's home country, state, or city, instead of just arbitrarily centering on San Francisco or Australia?

Take a look at our new "API". Actually, it's not really an API, more like a simple object property called google.loader.ClientLocation.

After loading any one of our AJAX APIs, the system will attempt to geo-locate the client based on the client's IP address. If we have a valid mapping for the IP address, the google.loader.ClientLocation property is populated with coarse grained coordinates, the user's country, region, and city. The mapping isn't perfect, but it's pretty good, and is definitely usable as a way of setting smart defaults or adding a small amount of location awareness to your app.

Here is a little code sample that demonstrates the use of google.loader.ClientLocation:


/**
 * Set the currentState_ and currentCountry_ properties based on the client's
 * current location (when available and in the US), or to the defaults.
 */
InTheNews.prototype.setDefaultLocation_ = function() {
  this.currentState_ = this.options_.startingState;
  if (google.loader.ClientLocation &&
      google.loader.ClientLocation.address.country_code == "US" &&
      google.loader.ClientLocation.address.region) {

    // geo locate was successful and user is in the states. range check
    // the region so that we can safely use it when selecting a state
    // level polygon overlay
    var state = google.loader.ClientLocation.address.region.toUpperCase();
    if (InTheNews.stateNames[[]state]) {
      this.currentState_ = state;
    }
  }
  this.currentCountry_ = "US";
}

To witness this code in action, check out our 2008 U.S. Election page. If you click on the "News by State" tab, you will either see political news, for the current candidate, scoped to your state, OR if we don't have a mapping for your IP address, you will see the same thing only scoped to the state of California.

Now for the good stuff... If you like this simple IP to location mechanism, wait until you see what the Gears Team announced. They have a killer version of this functionality that is able to pinpoint a user's location using IP, cell-ID, GPS, and coming soon, WiFi. This is definitely a step up in terms of both functionality and accuracy.

As always, feel free to leave us feedback, ask questions, or vote for some new features by visiting our developer forum.

Tuesday August 12th, 2008

Using the AJAX Language API while Travelling

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 5 months ago, 0 comments Comment

Back in March we introduced the Google AJAX Language API, which you can use to incorporate translations from Google Translate into your projects. Lots of people have been excited about this API, including some engineers here at Google. Last Friday we released an iPhone interface for Google Translate built on top of the AJAX Language API. This interface exposes much of the functionality for languages translation in a simple UI for people to use on the go. To learn more, take look at this post on the Google Mobile blog.

Wednesday August 6th, 2008

AJAX Libraries API Update

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 5 months ago, 0 comments Comment

What's better than making a drag/drop effect in Javascript that's compatible in all browsers? Not making a drag/drop effect in Javascript that's compatible in all browsers. Save your ninja-code for another day and use the JQuery UI plugin that is now hosted on our AJAX Libraries API! As usual, your users will get a performance boost when you use JQuery UI through our API, so get started by checking out the docs.

For those of you still waiting for a MooTools 1.2 update, we apologize for the delay. In fact, we had been waiting to release JQuery UI so we could push it with MooTools 1.2. What happened was that when MooTools released the 1.2 update, it had 1.2dev in the version string. We contacted MooTools and they immediately fixed this. However, Valerio Proietti over on their side has asked us to wait until 1.2.1 is out the door to flip the switch.

Tuesday July 29th, 2008

AJAX Libraries SSL Support is Live

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 5 months ago, 0 comments Comment

Since the launch we've seen significant adoption for the AJAX Libraries API. Many developers have let us know that they would love to use our API on their secure sites using HTTPS (such as e-commerce), in fact it is the #1 request on our issue tracker. So as of last Friday, we now support SSL access to the libraries.

For those of you waiting for this feature, we apologize for the delay and appreciate your patience. Please keep the feedback coming and know that we see each and every one.

Now be on the lookout for new/updated AJAX libraries in our API!

Thursday June 12th, 2008

Recorded sessions from Google I/O now available

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 7 months ago, 0 comments Comment

Our largest developer event of the year, Google I/O, took place May 28-29 in San Francisco. You'll be happy to know that over 70 of the sessions, as well as the presentation slides, have now been posted.

This year the event featured an entire track devoted to AJAX and JavaScript including a series of sessions on our AJAX APIs. Here are the links to some of the sessions on AJAX APIs. But don't forget to check out the entire list of sessions - there are plenty more that will get your attention.

Wednesday June 11th, 2008

Introducing the AJAX Patent Search API

From Google AJAX Search API Blog, 7 months ago, 0 comments Comment

We are pleased to announce the newest member in the AJAX Search API family - the Patent Search API. This API uses the Google Patent Search service and gives you the ability to search over 7 million patents.

Using the API is easy. First load the API into your page using the AJAX API Loader

google.load("search", "1");

Now schedule your startup code to run once the DOM is ready. This is easy to do by using the google.setOnLoadCallback() method. This will call the function you specified once the DOM is ready.


google.setOnLoadCallback(onLoad, true);

You are now ready to use the Patent Search API methods. If you are using the basic search control you would need to do the following:


var searchControl = new GSearchControl();
var ps = new GpatentSearch()
searchControl.addSearcher(ps);

The API returns a collection of GpatentResult objects. Each result object contains information about a patent - including - title of the patent, snippet style description, application filing date, patent status, patent number, patent assignees, thumbnail image URL for the patent, etc.

By default the API returns a mix of filed as well as issued patents in the result set. However you can restrict the API to return just filed or just issued patents for your search results. Say you want to see only issued patents in your search results, then you would do the following:


ps.setRestriction(GSearch.RESTRICT_TYPE, GpatentSearch.TYPE_ISSUED_PATENTS);

The default behavior of this searcher is to return results ordered by their relevance. In some cases, it is useful to see results ordered by date. You can use the following method to change the result order.


// order by date, newest first
patentSearch.setResultOrder(GSearch.ORDER_BY_DATE);

// order by date, oldest first
patentSearch.setResultOrder(GSearch.ORDER_BY_ASCENDING_DATE);

Now for some examples. Here are two basic sample applications that have the Patent Search built into them.

For more information on how to use the Patent Search API in your code, please refer to the documentation here.

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