Chris's unofficial Office Live developer blog : Live ID

Live ID goodies for Office Live developers

cbeiter — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 03:47:00 GMT

Our friends over in the Windows Live ID team have been hard at work lately and have snuck a couple innovations out there without me even noticing it. I know there are some Office Live folks who watch my blog for important developments and this definitely ranks up there. So without further ado... (and because I'm trying to post this quick before I get out of the office for today)...

The Windows Live ID Client SDK v1.0 "final" has been posted up on to the Microsoft download center. Last spring I blogged about the Alpha version of the SDK, and since then the Live ID team has posted a refresh of the Alpha and now the final. Hmm. Maybe I missed the beta. Or maybe the Alpha refresh was good enough to be a beta. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that there are expected to be some significant changes in this final version of the tookit, so if you have already written an app using the Alpha SDK, please check this out and consider refactoring your app. If you were scared off by the Alpha tag, well, the wait is over. The other interesting bit that Sarah mentioned on the Live ID forum is that they are also planning a merge module so you can distribute the necessary pieces of the SDK with your application more easily. Good stuff!

The other Live ID development that escaped my attention until today (and is probably old news to you, my estute readers) is that they also released a Web Authentication SDK in August! I've just started to digest the information around this, so I'm not sure I can give you a good read on what the implications are for Office Live solution developers. It looks like it will allow you to use Live ID as your authentication system for your non-Microsoft web site or web service. They have created a variety of different toolkits & samples that will work on many different languages (ASP.NET, Perl, Java, Ruby, etc) and is supposed to be platform agnostic. Does this mean your web service will have single-sign in capabilities when your customers also go to Office Live? Well, their blog post doesn't go that far and doesn't make those promises, so I'm not entirely sure just yet. At a minimum, this looks like a step in that direction. Let's just say for now, it's very exciting.

Connecting a smart-client to Office Live using Live ID

cbeiter — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:29:00 GMT

Heads up, there is a new code sample that shows you how to use the Windows Live ID Client SDK and the Office Live Discovery Web service to authenticate and talk to Office Live's business applications & workspaces. This can really open up a lot of interesting scenarios for you and your customers.

Create your own smart client app that works directly with Office Live apps such as business contact manager. Now your customers can use your app to manage the contacts, or they can log into Office Live remotely to get the same data.
Use the Discovery Web to determine what Office Live subscriptions a Live ID is associated with and help your customers manage data across multiple subscriptions.

Those are just a couple examples, but the possibilities are pretty endless. To download the code sample, go to the download center and get the Client Application Connection sample. To read more about the Client Application Connection code sample, watch the Office Live Blog and check out the next update of the Microsoft Office Live Developer Guide (due early April 2007).

You may also be interested in the blog post that announces the Live ID Client SDK, and you can get help with questions about the SDK on the Live ID dev forum.

Windows Live ID - something to read up on

cbeiter — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 00:10:00 GMT

Another recent announcement that has relevance to Office Live developers is regarding the updated Windows Live ID service, formerly known as Passport. Live ID is what Office Live uses for authentication in our v1.0 Beta today, and also what we plan to continue to use in future releases.

Some developers writing Office Live apps may want to familiarize themselves with it, others do not need to worry about it. For example, if you are customizing existing Office Live Business Applications or creating new ones (via Sharepoint templates), you should be fine without needing to delve into authentication.

However, if you are thinking about how to integrate Windows Client apps with Office Live, Windows Live ID will eventually be important to you. Here's a snippet from a white paper on their service that will hopefully make it clear:

A second SDK—the Windows Live ID Client SDK—runs on end users' computers. This SDK makes it easier to write new client applications that understand Windows Live IDs and supports the sharing of authentication state across multiple rich clients and browsers. It also manages short-lived certificates issued by the Windows Live ID Certificate Authority; these certificates can be used in security-sensitive applications such as peer-to-peer communication channels.

The article pretty much just annnouces their intention to release some SDKs, but doesn't provide a specific timeline for it. So to keep up with changes to the Live ID or find out when the SDK is ready, check out their blog on MSN Spaces. I'll also try to post something back up here when they have something more to show.

Now, you may ask, how would I write a Windows App that works against Office Live? As mentioned before here and elsewhere, Office Live is moving to the WSS v3 platform in an upcoming release. We are hoping to expose many of the web services that WSS v3 provides, and maybe a few of our own. Again, take that with a grain of salt and invest your time at your own peril (no guarantees, warrantees implied)... the Office Live API story is not yet complete.