Radar Chart Gadget verified by Google - Yeah!

Google now requires all custom gadgets to be verified by them in order they can be viewed by collaborators. Refer to the Gadgets: Verifying Custom Gadget Google docs help page for more information.

I had developed a Radar Chart Google Spreadsheet Gadget a while ago. And our department have been using it to visualize the assessment data. So I better submit it to Google for verification as soon as possible.

It took about 3 business days... and YES! As of noon today, Google had verified my radar chart gadget. I hope it will be listed in their gadget gallery soon.

Internet Explorer Strikes Again

Just found out my Radar Chart Google Spreadsheet Gadget did not work on all popular browsers.  Guess which one?!

The error message was:

window.G_vmlCanvasManager is null or not an Object

I swear I had verified it working on Internet Explorer before.
I swear I had not made any change since.
and I swear...
and I swear...

Apparently, there was a problem loading excanvas.js (a javascript to enable HTML5 canvas for Internet Explorer).  As a result, window.G_vmlCanvasManager did not exist.

My original code was:

<content type="html"><![CDATA[

<!--[if IE]><script type="text/javascript" src="http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/115560173853763482292/excanvas.js"></script><![endif]-->

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

As it turns out, there needs to be something between <![CDATA[ and the conditional comment <!--[if IE]>... even if it is just a <p> or another <script> line.

So I changed the code to:

<Content type="html"><![CDATA[

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

<!--[if IE]><script type="text/javascript" src="http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/115560173853763482292/excanvas.js"></script><![endif]-->

The gadget is working once again.