Create a user-managed data service using the Google App engine

Question

I am creating a to-do list manager for iPhone using GAE as the back. My ultimate goal is to create custom shared lists, and I was looking for some tips / examples on how to do this. I know that the google API provides functions for authenticating users, but from what I can say, any additional user management would be something that I would need to implement myself.

Is it possible to do something similar by simply adding usernames to the list, which is a property of the data I want to share? I suppose I'm doing a simplification, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

thanks

Answer 1

you are right, the application does not have native support for custom ACLs or permissions, and several quick searches on the Internet did not immediately display any obvious open source libraries.

How to implement full permissions and ACLs for group sharing is definitely a non-trivial design issue. There are a number of other issues here.

saying that, like a very rough first pass, you are probably on the right track with saving user lists. I suggest you abstract the list into separate group entities and instead bind them to yor data so that users can define groups once, and not for each piece of data. I would also like to keep separate lists of groups that can read vs write. finally, I would save the “User Properties” in the group entity, instead of strings of usernames or email addresses.