Hi Jay:

Good question. We get a number of questions regarding the integration possibilities with other mashup tools. While one might think, why would I want to use Ratchet-X to expand a mashup (RX is often considered a mashup tool itself), I’m guessing the reason is that while creating a Popfly or Yahoo Pipes mashup is easy for you, you don’t necessarily want your users cloning or modifying your work. That gets out of hand real fast and can create a support nightmare. This is precisely why folks use Ratchet-X - to allow users to expand upon the mashups they’ve created without requiring changes to the mashup.

There are two ways you can integrate your mashup into Ratchet-X depending upon whether you are adding new features to the mashup via Ratchet-X or whether you want to use the mashup as a Ratchet-X plug-in. Since you asked about the first condition, that’s the one I will address here. However, I think the question is important and will address more comprehensively in a blog posting later today.

If you want to add new features to a Popfly mashup, you should handle it the same way you would any other Windows or browser-based application. Create an appspace for the mashup and link your snippets to the XModel elements that tie to the plug-ins you want to integrate. So if you want to add US Address Verification to your mashup, create the appspace, define the regwin and snippets, and link to the Address XModel listed on Ratchet-X Online.

That’s all you need to do and you should be good to go.

Thanks,

Joe