I've run into a roadblock on the Less Wrong Study Hall reprogramming project. I've been writing against Google Hangouts, but it seems that there's no way to have a permanent, public hangout URL that also runs a specified application. (that is, I can get a fixed URL, or a hangout that runs an app for all users, but I can't do both)
Any of the programmers here know a way around that? At the moment it's looking like I'll have to go back to square zero and find an entirely different approach.
To get a permanent URL, the workaround was that you could schedule a hangout very far in the future. Are you saying that you can't run a specified application on that?
Could you have a server that knows where the dynamic url is at all times, and provides a redirect? So I'd hit up lwsh.me and it would redirect me to https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/etc ...that would create an effectively permanent url, even though the hangout itself would change urls.
Looking at the Hangouts API, it appears that when the app is initialized you could call getHangoutUrl() and then pipe it back to the server. This could probably be used in a pretty dynamic manner too... like whenever anyone uses the app, it connects with the main server and adds that chat to the list of active chats...
0tondwalkar
I'm not sure what you mean by "runs an app for all users", Are you writing a separate app that you want the hangout to automatically open on entry? Doesn't it make more sense to do this the other way around?
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.