New in CardSpace "Geneva": the CardTile

Hi, my name is Colin Dellow and I'm a developer on the CardSpace team.

In Windows CardSpace "Geneva" beta, we've added a visual component to the OBJECT tag that we call the "CardTile." The CardTile shows the user the last card they submitted to a given site or the purple Information Card icon if they have never sent a card. Showing the user an image of the card they last submitted assures them it's the same site that they are returning to and that they have previously submitted a card to it.

Websites must explicitly opt into this feature; existing pages that use the object tag will continue to work as they always have, opening CardSpace for card selection. Even though the CardTile control is rendered in the page, the images shown by the control are not accessible to the page – it is not even possible for the page to know whether the image being shown is the Information Card icon or the user's most recent card.

Want to try it out?

Go install CardSpace "Geneva" and try it out – if you don't have a card, you can download an example card on the demo page.

Want to use it on your webpage?

To use the CardTile feature you will need to add the new displayType parameter to the OBJECT tag:

<FORM METHOD='POST' ACTION='processingPage.aspx'>     <OBJECT ID='infocard' TYPE='application/x-informationCard' ONCLICK= 'submit(); '>         <PARAM NAME='requiredClaims' VALUE='https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress' />        < PARAMNAME = 'displayType' VALUE='CardTile' />     </OBJECT> </FORM>

Stay tuned for future posts that describe how to do this using "Geneva" Framework, which also provides support for processing the token returned by CardSpace.

On their first visit, users will see a purple "I" CardTile indicating that they have never submitted a card to the site:

 

 

After submitting a card to the site, the tile will render differently for the user on subsequent visits:

 

 

This image tells the user that they have visited the site before and have most recently used the Fabrikam card.

A few notes:

• The decision of which card to show isn't really as simple as the last used card – in fact, it is the last used card that matches the site's current policy requirements
• The onclick attribute is an optional attribute; if set, the user's cursor will turn into a hand when it hovers over the CardTile, and the specified JavaScript will be executed when the user clicks
• The default size of the CardTile is 120 pixels by 80 pixels, but this can be overridden:

  <FORM METHOD='POST' ACTION='processingPage.aspx'>     <OBJECT ID='infocard' TYPE='application/x-informationCard' ONCLICK='submit();'>         <PARAM NAME='requiredClaims' VALUE='https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress' />         <PARAM NAME='displayType' VALUE='CardTile' /> <PARAM NAME='width' VALUE='60' /> <PARAM NAME='height' VALUE='40' />     </OBJECT> </FORM>

We have only shipped support for the CardTile in the Internet Explorer plugin that comes with CardSpace "Geneva."  In a separate post, we will document how other browser add-ons can also access this functionality in the beta.

Thanks,

Colin

Comments

• Anonymous
  November 21, 2008
  In an earlier posts, Colin described how to handcraft a web page to implement the new CardTile feature
• Anonymous
  June 09, 2009
  Reducing your login steps one click at a time One of the major goals of CardSpace “Geneva” is to streamline