Windows Live Gadget Checklist

Gadget Manifest

Gadget namespace adheres to <CompanyName>.<TeamName>.<FeatureName> format.
Gadget icon should be specified in transparent .GIF format. Transparent .PNG format will not be rendered properly on Live.com.

Gadget JavaScript Code

General

No secrets stored via setPreference() method. Preferences stored on the platform are sent across the wire in plain text.
Network requests should not be done via the XMLHttpRequest object. Instead, use Web.Network.createRequest() and related calls to make sure that the network requests are properly proxied so they can work cross-domain.
Amount of data returned from network requests should not be large enough to make the Gadget look unresponsive.
Avoid calling getElementsByTagName on the document object from your Gadget. This operation may degrade performance especially if your Gadget is running inline.
Note that any objects, methods and properites in the Start.* namespace are considered private and they are not guaranteed to remain unchanged moving forward.

Memory Leaks

All attached events are detached in the Gadget's dispose() method.
All member variables are set to null in the Gadget's dispose() method.
Base class's initialize() method is called first within the Gadget's initialize() method.
Base class's dispose() method is called last within the Gadget's dispose() method.
No increase in memory usage when the Gadget is reloaded via http://gadgets.start.com/gadget.aspx?manifestUrl=gadgetUrl

Accessibility

DOM elements inside the Gadget should have proper tab order.
All <img> tags should contain the ALT attribute.
Buttons should genuinely be <input> DOM elements and not <span> tags styled as buttons.

Gadget CSS File

All selectors should be preceeded by the fully qualified Gadget name with "." replaced with "_" and with a "." prepended. For example, if your fully qualified Gadget name is "Microsoft.Live.HelloWorld", then all your selectors should be preceeded with ".Microsoft_Live_HelloWorld ". This is for elminating CSS selector collisions if your Gadget were to ever load inline.