I can see many related questions on SO, but none that answers exactly what I'm confused with.
I'm using Google Calendar API in a .NET desktop application that allows user to provide his/her username/password, logs in on his behalf and adds some events to the calendar. Now I want to do exactly the same thing for Tasks feature. I'm trying to use Google Tasks API for this, but have been told that I need to do some OAuth kind of authentication, and even before that, I need to go to my gmail account and set permissions and get my project "key" to enable it.
Now does every user of my application need to do these steps in their Gmail account? Or do I need to do this in MY gmail account once and then my application code will be able to use the generated project "key" to enable my users to add tasks to THEIR gmail tasks list?
Figured it out. For anyone having a hard time understanding this, here it is:
The "key" generation step needs to be done only once per application, not for each user who's going to use your application. To generate a key, login to your Google Account and go to Google APIs Console page. Click API Access button and that's where you can generate keys for different kinds of applications like browser apps, desktop apps, Android apps etc. After registration, you'll need to take Client ID, Client secret and API key from this page and put them into the code. Sample code (.NET) for task creation and several other Google features is available here.
Once your user runs your application, he'll be taken to his Google account in his default browser where he'll be asked if he wants to allow this application to write to his calendar/tasks list. This page will display your logo and description text too that you can provide at registration time. Once allowed, this step won't be required again in the next one hour (this may be adjustable, i don't know yet).