The OAuth 2.0 Playground is one of those tools that makes life easier for developers. Google made it so that they could play around with the OAuth 2.0 protocol and related APIs. There’s a new kid on the figurative block now and his name is Google Drive.

Google announced that the Google Drive API is now available in the OAuth 2.0 Playground. This will allow developer to test out apps that use the Drive API before pushing it out to market. The Playground is somewhat limited, however, as it only allows developers to access files that their own app has created or files that were opened through the Google Drive interface by their app. There was no way to open a file from the Drive UI through the OAuth 2.0 Playground.

To help rectify this problem, Google has created a simple and elegant solution – a Chrome Web Store app. You can now grab the OAuth 2.0 Playground app which features Google Drive integration. Once installed, the OAuth 2.0 Playground app will become a part of Google Drive. Once there, it will be able to open any Drive file in the Playground.

Using the OAuth 2.0 Playground app is super simple. Just go to the file that you want to open with the Playground, right click and go to “Open with.” If you have the Playground app installed, it should give you an option to open the file with the app. It gives the Playground access to the file and then you’re redirected to the OAuth flow to start poking around.

The new app should help developers in their creation of Drive-enabled apps. Google Drive apps have the potential to change how we collaborate on projects. Use this new functionality to your advantage to show people the power of real-time collaboration over the cloud.

You can grab the OAuth 2.0 Playground app at the Chrome Web Store. Have fun experimenting and playing around with the APIs.