i LOVE dashboard / Articles

Is Apple releasing a widget app called Dashcode? [del.icio.us]

2005-11-04T21:30:15-08:00

Carpenters’ Level [del.icio.us]

2005-10-30T20:37:34-08:00

Updated version finally works on my new iBook.

Graphite Widget [del.icio.us]

2005-10-28T05:49:45-07:00

Scrapes any number off of any website and graphs it over time.

WatchMouse Site Monitor [del.icio.us]

2005-10-19T18:13:37-07:00

Will alert you if your website goes down.

Yoink

2005-10-09T22:55:00Z

This is one of those widgets that makes me not regret sifting through the growing pile of new (and mostly useless) widgets on a semi-daily basis. Yoink (an appropriate name you either get or don’t) is really clever. Basically it just takes a snapshot of a website and presents it as a thumbnail on your dashboard. You can set it to grab a new thumbnail every set amount of time or only when text changes. You then have access to the three most recent thumbnails. Clicking the thumbnail launches the website.

What’s really neat about this is that it fills a nice gap between reading via RSS and manually checking a site. The first page I loaded in was the Drudge Report because it doesn’t have an RSS feed and changes content very regularly. It’s also one of those sites that you only need to glance at to tell if it’s been updated. If Drudge and his sirens don’t do it for you, most news sites operate under similar principals and reflect a prominent visual change when there is a significant update. Though CNN’s headline wasn’t readable at the smallest size.

Another site I’ll use this for is ESPN since they change the front page and add new articles about twice a day with a corresponding lead image.

My only complaint (one that I have about most widgets) is that even it’s smallest size still takes up too much Dashboard real estate. I’d prefer something one size smaller or an option to temporarily collapse the thumbnail into an icon that I could click to check when I wanted to.

That and a few 1.0 glitches aside Yoink is worth checking out.

VideoSpace [del.icio.us]

2005-10-04T05:51:30-07:00

Widget for video editors that calculates disk space usage for varying lengths of digitized video.

NowPlaying (TiVo Widget) [del.icio.us]

2005-10-04T05:46:32-07:00

Looks handy, though I don't have Tivo.

Dashboard Starter [del.icio.us]

2005-10-02T19:35:49-07:00

Rapidly opens and closes Dashboard at login, effectively pre-loading your widgets.

Widsense [del.icio.us]

2005-09-30T20:40:12-07:00

Slick widget to track your Google Adsense revenue.

Match.com Widget [del.icio.us]

2005-09-30T20:15:48-07:00

Make dating geeky fun!

FOX Scorestrip [del.icio.us]

2005-09-29T09:09:08-07:00

This arrogant widget is 900 pixels wide and 100 high. How rude.

The Mysterious Safari Dashboard Button

2005-09-29T13:06:00Z

Appleinsider reports that developers have found an unused button in Safari in the pre-release builds of 10.4.3. This button is not actually active, however, in the version of Safari included with 10.4.3, it’s simply buried in the resources folder inside the application.

Something is strange about this button and I question whether AppleInsider’s assumption that the button detects a downloadable widget on the page is correct. It just doesn’t seem like enough to justify a whole button.

Of all the pages you browse on a daily basis how many include links to Dashboard widgets? Would those few instances really justify it’s own button? I suppose if the button activated when you went to a web app like Odeo or Backpack that had free widgets that complimented the service it could be useful to alert users. But once you had downloaded it, what’s the point of the button still being there, just deactivated?

Also, I mean, it’s not that hard to download widgets. That said, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Apple simply wanted to prominently feature Dashboard and be in-your-face about it in light of new competition from Yahoo’s Konfabulator.

The second problem is one of aesthetics. It just doesn’t fit. It’s black with a bit of red, it doesn’t match any of the other monochrome Safari buttons. In fact, when included in a current version of Safari as seen in this mockup, it’s an outright eye sore.

Granted, Apple is capable of any one of these offenses of aesthetics and logic. My guess is that there’s something more. A missing piece that will make this button make sense. Or maybe not. We’ll find out.

NOTE: The mockups in this post were done by me for demonstration and are not actually screenshots of any Safari builds.

Apple Computers Widget [del.icio.us]

2005-09-27T20:26:32-07:00

I finally downloaded this just to confirm that, exactly as I had expected, this widget is insanely useless. In case you were wondering.

Links Are Now Delicious

2005-09-26T12:54:00Z

I just wanted to give a heads up that I’m using del.icio.us to power my Link Roll. The built-in Textpattern links were OK but I wanted an easy way to seamlessly combine the main feed with the links feed and del.icio.us along with FeedBurner seemed to be the solution.

The biggest difference will be that links will now appear in the main entry feed. I’m not an over-linker so that shouldn’t bother anyone. The only unfortunate thing is that all of my links just got added wholesale into the main feed. Whoops. I also don’t like that they have [del.icio.us] appended to them. If it ends up being annoying, I’ll get rid of it (I was only trying to help, I swear!). Feedback is, of course, welcome.

To integrate del.icio.us with the site I’m using Marshall Potter’s plugin TXP.icio.us (which I defy you to pronounce). It got me up and running in under 5 minutes, so that was pretty neat.

Lastly, here’s my del.icio.us page for whatever noble or nefarious purposes you see fit.

iTunes Artwork [del.icio.us]

2005-09-21T20:46:26-07:00

This is a well designed widget, the screenshot doesn’t really do it justice. Ultimately it's just decoration so I uninstalled it but if you're into your album art, it's worth checking out. It will also fetch CD covers from Amazon which is cool.

Bluetooth widget [del.icio.us]

2005-09-21T20:45:40-07:00

Same as the Firewall widget but for Bluetooth.

Firewall Switch [del.icio.us]

2005-09-21T20:44:44-07:00

This widget makes me wish I constantly turned on and off my firewall. Well done.

Carpenters Level [del.icio.us]

2005-09-21T20:43:30-07:00

Use's the Apple Motion Sensor in new Powerbooks and iBooks to give you "a carpenters level." I can't test this but this sounds sweet.

.Mac Update?

2005-09-20T12:26:18Z

I just randomly checked the mac.com website today and there seems to be some new enhancements. 1GB of storage and the release of Backup 3. But no .Mac exclusive widgets to be found anywhere. Perhaps they’re waiting for a later announcement?

And now this is strange, this Tiger promo page on .Mac Sync mentions exclusive widgets but doesn’t go into specifics. I believe this was there all along, I can find it in a google cache from the 18th.

OK, this is a research-as-you-go type post. Just found a screen shot of a .Mac widget teaser from May of this year. Great.

Well, they clearly haven’t scrapped the widgets altogether so hopefully there’s some more announcements later today.

Now what are the chances the widgets are so damn cool they make you shell out 100 bucks for .Mac? Here’s hoping.

Liberate Your Widgets

2005-09-14T12:47:34Z

The developer mode isn’t just handy for developers. Sometimes you need a widget alongside your regular workflow and not stuck in Dashboard.

The “developer mode” allows you to yank widgets out of Dashboard and have them float on top of your normal desktop (and put them back of course).

I resisted trying this out for a long time thinking that I had no interest in the weather or the clock or whatever floating above my desktop 24/7. But I find the best use is to temporarily pull a widget out, use it then put it back.

Calculator is the widget that makes the trip most often for me. Most of the time I’m working with numbers displayed on my screen. With so many widgets it’s nearly impossible to see whatever list of numbers I may be adding.

To enable devmode you can use the Terminal or a utility. In Terminal type:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

Then restart the dock:

killall Dock

There is also a widget that will do this for you.

Once you’ve enabled it, liberating a widget is simple. Just click and drag the widget and while still dragging, hit F12 (or however else you have it set to enable/disable Dashboard) and the widget will come with you. Do the same to put it back, or you can still hold down the option key to close.

If you need to disable dev mode, in the Terminal type:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode NO

And restart the dock again. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t enable this, it doesn’t change any default behavior, and can be quite handy when the need arises.

How To Get Hooked On Dashboard

2005-09-13T12:46:00Z

You’re saying to yourself, Dashboard is clearly fantastic but I just don’t use it. I want to use it. I want to love it. But I just don’t. Please help.

Well, my theory is that there’s a large segment of Mac users out there that feel this way. To a large extent fixing that problem is what this site is all about.

And actually, this article boils down to one little utility: Dasher by Splasm Software. It’s a free pref pane that automatically triggers Dashboard after a set interval, just like a screen saver.

It’s really great for three reasons. First, I’m often away from my computer but near my computer. Now I can see the weather, know if I have mail and everything else my widgets tell me without going all the way over there and hitting F12, or remembering to leave Dashboard open every time I get up.

Second, every time you come back to your computer, voilà, your widgets are sitting there all up to date. Invoking dashboard, especially the first time in a day, can take a while for everything to update. Why not let that happen while you’re away from the desk?

Last but not least, it’s automatic addiction. You never have to remember to use Dashboard, it remembers for you. After a while you’ll start to rely on it more, it’s that simple.

» Download Dasher

The Blackout Brought Us Down

2005-09-13T12:37:43Z

Naturally the day I choose to launch this site a power outage in Los Angeles brings down my hosting company, DreamHost. So from 4:30 yesterday till 1 AM this morning we were down. On launch day. Fantastic.

Overlooked Widget Features

2005-09-09T11:50:06Z

Here’s a feature you may have missed: Double-click to install.

The 10.4.2 update added some widget management functionality. The most obvious addition was the new “Manage Widgets” button that launches a special widget where one can view a list of installed widgets and disable widgets from appearing in the tray.

In a pre-release screenshot of this management widget in 10.4.2 I had seen red buttons next to each widget’s name which allowed you to uninstall (delete) the widget, rather than simply disable it. After installing the 10.4.2 update, however, I didn’t see these red delete buttons and assumed the feature had been pulled.

But actually it’s there, along with a bit more functionality.

In 10.4 double-clicking a widget launched the widget in Dashboard but did not add it to the Library/Widgets folder and thus did not add it to the scrolling tray in Dashboard. So once you closed it you couldn’t reopen it without double-clicking it again or manually adding it to the Widgets folder.

I assumed this behavior didn’t change. But it did.

Now, in 10.4.2, double-clicking a widget brings up a dialog asking if you want to install the widget. Clicking “Install” moves the widget to ~/Library/Widgets¹ and opens the widget in Dashboard in a sort of trial mode. It’s contained within a frame with the options to “Keep” or “Delete.” You can play around with it before deciding whether it’s a dud or a keeper.

Choosing “Keep,” obviously, keeps it and choosing “Delete” moves it to the trash. But now if you view the “Manage Widgets…” widget you’ll see the red minus button, allowing you the option to completely delete the widget.

This delete option only applies to widgets that were installed into the user’s local ~/Library/Widgets folder, not to widgets in the root-level /Library/Widgets folder.

The reason I overlooked this new functionality at first was because in Safari I have it set not to automatically open downloaded “Safe” files. If I had, I would have immediately been prompted to install a new widget upon downloading. If I hadn’t realized this I would have continued installing widgets into the root-level Widgets folder and thus, no delete buttons.

I’d prefer to keep my widgets in the root-level Widgets folder but this makes installing and removing widgets much easier.

¹ The tilde (~) stands for the current user’s main folder (ie. ‘Macintosh HD/Library/Users/someuser/’). As opposed to a leading forward slash (/) which stands for the root of the hard drive.

Welcome to I Love Dashboard

2005-09-09T05:34:38Z

I love vertical blogs with personality and have really wanted to create my own for quite a while. Ideas came and went but Dashboard and its Widgets caught my attention. (I’ve also always wanted a title graphic with that cool reflected look and really especially wanted to use Futura, so we’re killing a lotta birds here)

I’m quite a fan of Apple’s Dashboard environment that premiered with OS X 10.4. So much so that I’d like to have a place to highlight good widgets, critique widgets and share what I have to say about the whole Dashboard experience.

This site is not really about Widget development. I may link to some developmentally pertinent sites now and again but I’m not a creator I’m a fan. There’s plenty of other sites dedicated to Widget development, which I’ve collected for you.

Besides fawning over pretty widgets I do have some other constructive ideas that I’ll be implimenting over the next few weeks. So stay tuned for that.

As for advertising I’m torn. Like every web reader I hate advertising. Like every web publisher I want to be richer than God. So I’ve started with a tiny amount of Google text ads.

In the future I’d prefer to limit it to Widget related advertisements, but shareware widgets are just now starting to come out. So we shall see.

Oh, yeah, and I’ve also always wanted to try out Textpattern so there’s another bludgeoned bird for you.

Just in case it turns out that no one wants to read a blog about Dashboard (entirely possible), I do have a backup plan. I can set up a bullitin board for people who were formerly obsessed with Ash, the main chacter from the Evil Dead series (The ‘I Loved Ash’ Board). And if that’s not successful then a fan site for Dashboard Confessional. This URL is built to last!

First Post

2005-08-19T23:59:00Z

Textpattern is much different than MovableType. It took a while to get the hang of it all, but now I feel comfy with Textpattern, or Txp as it is affectionately referred. Pronounced TIXSP. Actually I have no idea. This was the default entry when I installed Textpattern and I’m just keeping it here so if I need an entry to test something out on, it’s here.

Textpattern likes to take care of everything, which I think is worth learning to like. MovableType is very hands-on and while I’m used to that level of control I think that Textpattern will allow me to get to the point a bit quicker and spend less time fidgeting with mundane archaic templates.

Either way, we shall find out. Right?