Creating Mac Widgets with Dashcode (Firstpress)

With the advent of Mac OSX Leopard and Dashcode, it has become very easy to write your own widgets (small programs that typically do one task). Even business people can write little programs to do things like graph sales that automatically update. So this book is written for all users who may want to create their own widgets. The topic can be covered in detail and so we will cover Javascript integration and using other Mac scripts to integrate widgets in applications. A little widget history The look and feel of a good Apple widget What widgets can and cannot do The problems with widgets More excitement coming What is Dashcode? Where is Dashcode and how is it installed? A quick look at Dashcode features Important Dashcode features and tools One template down, nine to go The countdown timer template The maps template The RSS and the daily feed templates The podcast template The photocast template The quartz composer template The video podcast template The gauge template Out of the box-not! In over 100 pages, you will learn to create and use widgets using Dashcode. Widgets are simple, typically small applications for a specific purpose, such as a weather report, a calculator, a stock quote, and the like that reside on the Mac Dashboard. Building these before Dashcode was time consuming though not hard; but now, you can whip up a Widget fast. Creating Mac Widgets with Dashcode teaches you how.