Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 11:35 AM
A new gadget by Benjamin Schirmer is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: Thesaurus.
Desktop APIs
Your official source on the Google Desktop APIs
Congratulations to Benjamin Schirmer!
A new gadget by Benjamin Schirmer is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: Thesaurus.
IIT Google Desktop Gadget Challenge – I
Monday, May 12, 2008 at 4:42 PM
On Feb 28th 2008, we held IIT Google Desktop Gadget Challenge – I, the very first Google Desktop Ambassador event at our institute (Informatics Institute of Technology, Sri Lanka).
The contest was a small warmup event for potential and new Google Desktop gadget developers at IIT. The main goal was to inspire and prepare students for the IIT Google Desktop Gadgets Contest, which we plan to announce by the middle of May.
Today we are really happy to announce the winner of the contest, Mr. Mohamed Shazin Sadakath, a part-time student at our institute. Check the Winners page of our local Google group for more information, and don't forget to check out his gadget, Hit Stations LK.
As a sign of appreciation for his contribution to Google Desktop, Shazin will receive a cool Google gift pack. Let's welcome this new gadget developer to the arena.
Thanks a lot to everyone who supported this event, and special thanks to the Google Desktop team for their continued guidance and support.
Tip: Use opacity to highlight buttons
Wednesday, May 07, 2008 at 8:52 AM
Using opacity, you can make buttons that light up when you mouse over them. This effect can improve the usability and appearance of a gadget that has several buttons close together.
Implementing this opacity effect for a button takes just two easy steps:
Step 1: Paste the following code into
main.xml within the <view> element.<button height="30" name="button" image="image.png"Step 2: Now paste the following code into
opacity="200"
onmouseout="makeTransparent()"
onmouseover="makeOpaque()"/>
main.js.function makeTransparent() {
button.opacity = 200; //transparent (0 would be invisible)
}
function makeOpaque() {
button.opacity = 255; //completely opaque
}I used this technique in my Expression Tools, Windows Dock, and Fast Shutdown gadgets.Have a tip you'd like to share? Send it to gd-developer AT google DOT com. To see all tips, choose the Tips label.
Congratulations to O&O Software GmbH!
Friday, May 02, 2008 at 3:26 PM
A new gadget by O&O Software GmbH is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: O&O DiskStat.
Tip: View script errors and debug statements on the Mac
at 9:24 AM
On Windows, you can view debug statements using either gdpconsole or the Gadget Designer. As for exceptions and script errors, those happily pop up in an error dialog.
On the Mac, you can view those same messages in the console log. Here's how:
- Open Console.app, located under Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities
- Click the Logs button in the toolbar to open the logs list
- Select console.log in the logs list
Have a tip you'd like to share? Send it to gd-developer AT google DOT com. To see all tips, choose the Tips label.
Desktop at Google I/O
Friday, April 25, 2008 at 3:37 PM
The Google Desktop team hopes you can join us at Google's biggest developer event of the year. Google I/O will be held May 28-29 in San Francisco, California.
Google Desktop engineers have just been scheduled for a Fireside Chat. It will be an informal Q&A session where you can ask just about anything — design decisions, annoying issues, and features you'd like to see.
You can find us hanging out in our demo booth throughout the entire event. The booth will be in the Ajax/JavaScript product area.
Google I/O is going to be an amazing event with lots of great talks and sessions. We're really looking forward to meeting you, so please stop by and say hello. If you have questions about participating in the event, please send an email to gd-developer AT google DOT com.
Tip: Open default browser from the HTML details view
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 4:34 PM
When you use the HTML details view to display information, on Windows every link inside is opened using Internet Explorer, even if the user has another browser like Firefox or Opera set as their default browser. However, you can fix this with a few lines of code in your gadget.
The following link opens the Google web page in Internet Explorer in Windows — even if another browser is set as the default.
To remedy this, open the URL using JavaScript and the<a target="_blank" href="http://www.google.com">Go to Google</a>
onclick event.This executes the<a target="_self" href="#"
onclick="window.external.openUrl('http://www.google.com');">
Go to Google</a>
openUrl method on the external object with the parameter of the URL you want to visit. What does this external object look like? Here is the JavaScript code that defines the external object and assigns it to the details view. This should be run before the details view is opened.Now all your links will be opened in the default browser. Just don't forget to escape the URL!var externalObject = new Object();
externalObject.openUrl = function(url) {
framework.openUrl( url );
};
mydetailsview.external = externalObject;
Have a tip you'd like to share? Send it to gd-developer AT google DOT com. To see all tips, choose the Tips label.
Congratulations to Hemakumar M!
Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 11:11 AM
A new gadget by Hemakumar M is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: Digital Clock.
Tip: Open URLs with framework.openUrl
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 4:06 PM
I'd bet good money that most Desktop gadget developers could recognize and understand this code snippet:
var obj = new ActiveXObject('WScript.Shell');
obj.run('http://desktop.google.com/');Those days are over, as the latest Google Desktop release added an API for opening a URL in a browser: framework.openUrl('http://desktop.google.com/');This is documented in the 5.5 release notes, but we wrote this tip in case you missed it. :)Have a tip you'd like to share? Send it to gd-developer AT google DOT com. To see all tips, choose the Tips label.
How to write resizable gadgets
Monday, April 14, 2008 at 1:22 PM
I am constantly mentioning to people how easy it is to add resizing ability to gadgets. Only two simple steps are needed to make your gadget resizable. The first is enabling resizing by setting view.resizable to 'true'. The second part is writing code that reacts to size changes and updates the gadget's UI accordingly.
To see an example of this, please read my new article Resizable Desktop Gadgets. It discusses all the various resize modes and handlers, and how to design and implement a resizable UI.
