Just hacked my first gadget on Windows Vista
At last, I did it! Tonight I hacked my very first Gadget for Windows Vista. It’s a simple gadget, with no other feature than thanking you for being so faithful to Tech IT Easy. But overall, if I can hack (actually, I can script) a .gadget file that works in roughly 35 minutes, pretty much anyone can do it. Since all you need to deliver at the end of the day are an .html file and a .xml file, the only tool you need – I can assure you, is good old Notepad.
For those of you who feel like giving it a try, here’s my source code:
- For the jeremy.html document:
<html>
<style>
body {
width:120;
height:120;
}
</style>
<body>
We love you! The Tech IT Easy bloggers
</body>
</html>
- The jeremy.xml javascript file:
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″ ?>
<gadget>
<name>We love you! The Tech IT Easy bloggers</name>
<namespace>microsoft.windows</namespace>
<version>0.1<version>
<author name=”Jeremy Fain”>
<info url=”www.techiteasy.org” />
</author>
<copyright>Not necessary, but let’s say it’s strategic: Copyright (c) 2007 </copyright>
<description>A gadget that displays a nice message to our readers in Windows Vista’s Sidebar</description>
<icons>
<icon width=”120″ height=”120″ src=tieweloveyou.png” />
</icons>
<hosts>
<host name= “sidebar”>
<base type=”HTML” apiVersion=”1.0.0″ src=”jeremy.html” />
<permissions>full</permissions>
<platform minPlatformVersion=”0.3″ />
</host>
</host>
</gadget>
- Deployment
Just create your Gadget Manifest from your .xml file, put it in a new folder alongside with the .html file, zip it and rename it .gadget. Vista will then recognize the file as a new Gadget of its own and all you’ll have to do is select it in your Sidebar and run it.
Conclusion
From what I see at work everyday, there’s hell a lot of market traction for Vista gadgets, which appear to be great customer relationship & buzz marketing tools for all sorts of companies and start ups. Creating a gadget (next time I’ll try to hack my first Ajax app in a gadget) is so simple, even for a really crappy developer like me, that if by accident I find myself available, professionally speaking, then I would seriously consider opening a Vista Gadget Factory to remain in the ecosystem and grow with the MS tree. And I guess you should too.
Many thanks to Clauer for the learning resource links:
English resources:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/vista/gadgets-pt1.mspx
http://microsoftgadgets.com/Sidebar/DevelopmentOverview.aspx
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1063&SiteID=1
French resources:
http://lgmorand.developpez.com/articles/sidebar-gadget/
http://blogs.msdn.com/fredeq/pages/questions-fr-quentes-sur-les-desktop-gadgets.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/france/vision/mstechdays/ (watch Clauer’s webcast on how to write a Gadge, it’s amazing)
Related posts:
Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, Europe, Friends, Internet, Java, MNC, Microsoft, SME, Software, USA, innovation, marketing, open-source, user-generated content
So how does it measure love? How much is love worth, Jeremy? Nobody loves me, I need your widget. Now I’m going to buy me some Vista to get some love…
I don’t know anything about Vista, i can’t say a lot about that! So, i’ll experiment what your script when i’ll have OS/Vista between my hands
A+
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