Couple of months after Vista was released, Jeremy showed how easy it was to make a wid… gadget. So, naturally now that Mac OS X Leopard has finally been released, it’s time to show how easy it is to develop a widget with Leopard. We’re going further than just displaying “Hello world!”, oh yes, it’s time to make Tech IT Easy RSS-feed reader… in Dashcode. For added difficulty, I promise I’ve not launched Dashcode before and I know next to nothing about Javascript.

And… 7 minutes later, I give you the semi-official Tech IT Easy RSS-reader-widget.

Of course, this wasn’t entirely fair as Jeremy did all his magic from scratch with Notepad using only his HTML and XML skills. I used an IDE and a ready-made template. But, it’s the results that count. Jeremy’s “hello world” took 35 minutes and I bet he had used Notepad before…

Dashcode is pretty similar to the iWork/iLife software suite and, in a way, Automator. It’s extremely simple to make things, especially if you go with the Apple-provided templates (Countdown, Maps, RSS, Podcast, Photocast, Video Podcast, Gauge, Daily Feed and tech demo Quartz Composer). You can use them as a starting point and customize as much as you want.

The only problem I see with Dashcode is that it has arrived too late, Dashboard and its gadgets were first introduced in Tiger over two years ago. Absolutely nothing has happened in these two years on this front. Even worse, pretty much all my installed widgets are from the built-in collection, as you can see. And even their usefulness is hard to justify. I mean, do I honestly need another clock on my desktop?

For those who see that widgets are making a come-back, remember to install Xcode Tools from your Leopard installation DVD (or go to ADC to download it) and go crazy.

Oh, by the way, the above widget is of course free to modify as you, dear reader see fit. It’s licensed under the permissive WTFPL-license.

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