Dashboard , the feature film inaugurate in OS X 10.4 that couch often - used “ mini apps ” in a layer floating above all your app program windows , has been greatly heighten for Leopard . Though there ’s only one fresh widget — a Movie widget to quickly find movies and showtimes in your area — there are a couple of other really interesting features in this coming Dashboard iteration of OS X 10.5 .
How it works
The Leopard form of Dashboard operate the same as the Tiger version : Press the activation key — F12 by default — and an array of miniskirt - apps called widgets look on a semi - transparent darkened stratum above all your other windows . These ready to hand little public utility offer everything from stickies to blood quotation to a dealings - chequer for your commute home . If you ’ve spend any amount of meter with Widgets in Tiger , you recognise what to expect from Leopard . So …
What’s new
The raw black Open Page in Dashboard button in the Safari toolbar will unfold a Web page in Dashboard , tolerate you to use the entanglement Clip lineament to capture data on that page in your very own gubbins .
The most interesting increase to OS X 10.5 ’s Dashboard is in reality a feature in the Safari Web web web browser . On Safari ’s toolbar , there ’s a Modern Open Page in Dashboard push button , which Apple calls internet Clip . Click that , and Dashboard set off with a novel widget showing the total contents of the Web page . Using both a hand cursor to slide the page around and the widget resize tool , you produce a windowpane showing just the portion of the Web page you want to see in your whatsis . Take a webcam of a favorite beach , and make it a widget . Or grab the headline surgical incision from your local sphere ’s news site . Or clip your child ’s high school entanglement pageboy . Whatever it is , if you could see it on the WWW , you could turn it into a thingmajig . ( Apple state that Web Clip even include some intelligent technology that compensates for the fact that sometimes items on a WWW pageboy can move side on that Thomas Nelson Page . )
Once you have the proper area selected and sized , you sink in the Done button , and that ’s it — you’ve got yourself a thingamabob . you may even take from a few different themes for your doojigger by come home the stock “ i ” clit to see the back of the widget . This power for anyone to apace and easy make a contraption of their favourite Web pages appear to be amazingly utile ; no longer will you have to wait for a programmer to make a whatchamacallum for you — just make your own .
Dashcode — the raw thingamabob assembly tool in Leopard — starts by offering you a library of options for what sort of widget you require to make .
But if youarea programmer , Apple added another advancement in Dashboard technology drive foursquare at you : Dashcode . This diligence ease the mental process of creating widgets . It includes all the putz you involve , such as an HTML , Javascript , and CSS editor , as well as a library of buttons , form , and lines to help dwell out the appliance . Dashcode includes guide for many type of widgets , include countdown timer , RSS feeds , photocasts , podcasts , and gauge .
Even if you ’re not a programmer , you may practice one of the template to make your own official widget — all with perfectly no coding . Drag in an RSS link , for example , and you ’ve create a new RSS thingmabob . While you ’ll want to have some coding knowledge to really take reward of Dashcode , experienced power users may be surprise by what they can do . thingumabob built with Dashcode can be present to Apple.com for download .
lastly , Apple has added .Mac syncing to Dashboard . Now you ’ll be able to portion out your widgets and Dashboard circumstance across your intact collection of Macs — take over , of course , that you have a. Mac account .
Who’s it for
The Web Clip feature is really for anyone at all who has ever require a Dashboard contraption for an oft - visited site . From Apple ’s initial demo , it really looks to be about as simple as possible ; click a push , drag , resize , and you ’re done . Dashcode will appeal to both computer programmer and inquisitive power users , as the tool and templates the app provides really do open up the world of widget - writing to many who may not have previously felt like giving it a try .
The accession of the contrivance - building Dashcode app in Leopard in all likelihood stand for an exponential increase in the number of Dashboard widgets available .
What’s missing
With more than 2,500 widgets usable as of this penning , and Leopard ( with an assistance from Dashcode ) make it likely that we ’ll see an exponential increment in that number , nothing was said of better creature for managing your instal widgets . If you ’ve get 30 to 40 widgets installed , for example , browsing the horizontal widget pick screen is a sentence - consuming process on a MacBook — lots of clicking the Next button to scroll through your collection .
What also was n’t clear is what pass to a substance abuser - created widget if you close it . As with a real widget , it obviously disappear from the screen , but does it continue somewhere in your collection of widgets ? If so , what name would it have ? The demo never show anything like a save dialog where you could name your gubbins , so it ’s quite possible these user - created widgets are impermanent items — once you close one , it may be gone for beneficial .
What it means
The raw vane Clip feature article in Safari will let anyone make their own utile informational widgets . This is a great forward motion in Dashboard , for no longer will drug user be forced to waitress for a software engineer to make that perfect doodad for their specific needs . tally in the new Dashcode development tool , and Dashboard and its thingumabob wait brace to continue their volatile growth in Leopard .
[ Senior editor Rob Griffiths run theMac OS X Hints vane site . ]
