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Hi,
Is it possible to create my own Widget in MAC. I want to create a small tool that will show up my messages record on the Desktop. I have MAC system. I have downloaded some third party software's for the same but they offers a full widget. It does not include the feature which I want. Is there a proper tool available for doing this job better. Thanks.
Dashboard is one of the most important new features of Tiger for Mac OS X, along with Spotlight and Automator. This is a runtime environment for mini applications called widgets, available at any time in a virtual space that can be accessed with a keystroke. If you have Tiger, then you can view the Dashboard and its widgets by pressing the F12 key. A very interesting feature of these widgets is that they are not real applications, but Web pages run outside a browser. Whatever the widget you use, you interact with HTML and JavaScript. So here if you have some knowledge about them then you can definitely create one for yourself.
The Dashboard widgets have a similar structure to regular applications. They appear as a file with the extension. Wdgt in the Finder, but are actually directories containing four files: Info.plist describing a widget, an HTML document and two PNG images. Most widgets also use a CSS stylesheet. To create the Info.plist file, launch the Property List Editor application, create a new root element and add the five elements presented in Listing 2. These properties give the name of the widget to display its unique identifier, name bundle, its version and name of the main HTML file. Some optional parameters are also available.
To simplify the development, all properties are presented in the style sheet Library.css, imported in the header of the document. The script contains Library.js to share any application logic. Besides a more clear, this separation allows for an HTML document very simple and easy to maintain. Each widget uses WebKit, the rendering engine of Safari. If you have Tiger 2.0 then the same you can do more easily because that offers you some help features about the same.