Enwidget: Dashboard - under the hood and where we're headed
Infamous web, widget, and all around technology expert Niall Kennedy's got a new column: Enwidget, where he'll explore the ins and outs of the rapidly expanding universe of glanceable information applications and devices.
We all know that Apple Dashboard widgets give your Mac something of a heads-up display, combining multiple sources of information in a single at-a-glance interface. But while Apple introduced its desktop widget platform in 2005 as part of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), what you may not have realized is that the concept far predates even OS X, going way back to the dawn of the Macintosh itself.
In 1981 Bud Tribble and Andy Hertzfeld brainstormed desk ornaments, describing "little miniature applications running in their own windows" inside the old school Macintosh operating system. These tiny tools extended the desktop experience beyond applications and their associated computing and screen real estate costs, placing small and undemanding tasks in the background for productivity and pleasure. Today's Dashboard widgets build upon some of the same ideals introduced 25 years ago, obviously updated for modern networked computing.
Apple Dashboard widgets often play the role of merging the desktop with the web, but to dig deeper, each widget runs inside of a protected web space built on top of the WebCore framework (essentially a miniature version of the Safari web browser). Dashboard widgets are built using some of the same technologies you'll find within most web pages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images (PNG preferred). Advanced widgets step beyond the browser and take advantage of local computing resources and operating system commands. Your Dashboard widgets might leverage your graphics processor using Quartz Extreme, check your current battery status, or execute shell commands.
As anyone who's ever used a widget before knows, their practical utility is near-infinite. The ability to engage an alternate display for glanceable personal and public information -- accessible by a single hotkey -- expertly merges utility with convenience. Probably a lot like you, I have the usual widgets checking the weather forecast, keep track of package delivery status, and keeping me up-to-date with my favorite soccer teams, as well as a few business-minded ones checking my web server and database status, outstanding invoices, and project progress.
Changes in Leopard
Apple OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Dashboard introduces some big (and very welcome) changes in widget composition and execution. New widgets will have access to all of the latest technology available at the operating system level as well as a few new tricks specific to widget authoring and consumption. Here are some things we can expect later this year:
Web Clip
Web Clip in Safari for Leopard adds widget authoring features directly to the browser chrome, letting any user highlight a section of any web page for display within a personal widget window. The WebCore rendering engine fetches the appropriate web page for each widget behind the scenes, displaying only the small piece of the page you specify. Steve showed this off clipping out a daily Dilbert comic straight from web page to customized Dashboard widget.
.Mac sync
Most Dashboard widgets store custom data such as your ZIP Code, stock ticker symbols, or a favorite sports team. Dashboard for Leopard can synchronize and backup your widget preferences using a specialized Keychain and your .Mac account. You no longer have to reconfigure your widget environment on multiple machines.
Dashcode
Dashcode is an integrated development environment designed specifically for Dashboard widgets and its composite parts. The application builds on top of the Xcode interface with specialized authoring and debugging tools for HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Quartz, and web feeds such as RSS and Atom. Authors can customize a pre-existing template for their blog, podcast, or photo stream, or write their next widget from scratch in a well-tested environment.
Dashboard isn't the only desktop widget platform in town, but it's pretty clear just how robust it is compared to its competition, and it certainly boasts has the largest developer ecosystem of active desktop widget-makers. Next time on Enwidget we'll explore some old favorites and new classics on the Dashboard widget scene; in the mean time, here's a little gallery whet your appetite.
Niall Kennedy is a well-known widget researcher. He organized the first-ever widget conference in November 2006 and the first research reports on the web widget space in February 2007. He is currently Principal at Hat Trick Media, building new tools for the social web.
We all know that Apple Dashboard widgets give your Mac something of a heads-up display, combining multiple sources of information in a single at-a-glance interface. But while Apple introduced its desktop widget platform in 2005 as part of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), what you may not have realized is that the concept far predates even OS X, going way back to the dawn of the Macintosh itself.In 1981 Bud Tribble and Andy Hertzfeld brainstormed desk ornaments, describing "little miniature applications running in their own windows" inside the old school Macintosh operating system. These tiny tools extended the desktop experience beyond applications and their associated computing and screen real estate costs, placing small and undemanding tasks in the background for productivity and pleasure. Today's Dashboard widgets build upon some of the same ideals introduced 25 years ago, obviously updated for modern networked computing.Apple Dashboard widgets often play the role of merging the desktop with the web, but to dig deeper, each widget runs inside of a protected web space built on top of the WebCore framework (essentially a miniature version of the Safari web browser). Dashboard widgets are built using some of the same technologies you'll find within most web pages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images (PNG preferred). Advanced widgets step beyond the browser and take advantage of local computing resources and operating system commands. Your Dashboard widgets might leverage your graphics processor using Quartz Extreme, check your current battery status, or execute shell commands.
As anyone who's ever used a widget before knows, their practical utility is near-infinite. The ability to engage an alternate display for glanceable personal and public information -- accessible by a single hotkey -- expertly merges utility with convenience. Probably a lot like you, I have the usual widgets checking the weather forecast, keep track of package delivery status, and keeping me up-to-date with my favorite soccer teams, as well as a few business-minded ones checking my web server and database status, outstanding invoices, and project progress.
Changes in Leopard
Apple OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Dashboard introduces some big (and very welcome) changes in widget composition and execution. New widgets will have access to all of the latest technology available at the operating system level as well as a few new tricks specific to widget authoring and consumption. Here are some things we can expect later this year:
Web Clip
Web Clip in Safari for Leopard adds widget authoring features directly to the browser chrome, letting any user highlight a section of any web page for display within a personal widget window. The WebCore rendering engine fetches the appropriate web page for each widget behind the scenes, displaying only the small piece of the page you specify. Steve showed this off clipping out a daily Dilbert comic straight from web page to customized Dashboard widget..Mac sync
Most Dashboard widgets store custom data such as your ZIP Code, stock ticker symbols, or a favorite sports team. Dashboard for Leopard can synchronize and backup your widget preferences using a specialized Keychain and your .Mac account. You no longer have to reconfigure your widget environment on multiple machines.Dashcode
Dashcode is an integrated development environment designed specifically for Dashboard widgets and its composite parts. The application builds on top of the Xcode interface with specialized authoring and debugging tools for HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Quartz, and web feeds such as RSS and Atom. Authors can customize a pre-existing template for their blog, podcast, or photo stream, or write their next widget from scratch in a well-tested environment.Dashboard isn't the only desktop widget platform in town, but it's pretty clear just how robust it is compared to its competition, and it certainly boasts has the largest developer ecosystem of active desktop widget-makers. Next time on Enwidget we'll explore some old favorites and new classics on the Dashboard widget scene; in the mean time, here's a little gallery whet your appetite.
Gallery: Apple Dashboard widgets
Niall Kennedy is a well-known widget researcher. He organized the first-ever widget conference in November 2006 and the first research reports on the web widget space in February 2007. He is currently Principal at Hat Trick Media, building new tools for the social web.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Paul @ May 23rd 2007 2:56PM
1984 calculator ftw!!!11
vincent li @ May 23rd 2007 3:00PM
hmm
NutMac @ May 23rd 2007 3:13PM
One major bummer is how resource hungry Dashboard widgets are. Each widget will consume several dozen megabytes for lunch.
Bill Walsh @ May 23rd 2007 3:13PM
The term "desk ornaments" was only used by the guys who thought it up. By the time they appeared on Macs, they were "desk accessories." Man, I'm old.
Dan @ May 23rd 2007 3:29PM
How about links to where you found those widgets? The PHP one looks particularly handy.
Pierce @ May 23rd 2007 3:46PM
It's called PHPfr:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/developer/phpfunctionreference.html
It's an awesome little widget. I use it daily.
Johnny @ May 23rd 2007 3:50PM
Yep, they were desk accessories. I still keep certain tools like calculator and Stickies in a folder call 'DAs'. Some habits die hard.
rcappo @ May 23rd 2007 4:14PM
Where can I get the 1984 calculator desktop widget?
qwert @ May 23rd 2007 4:16PM
The start of the article was very interesting, but then it turns into a leopard comercial.
dont get me wrong, im a mac user, and i like to hear about the inards of my OS, but just quoting apple pr is not what im interested in.
Matt @ May 23rd 2007 5:07PM
Seriously... How many different links to Apples website in this article?
krizoitz @ May 23rd 2007 4:23PM
IIRC with the original System 1 you could only have one app running at a time, and it occupied the whole screen, you couldn't even have multiple apps and switch between them. The beauty of desk accesories is you could have multiple running at a time in the Finder to handle little tasks like running a quick calculation or jotting something down on the notepad. I can't recall, could you fire them up in other apps too?
charlesgreene4 @ May 23rd 2007 4:51PM
this sounds interesting
Mike Jenkins @ May 23rd 2007 4:57PM
Considering Konfabulator was the firs "modern" widget program, I'm surprised they never get more credit.
LukeA @ May 23rd 2007 5:49PM
iStat Pro FTW!
Galley @ May 23rd 2007 6:25PM
I agree, iStat Pro is by far, the most useful widget.
http://www.islayer.com/index.php?op=item&id=7
lauralemay @ May 23rd 2007 7:41PM
@krizoitz: yeah, you could run desk accessories in any app. That's why they were cool; since you could only run one app at a time on the mac in the 80's DAs let you get small things done without having to quit your main app.
MJ Posner @ May 23rd 2007 9:46PM
That was for the Lisa not the Mac...I am older than all of you....and I can prove it as I have a working Lisa at my office
fuzzmanmatt @ May 23rd 2007 11:16PM
The same guys who originally developed Konfabulator also developed Kaleidoscope for the classic Mac OS, making skinning your Mac a very easy process, and probably a friendlier one than ShapeShifter and the like are to todays Mac OS.
Turtle @ May 23rd 2007 11:53PM
And don't forget stuff like SideKick for DOS... stuff like that made the insanely single-tasking file manager pseudo-OS usable for a lot of people. And might as well remember DESQView from Quarterdeck, which took the TSR (terminate-and-stay-resident, named after interrupt 27 in DOS) theme to the max circa 1984-1985.
Apple didn't invent EVERYTHING... just most things.
uberfu @ May 24th 2007 9:39AM
"innards" has 2 Ns_
Monkey @ May 24th 2007 10:19AM
@Mike Jenkins
"Considering Konfabulator was the firs "modern" widget program, I'm surprised they never get more credit."
Maybe because Konfabulator was NOT the first, not by a long way? Stardock's DesktopX on Windows precedes it by a long way, being first released in 2000 - 3 years earlier than Konfabulator on the Mac.