Beginning Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard Widget Development

• Aimed at the estimated 300,000 Mac OS X developers who are interested in customizing and creating widgets for their Dashboards, this timely book shows them how to tap into the power of Mac OS X Tiger to create and customize Dashboard widgets
• The expert author uses program examples and exercises to illustrate the different ways to customize the Dashboard through widget development using simple authoring tools, Internet plug-ins, and text editors
• Begins with a discussion of the Dashboard concept and configuration and progresses to coverage of advanced functionality
• Covers tools, protecting code, configuration, properties, bundles, resources, extensions, and much more

Dashboard widgets bring local and global information to the Tiger desktop by giving you the information you need with a simple keystroke. However, there is much more to a Dashboard widget than HTML. Cascading Sheets (CSS) provide widgets with and layout while JavaScript makes the widget dynamic and provides user interaction. In this book, Fred Terry examines how HTML, CSS, and JavaScript join forces with the OS X filesystem abilities to provide widgets with the look and feel of a standalone application.

The featured examples will help you gain an understanding of the elements and construction of Dashboard widgets, while many chapters end with a set of exercises that reinforce what you''ve learned. You''ll quickly find all the information you need to begin developing and sharing widgets.

What you will learn from this book

• How Dashboard widgets are an integral part of Tiger
• The different development environment options available
• How to use logging, printing, and JavaScript console in Safari to debug your widget
• The activation, control, and focus events that provide the widget with a Mac-like user interface
• The access keys that allow a widget to incorporate command-line utilities and network resources.

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone who wants to create Dashboard widgets or modify existing ones. A basic understanding of a scripting or programming language is beneficial.

Wrox Beginning guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think, providing a structured tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved.

Fred Terry has been involved in the computer industry since making a left-hand turn into it from Ph.D. work in medieval languages and literature. He has written a number of software manuals and articles and has worked as a systems and network administrator, web developer, programmer, and quality assurance engineer. In addition to his ongoing love affairs with AppleScript and Perl, his current programming infatuations are Ruby and Ajax. Currently, Fred is a project manager for the Information Management Group at Burns & McDonnell. He has a B.A. in English from Southwestern Oklahoma State University and an M.A. in English from Oklahoma State University. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas, with his family and dog. Fred can be contacted at pfterry@deadtrees.net.