i have a widget!

if you have a mac, with the tiger os, then you have dashboard which has all of the cool widgets with which you can access info.

and now, you can keep up to date with this site by downloading the widget for queerspace.com.

here’s the faq for the widget:

who can use this widget?  anyone with the tiger os on a macintosh computer.
how do i install it?  just download it and unzip it. the system will ask if you want to add it to the dashboard and you should say “yes”.
how many people will actually use this widget?  probably no one. few people come to this site in the first place, and most who do probably are on a pc, despite my best efforts to convince them otherwise. if you happen to install it, and it works for you, pleae let me know. it installs and works fine for me.
why did you make this widget?  i didn’t make this widget. stuart at 36 degrees design, who is much much smarter than i am, made this widget. all i did was rip it off, with his permission.
well, smartass, then why did you adapt this widget?  because i obsess over small things like this. i’ve wanted to do a widget since i learned that you could, and i couldn’t ever get fernando’s widget to work, which is my fault and no reflection on fernando, so i kept searching until i found someone who had a widget that worked for me, and i asked nicely if i could use it, and the lovely man stuart said yes.
why do you even bother?  because it makes me happy.
will there be a konfabulator version of this?  why bother?
can i use this on my pc?  no. buy a mac.

i’m going to try to submit it to the apple widget site as well, just to see what happens. i can’t imagine they’ll actually post it, but who knows?

update: apple posted the widget on their site! what a cool company. i’m impressed and amazed.

even better, it’s on the “just added” page, two places below dopewars, my all-time favorite time waster when i used a palm pilot.

5 thoughts on “i have a widget!

  1. I saw your widget on Apple.com… AWESOME! I want one too! Can you tell me how you made it? You can email me at ben@iamben.net if you want. Thanks!

  2. i got your widget from the apple site, and i use it. it works fine.

  3. thank you both for your kind words. glad it’s working for you.

    ben (and anyone else curious about how this works)–here’s the outline:

    1) contact stuart at 36 degrees design (link above) and ask his permission to use the widget. even though he gives permission on his site, i think it’s still good form : )

    2) download the widget and unzip; save to desktop (do not install)

    3) open the package–right-click, "show package contents"

    4) open the index.html file in a text editor; look for “jamie’s blog” and change feed location and name to your info.

    5) open "style.css" and edit to change appearance as needed

    6) open "default.png" in photoshop or similar, and make it your own. or create your own 300×300 .png file. not sure if other size .png files would work–you could try

    7) make sure all files keep their original names

    8) make sure you leave all the credits, etc. in the code and on the widget–it’s only fair

    9) close folder and rename package; upload to your site as a zip file

    that should give you some direction, anyway. i’m a tinkerer and i suggest you do the same until you get it to work to your satisfaction. that’s what i did. if all else fails, start over with a clean copy. you might want to check out the directions fernando gives for his widget (link above). it’s a different widget, but the directions given there would help in general understanding. also, his widget might work for you just fine. it just didn’t like the css that greymatter generated.

    good luck!

  4. one further note–stuart did an excellent job of coding the widget, in that it uses no cpu resources in the background when not being used. some widgets are poorly written and are notorious leakers of memory and hogs of cpu time. not the queerspace.com widget, though!

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