For about two years now,
people have been writing gadgets for Google Desktop on Windows and for iGoogle on
the web. Today, with the announcement of Google Gadgets for Mac OS X, Google
Desktop users on the Mac can now run the same Windows and web-based gadgets in
Apple's Dashboard with zero (or very few) changes. Check it out for
yourself.
Google Gadgets for the Mac uses WebKit's JavaScript
engine inside Dashboard, so the majority of gadgets just work if they're written
properly. The rest can be fixed by following a few guidelines:
Use JavaScript, not JScript
WebKit is
case-sensitive, JScript is not, which can lead to problems if you assume can you do things
like interchange SetTimeOut() and setTimeout().
Avoid JScript-only
features like collections and ActiveX.
Avoid
IE-specific DOM extensions, just as if you were writing a multi-browser web
application.
Avoid Windows-specific
APIs
You shouldn't assume ActiveX or certain DLLs are available.
Neither WebKit nor Mac OS X supports ActiveX, so these gadgets must be
rewritten.
Avoid Windows-only APIs such as Google Talk. These APIs are not
(yet) available on Mac OS X.
Understand how Dashboard is
different
The Dashboard environment is very different from a web
page or the Desktop sidebar on Windows in that it comes and goes as the user activates it.
Don't rely on your gadget always being visible. Your gadget won't run or update when Dashboard
isn't in the foreground.
Don't rely on access to the file system. The
security model for Dashboard doesn't allow arbitrary file access to the hard disk, although
your gadget does have access to files in its own archive. Things like file pickers won't work.
Note that while restricted file system access is a departure from how gadgets work on Windows,
it's consistent with Dashboard's security model and the behavior of other widgets developed
for Mac OS X.
If you're interested in developing your own gadget,
visit the Gadgets API homepage. If you're already a gadget developer, download the
beta today to test your gadget and ensure that it works correctly.
