Firefox Counter Widget


With much guidance from Danny Goodman's new Mac OS X Technology Guide to Dashboard, graphic bits from the Firefox logo artists, and an RSS feed from SpreadFirefox.com, I've thrown together my first OS X Tiger Dashboard widget. A simple little thing, the Firefox Counter widget just displays the minute-by-minute download count for Firefox...



Useful? Probably not. But it was harmless fun to put it together.

Dashboard widgets at their simplest require a bit of Javascript, HTML, CSS, and a smidgen of graphic work. There isn't much in the way of a development environment; you typically use a text editor to build up the source files, then test in Safari or Dashboard itself.

Goodman's book is a great help in fitting all the pieces together, though it does assume some knowledge of Javascript --- there's only so much one book can cover. Danny also includes his very helpful Evaluator widget with the book to assist in creating your own little masterpiece. The Evaluator is a little tool that allows you to interactively peek at your widget's Javascript and DOM. Even with a simple little widget like the Firefox Counter the Evaluator came in handy.

Please let me know if the Firefox Counter gives you trouble for some reason. If you're running something like Little Snitch to keep spyware at bay, be aware that, when not hidden, the Firefox Counter will connect to the RSS feed at SpreadFirefox.com to get an updated count.

Posted: Tue - July 5, 2005 at 08:12 AM          

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