Widget for OS X Tiger

[800]

Any chance of a cool PH Widget for OS X Tiger users? :)

Now there's a challenge....

[PetrolTed]

Don't know much about Tiger. What sort of widget are you looking for and why would it need to be OS specific?

[800]

'Dashboard' is a new feature of OS X Tiger.
www.apple.com/macosx/features/dashboard/
Standard Widgets are offered, nifty 3rd party Widgets are appearing quickly. Just thought it might be an interesting challenge for someone at PH.

Could feature news items, classifieds, whats new on forum, etc., etc. I'm sure there could be some sponsorship possibilities...

[miracle]

What a great idea!!! Well.... for Apple osx tiger users!

[800]

Not to worry, Microsoft are sure to copy it (along with the rest of OS X) for Longhorn.

[Gruffy]

Oh yes. Check out the BBC News widget. Something like that for the PH news would be brilliant (though without the need to manually refresh it!).

Don't know about other people but I think it would be awesome to have a widget that shows me the MyStuff page on the forums and I can see at a glance whether any of the topics I've started / bookmarked / replied to have been updated.

Gruffy

[wildeep]

Seems a good idea but i think the RSS feature in Safari works great for PH news. Just add the RSS feed to your bookmarks bar and it will tell you when there are any new stories. The same should work for the classifieds but it keeps on throwing up a 404 error for me.

>> Edited by wildeep on Thursday 7th July 13:25

[PetrolTed]

wildeep said:

Seems a good idea but i think the RSS feature in Safari works great for PH news. Just add the RSS feed to your bookmarks bar and it will tell you when there are any new stories. The same should work for the classifieds but it keeps on throwing up a 404 error for me.

Classifieds RSS now fixed Thanks for letting me know.

[matg]

Its very easy to create widgets, you can easily re-engineer an existing one - i'll give it ago

[800]

Nice one
Look forward to it. I'm having great fun with Dashbaord Widgets.

Perhaps some car dashboard related shenanigans?

[matg]

ok I have a working widget, its rough and needs testing.

Also credit goes to the author of the BBC widget I dont want to take away any of his hard work, I've just replaced a few parts of his code and changed the images but credit really should go to him.

I will post a link tomorrow sometime after I've made sure its updating ok.

[matg]

ok its working sort of, Ivbe been really busy at work so only had a few minutes to spare on this. I need some others to give it a test. As with all software don't blame me if it screws your machine!

download from:

www.matandkerry.com/widget/PH.wdgt.zip

1. Unzip
2. Add to your widgets folder
3. Once the widget is running click the "i" just to the right of the search to flip the widget over, select update every "one minute" and then "Done".
Give it a few seconds and the latest PistonHeads news will load.

For some reason its not displaying the news in the same order that is being displayed on the site - I dont now why so dont ask.

Let me know how you get on.

[_dobbo_]

PetrolTed said:

wildeep said: Seems a good idea but i think the RSS feature in Safari works great for PH news. Just add the RSS feed to your bookmarks bar and it will tell you when there are any new stories. The same should work for the classifieds but it keeps on throwing up a 404 error for me. Classifieds RSS now fixed Thanks for letting me know.

What classifieds RSS - there is no RSS code that I can see on either the front page or the classifieds page?

[matg]

_dobbo_ said:

What classifieds RSS - there is no RSS code that I can see on either the front page or the classifieds page?

try this in Safari

feed://www.pistonheads.com/sales/rss.asp?s=163

[800]

matg said:

ok its working sort of, Ivbe been really busy at work so only had a few minutes to spare on this. I need some others to give it a test. As with all software don't blame me if it screws your machine! download from: www.matandkerry.com/widget/PH.wdgt.zip 1. Unzip 2. Add to your widgets folder 3. Once the widget is running click the "i" just to the right of the search to flip the widget over, select update every "one minute" and then "Done". Give it a few seconds and the latest PistonHeads news will load. For some reason its not displaying the news in the same order that is being displayed on the site - I dont now why so dont ask. Let me know how you get on.

Yup, got it, working fine - nice one!

However, if I could be so bold. Its a great starting point but I think there is some great potential for 'dashboard' / 'piston' related graphics.

I suspect if Ted and the mods aren't running OS X Tiger then it all sounds pretty academic. So go on Ted, borrow a PowerBook from someone with OS X Tiger and have a fiddle (perhaps give Mr Casson a try ). I still maintain its a fantastic opportunity for PH to be at the cutting edge of a really cool/informative widget. (I accept that Mac OS is a small market in the uk, but growing)

Thanks matg, enjoying your Widget

[_dobbo_]

matg said:

_dobbo_ said: What classifieds RSS - there is no RSS code that I can see on either the front page or the classifieds page? try this in Safari feed://www.pistonheads.com/sales/rss.asp?s=163

Don't use Safari myself, I'm a Windoze chap, but I thought with RSS you had to announce it in the <head> section of your page - thus any RSS compliant browser can see this and subscribe to it.