February 17th, 2009 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
A new and improved Google Desktop Gadget Designer is out, with a couple of major new features. The Designer editor now includes autocompletion support and function call tips for the Google Desktop Gadget API and the JavaScript language.You can start a…
February 17th, 2009 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
A new and improved Google Desktop Gadget Designer is out, with a couple of major new features. The Designer editor now includes autocompletion support and function call tips for the Google Desktop Gadget API and the JavaScript language.
You can start autocompletion by typing the “.” key or pressing Ctrl+Space. A list appears that displays objects, methods, properties, events, and constants to choose from, along with visual indicators to help you distinguish between them. Non-object related variables and functions are also dynamically recognized as you type them, and you’ll see autocompletion suggestions based on your current scope. The following screenshot shows how Designer displays autocompletion suggestions for view object properties and methods that start with “s”.
Call tips display function prototypes and short descriptions. They appear when you type an opening brace “(” or press Shift+Space. The following screenshot shows the call tip for the view.setInterval() method.
We sincerely hope that these new features will save you a lot of time while developing gadgets, making it that much more fun to bring your ideas to life. Please download the latest SDK and try out the new Gadget Designer.
Posted by Paneendra Ba, Software Engineer (Google Desktop Team)
February 9th, 2009 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
Google Desktop has active ambassadors all over the world who have successfully held programming contests and seminars at their schools.As a stepping stone for bigger events, we held IIT Google Desktop Developer Challenge II at Informatics Institute of …
February 9th, 2009 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
Google Desktop has active ambassadors all over the world who have successfully held programming contests and seminars at their schools.As a stepping stone for bigger events, we held IIT Google Desktop Developer Challenge II at Informatics Institute of …
January 27th, 2009 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
In the past few weeks, we launched the YouTube, Calendar, and Google Docs gadgets, making them open source from the very beginning. We also wrote a short story on the Google Open Source blog about our experiences with these projects and how open sourci…
January 27th, 2009 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
In the past few weeks, we launched the YouTube, Calendar, and Google Docs gadgets, making them open source from the very beginning. We also wrote a short story on the Google Open Source blog about our experiences with these projects and how open sourci…
December 11th, 2008 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
Wanted to let you all know that the just-released YouTube gadget was open sourced at launch. Please check out the Google Code project and the announcement on the YouTube API blog.
Posted by James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer (Google Desktop Team)
December 11th, 2008 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
Wanted to let you all know that the just-released YouTube gadget was open sourced at launch. Please check out the Google Code project and the announcement on the YouTube API blog. Posted by James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer (Google Desktop …
December 9th, 2008 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
Although Google Desktop gadgets are getting easier and easier to develop, you still might want to spend time on improving the overall experience of using your gadget. There are a lot of features you may want to consider, and many resources exist to hel…
December 9th, 2008 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
Although Google Desktop gadgets are getting easier and easier to develop, you still might want to spend time on improving the overall experience of using your gadget. There are a lot of features you may want to consider, and many resources exist to hel…
December 3rd, 2008 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
It was my immense pleasure to conduct this Desktop gadget development workshop at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) on 22 Oct as part of Phreak 08. Phreak is a National Level Technical Symposium organized by VIT every year to discuss, share, and learn about the latest and future technologies. The time allotted for this workshop was 3 hours, including a 15-minute break.
It started off with a 45-minute technical presentation similar to what was presented at Google Developer Day. I covered the basic introduction, structure, and benefits of Google Desktop gadgets. This also included a demo of the Designer and an explanation of developer resources. I showed the Gadget API Reference page, and from that we used a few API methods to quickly create the Memory Smiley gadget.
The second part of the session was a fun-filled one. I started with the basics of XML and JavaScript, as most of the students were in their first year and were new to these. After that, I opened the Designer and added some images and a single button. Then students were challenged to come up with ideas on how to develop a gadget out of it. We received more than 35 ideas. Some had real potential, and others were just funny.
A few of the ideas: a dictionary with language converter, a gadget to automatically download videos as you watch them on YouTube/Orkut, phone dialers, file restorer, and a shortcut to clear history. Some of the ideas that came up — such as a to-do list, a weather gadget, and a program runner — already existed in the gallery. We had a few Google T-shirts and gave them away to people that suggested the best ideas.
After the brainstorming session, we took two of the ideas and implemented them on the spot. One was Thought for the Click; the other was a Simple Music Player. I’ve posted the slides and the code from the workshop in my blog.
I would like to thank the ambassadors, Vishnu S and Ajay Amritraj, who made this all possible. They did all they could to book the hall and get people registered. It was an opportunity for me to showcase my passion for sharing technology. It was a great experience, and I would love to conduct more of these kind of workshops in the future.
If you’d like to see more photos, here’s the complete set of pictures.
Posted by Bijoy Thangaraj R, Gadget Developer & API Guru
December 3rd, 2008 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
It was my immense pleasure to conduct this Desktop gadget development workshop at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) on 22 Oct as part of Phreak 08. Phreak is a National Level Technical Symposium organized by VIT every year to discuss, share, and le…
November 21st, 2008 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
A new gadget by Edwin Lee is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: On-Screen Ruler.Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)
November 21st, 2008 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
A new gadget by Edwin Lee is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: On-Screen Ruler.Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)
November 20th, 2008 | by Kathy Walrath [GD Team] | published in Google Desktop API
Thanks to everyone who attended the Developer Day India codelab sessions and participated in the gadget contest. We’ve completed the judging and have awarded prizes. Here are the final results:
1st place
Resource Hog Tracker by Prithvi Prabhu
2nd place
Typing Tutor by Shourya Sarcar
and Indic Search by Amit Agarwal
As far as I know, all of these gadgets were created by newcomers to the Desktop Gadget APIs. The entire Google Developer Day team was continually impressed by the skill level of the attendees, and these gadgets prove that point.
Many thanks to all the participants, and we hope to see you all next year!
Posted by James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer (Google Desktop Team)