Building a Vista Sidebar Gadget

Part 1, Getting Started

Original post here: Building a Vista Sidebar Gadget – Part 1, Getting Started

Vista gadgets exist in the Sidebar and provide quick and easy access to useful functions such as customised searching, currency conversion or a miniature RSS reader.

To build your own gadget is very straightforward. In the main they consist of some HTML for the layout and JavaScript for the behaviour. In this short series we’ll take a look at how to create a gadget to perform Technorati searches. We’ll design the look and feel, create a UI and add the functionality to call the Technorati search service.

Along the way we’ll do a little debugging when things don’t quite go to plan.

The source code for this gadget is available for download. See this blog entry for additonal links and source code.

View video: VistaGadgets_GettingStarted_Pt1.wmv (9.87 mb)

Part 2, Creating Look and Feel

Vista gadgets exist in the Sidebar and provide quick and easy access to useful functions such as customised searching, currency conversion or a miniature RSS reader.

To build your own gadget is very straightforward. In the main they consist of some HTML for the layout and JavaScript for the behaviour. In this short series we’ll take a look at how to create a gadget to perform Technorati searches. We’ll design the look and feel, create a UI and add the functionality to call the Technorati search service.

Along the way we’ll do a little debugging when things don’t quite go to plan.

The source code for this gadget is available for download. See this blog entry for additonal links and source code.

View video: VistaGadgets_LookFeel_Pt2.wmv (12.80 mb)

Part 3, Defining the User Interface

Original post here: Building a Vista Sidebar Gadget – Part 3, Defining the User Interface

Vista gadgets exist in the Sidebar and provide quick and easy access to useful functions such as customised searching, currency conversion or a miniature RSS reader.

To build your own gadget is very straightforward. In the main they consist of some HTML for the layout and JavaScript for the behaviour. In this short series we’ll take a look at how to create a gadget to perform Technorati searches. We’ll design the look and feel, create a UI and add the functionality to call the Technorati search service.

Along the way we’ll do a little debugging when things don’t quite go to plan.

The source code for this gadget is available for download. See this blog entry for additonal links and source code.

View video: VistaGadgets_UILayout_Pt3.wmv (20.42 mb)

Part 4, Adding Behaviour

Original post here: Building a Vista Sidebar Gadget – Part 4, Adding Behaviour

Vista gadgets exist in the Sidebar and provide quick and easy access to useful functions such as customised searching, currency conversion or a miniature RSS reader.

To build your own gadget is very straightforward. In the main they consist of some HTML for the layout and JavaScript for the behaviour. In this short series we’ll take a look at how to create a gadget to perform Technorati searches. We’ll design the look and feel, create a UI and add the functionality to call the Technorati search service.

Along the way we’ll do a little debugging when things don’t quite go to plan.

The source code for this gadget is available for download. See this blog entry for additonal links and source code.

View video: VistaGadgets_AddingBehaviour_Pt4.wmv (24.32 mb)

About Mikkel Ovesen

I am a .NET developer, primarily developing apps for the web. I have been working with the web since 1997. I like open-source software and burgers ;)
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