Dashcode (beta) First Look

Last week Apple released a beta of Dashcode, a Dashboard widget development system to be included in Leopard. Its appearance should dash a few hopes of an imminent release of Leopard - especially when you consider the beta doesn’t expire until July.

The Dashcode beta has some Tiger imposed limitations but none that significantly affect what the Leopard version will look like. Likewise, the final release won’t differ a lot from this beta.

At some time in the very near future, Steve will proclaim how anyone can now create a widget using Dashcode, so I thought I’d give it the once over to see what chance there is of that being true. After all, Apple’s Dashboard Developer website already tells us “if you know how to write content for the web, you can write a Widget”, and that’s a bit of a stretch of the friendship. I sense a bit of RDF in the air.

I can’t claim to be a newbie when it comes to development although my last serious coding role was a good ten years ago; however I did develop a few successful widgets for Konfabulator in 2004. (My widgets have been downloaded over 300,000 times. Wouldn’t I love a dime for each download!)

Hopefully Dashcode can break down some of the barriers to writing Dashboard widgets as the Dashboard developer page also says: “Dashboard Widgets are created using a mix of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.” That sort of undermines the earlier statement about how easy widget creation is.

The Dashcode development window is broken into four parts:
- a toolbar
- the Canvas (which is also used to display attributes, run log, code evaluator and source code)
- the Navigator (which displays the widget components, files and workflow steps)
- a status bar

The Workflow Steps vary slightly depending on which template you chose. For the custom template the steps are:
- Layout interface
- Add handlers and code
- Set attributes
- Preview default image
- Design widget icon
- Test share

These steps are a nice addition and indicate Apple is very serious about widgets and is trying to make widget development as easy as possible for anyone who wants to try.

One great feature of Dashcode is the Parts library. It contains many useful elements - buttons, gauges, shapes, text areas, media, indicators, sliders and so on . With these you can build very professional looking widgets without ever having to go anywhere near Photoshop. For the coders who are no good at graphical design, they’ll be doing cart wheels.

Another useful feature is you can import other widgets - although presumably it only applies to non-commercial widgets. This is particularly useful for seeing how other developers coded functions similar to ones you’d like to do.

Can anybody create a widget using Dashcode? The short answer is yes. Dashcode’s templates allow anybody to instantly create a widget but the problem is none of the template widgets are overly useful.

Seeing as it’s nearly MacWorld San Francisco, the obvious quickie first time widget to create is a countdown timer to the Stevenote. (Expect to see a plethora of countdown widgets.) A few minutes after loading the template, l had a countdown timer to the MWSF 2007 keynote. That’s reasonably impressive.

However, a couple of hours later l found there’s a bit of a learning curve ahead of me if I am to develop any decent widgets, or even widgets with the functionality of the ones I developed for Konfabulator (not that I wrote them in a short time, mind you).

The little countdown widget I developed highlights one of the biggest problems of Dashcode. That is, lots of newbies will get on it thinking they can create widgets, and all they’ll end up with is widgets based on the templates, especially the countdown timer. Thus, those half dozen template widgets are going to pollute the Macweb like viruses in the Windows world!

With the ease of creating professional looking widgets, and after looking at the code Dashcode generates, you’re left in no doubt of the usefulness of Dashcode. Programmers and wannabes will likely love Dashcode; however, except for the template widgets, newbies won’t find that Dashcode turns them into an instant widget developer (despite the impressions Steve may try to give).

Dashcode did leave me with the feeling that with a bit of time and effort, I could be creating useful widgets. However, it doesn’t remove the feeling that developing widgets for Dashboard takes more programming expertise than it does for Konfabulator (now Yahoo Widgets Engine).

Dashcode is a welcome addition to OS X and hopefully Apple will provide a Tiger version of the final release.

If you have an inclination to develop widgets, get a hold of Dashcode, you’ll be glad you did. But please, spare us the countdown widget to Aunt Mavis and Uncle Bert’s 53rd anniversary of their first date.