Adam Kinney posts tagged with 'sidebar gadgets'

Silverlight Sidebar Gadgets on Windows Vista 64-bit edition

Adam Kinney — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:03:00 GMT

At this time (version 2 Beta 1), in the life of Silverlight there is no 64-bit support. I'm not certain if or when 64-bit support will appear, but I don't think Vista 64-bit users should go without Silverlight. And the good news is they don't have to.

In most cases, running Silverlight applications should not be an issue. IE7 and Firefox run in 32-bit mode by default allowing Silverlight to run as expected.

A different scenario which needs some attention is Sidebar Gadgets that use Silverlight. The Windows Sidebar application (sidebar.exe) runs by default in 64-bit mode and in order to use a Silverlight-based gadget you need to run sidebar.exe in 32-bit mode.

You can do this simply by closing the default Sidebar and navigating to C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar and double-clicking sidebar.exe. Now you can successfully run the new Channel 9 gadget or Xbox Friends Watch in your sidebar and enjoy knowing what the latest C9 video or or when your Xbox friends are online.

If you're happy with the results, you can make sure the 32-bit version of Sidebar is added to your system startup by following the step below:

If you are still running the 64-bit Sidebar, right-click the Sidebar and select Properties.
Uncheck the Start Sidebar when Windows starts option and hit OK
Open C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar in Windows Explorer
Right-click sidebar.exe and select Copy
Right-click the Windows Orb and select Explore
In Windows Explorer navigate to the folder entitled ..Programs/Startup
Right-click in the folder and select Paste Shortcut

Xbox Friends Watch - v1.2 has been posted

Adam Kinney — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:03:00 GMT

Download 1.2 now

This is a very small update that is the same as version 1.1, except that a fix has been added to allow the sidebar gadget to run if you have installed the Silverlight 2 Beta 1 runtime.

There was a small bug in path resolution that the team is aware of and will hopefully be able to fix in future releases.

When setting the source parameter during application initialization the workaround involves making the path absolute using the gadget protocol.

Old code:

source: "xaml/SideBar.xaml"

New code:

source: "x-gadget:///xaml/SideBar.xaml"

I know this is not the promised version 2 that many of you are looking for, but getting past this bug is a step in the right direction.

Thanks to Donovan for finding the solution!

Xbox Friends Watch - v1.1 has been posted

Adam Kinney — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:25:00 GMT

Download 1.1 Now

Performance Improvements
A week ago, I posted the first version of the Xbox Friends Watch Gadget. I received a lot of great feedback and feature suggestions. The most noticeable was the excessive amount of memory consumed for some people. I've gone through and optimized, linted and crunched the code. I've run this version for a few days now and although it still runs higher than I'd like(20k) that's a lot better than the (300k) I had seen before.

Duncan has also optimized and compressed the REST service, the size of the data downloaded is much smaller.

Version Check
Another big feature, is that the gadget now checks to see if it has the latest version. Definitely something I wish I had added with the initial release. I'm guessing 70% of the people who downloaded the gadget's first release won't find this new release or any consecutive ones.

Next Steps
I've added a page just for the Gadget and will be adding Suggestions as well as FAQ. And then I will work on the next update where I will target "access to the gadget context menu", "loading screens" and "more than five friends displayed".

Lots of good Gadget feedback

Adam Kinney — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 08:04:00 GMT

Wow, so much feedback on the Xbox Friends Watch Gadget its crazy. Major Nelson did end up posting a link to the gadget (thanks Duncan) and the flood gates opened. 47 comments so far on my post, 120 comments on Major Nelson's, 1,388 views on the demo screencast on Channel 9 and according to my server logs it appears the gadget has been downloaded 2,471 times.

That's awesome.

But what's not awesome is the gadget doesn't run too well. I originally wrote it as a demo for a presentation and it's the first sidebar gadget I have written. I don't want all of this momentum to go to waste though, especially since the gadget appears like it could be really useful to a lot of people. My plan is to work on an update that will cover a few of the major bugs/feature requests.

Performance - The JavaScript was never optimized and I need to look into the best practices for running with in the Sidebar.
Error Handling - another missing important piece. Currently the render will fail on a Gamer who is in private mode.
More than 5 Friends - One person posted a hack to resize the gadget by changing the html, but I think in docked mode a scrollable list would be best. Then in undocked mode, I'd like to show at at least twice the height, still adding the scroll functionality.
Access to the gadget right-click menu - most requested for opacity.
and Custom Colors - if everything else goes smoothly (crosses fingers)

And now to address a FAQs:

It doesn't work on 64-bit Vista?
Unfortunately Silverlight does not provide 64-bit support, but you can run the Sidebar in 32-bit mode if you want to use the gadget by following the instructions Shane posted in the comments.
Why Silverlight?
No it did not have to be Silverlight, but that was the original point of the demo. Not only am I a big fan of SIlverlight, but you will also find I am a bit biased due to my current position at Microsoft. Bias aside, I think Silverlight can work really well as the UI for Sidebar Gadgets.

Look for version 1.5 coming soon, I'll update the original post once its available.

Xbox Friends Watch - a Sidebar Gadget using Silverlight

Adam Kinney — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 06:42:00 GMT

[UPDATE: version 1.1 has been posted, performance improvements and an auto version checker now included.]

HALO 3 is out and my Xbox is now getting the love it truly deserves. Multiplayer mode in HALO is a lot of fun and even more fun when you can play with friends. Thus, a perfect opportunity was born to create a useful sidebar gadget.

I've recorded a demo on how the gadget works available on Channel 9 and you can download the gadget directly from my server, although I will be posting it to the Gadget Gallery shortly.

Just make sure that before you run the gadget you install Silverlight 1.0, otherwise the gadget will not work.

My data source for Xbox Live information is coming from Duncan Mackenzie's REST service and the UI is done completely in Silverlight 1.0. This turned out to be a really fun project and the Sidebar hosting environment was a great place for a Silverlight application.

One of the most obvious benefits is that within the Sidebar you can make cross-domain calls, no need for any server-side proxies. You also gain access to certain System properties and a small data storage model all through the Gadget API.

I foresee more Silverlight-based Sidebar Gadgets in the future, I'm looking at you Twitter API...

XMLHttpRequest Sidebar Gadget starter

Adam Kinney — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 06:42:00 GMT

I spent some time working on a Sidebar Gadget tonight and I ran into some issues once I was ready to gather live data. Cross-domain XMLHttpRequests are permitted in Sidebar gadget, which certainly adds much more value and possibilities.

I found my bug and smashed it whole-heartedly, but I thought it would be nice to share the code for the XHRTest gadget that I was using while debugging. The code is just about the least amount of code you need to request an RSS feed and have it return the first item's title. So I won't be uploading the gadget to the gallery, but hopefully it may come in handy for someone starting their own Sidebar gadget. Plus this way I don't feel like I completely wasted all of that time debugging over and over...

And if you are interested in creating your own Sidebar Gadget, read through Jan Kucera's Practices and Hints for Gadgets.

Sidebar gadget dev on Windows Vista RC1

Adam Kinney — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 20:17:00 GMT

I just noticed that the new documentation for developing Sidebar gadgets on Windows Vista RC1 is up and live on MSDN - Object Model Reference Dev Overview. I'm looking forward to working on some gadgets for Channel 9 and 10. A mini application using simple languages like JavaScript and HTML, and there are few limits to what the UI can look like (no browser chrome), should be fun.