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Widget or Application?

Before creating a widget, you need to decide what its functionality should be. Be careful to avoid having your widget do everything a full application would do.

An example of judicious use of a widget is to provide a front end for a time card application. The application provides all of the features needed by the user, while a companion widget lets you clock in and out and choose the job that you’re currently working on.

The widgets that Apple provides with Mac OS X v10.4 can give you a clue as to the scope of a widget’s functionality. For instance, the Stickies widget lets you type, copy, cut, and paste, but you can’t save the contents of the widget. The Weather widget shows you, by default, the temperature and location, along with a visual indicator of the current weather condition. Upon clicking the widget, a forecast is shown. Notice that the widget shows only one location; if users want to track more locations, they can simply add another instance of the Weather widget to their Dashboard.

As a rule, avoid making a widget that your users live in, meaning that they spend considerable time working in it to get serious tasks done. Widgets should provide information with little or no input or should perform simple tasks that a user may want to do often. Also, be respectful of the limited space available on Dashboard. If your widget is needlessly large, don’t expect users to keep it around.

The next chapter, “Widget Basics,” guides you through the creation of a simple widget, explains the elements that go into a widget, and where the elements belong within a widget's structure.

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