Introduction to Dashboard Programming Topics

This document provides an overview of Dashboard and the widgets that exist in it. It discusses optional features that may be implemented in a widget, various WebKit technologies you may find useful, and touches on native code integration through a widget plug-in.

Who Should Read This Document?

Dashboard Programming Topics is for anyone who wants to create and enhance a Dashboard widget. It will provide you with an understanding of different techniques useful for improving your widget's functionality.

If you haven't developed a Dashboard widget before, be sure to start with Widget Basics.

Organization of This Document

This document contains the following articles:

This document also contains a revision history.

See Also

All of the Dashboard-specific information discussed in this document is covered more in depth in Dashboard Reference. You might also be interested in iAd Producer, which enables some widget creation tasks and helps you create iBooks content.

In addition to these documents, WebKit DOM Reference provides reference information on most of these topics.

The XMLHttpRequest object allows you to parse XML in JavaScript and use the results. Read Dynamic HTML and XML: The XMLHttpRequest Object for more information.