Beginning Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard Widget Development (2006)

Beginning

Mac OS® X Tiger™

Dashboard Widget

Development

Fred Terry

Beginning

Mac OS® X Tiger™

Dashboard Widget

Development

Fred Terry

Beginning Mac OS®X Tiger™ Dashboard Widget Development

Published by

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

10475 Crosspoint Boulevard Indianapolis, IN 46256

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN-13: 978-0-471-77825-7

ISBN-10: 0-471-77825-7

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1B/SX/QW/QW/IN

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Terry, Fred.

Beginning Mac OS X Tiger dashboard widget development / Fred Terry. p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-471-77825-7 (paper/website : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-471-77825-7 (paper/website : alk. paper)

1. Mac OS. 2. Operating systems (Computers) 3. Macintosh (Computer)—Programming. 4. HTML (Document markup language) I. Title.

QA76.76.O63T437 2006

005.4'4682—dc22

2006015521

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About the Author

Fred Terry has been involved in the computer industry since making a left-hand turn into it from Ph.D. work in medieval languages and literature. He has written a number of software manuals and articles and has worked as a systems and network administrator, web developer, programmer, and quality assurance engineer. In addition to his ongoing love affairs with AppleScript and Perl, his current programming infatuations are Ruby and Ajax. Currently, Fred is a project manager for the Information Management Group at Burns & McDonnell. He has a B.A. in English from Southwestern Oklahoma State University and an M.A. in English from Oklahoma State University. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas, with his family and dog. Fred can be contacted at pfterry@deadtrees.net.

For Leesa, who has stood by me through career changes and side projects without losing her patience or humor

Acknowledgments

No book is produced in a vacuum. I want to thank the developers who let me include their widgets for the example chapters in the latter half of the book: Andrew Welch, Nick Rogers, Jesus de Meyer, Jason Yee, and Simon Whitaker. I can’t thank Nick Rogers enough for being a racquetball partner, letting me bounce code off of him, and performing the technical edit. Cleve Devault needs my thanks for giving me some space to work on this book. I also want to thank my agent, Laura Lewin; my acquisitions editor, Katie Mohr; and, most important of all, my development editor, Rosanne Koneval. This book wouldn’t have made it over all the hurdles without their capable guidance.

My thanks to Nick Sayre and Andy Rhoades for allowing me to reprint the “Nick vs. Andy” strip (Figure 7-9). Additional “Nick vs. Andy” strips can be found at http://nicksayre.com/.

As any writer would say, I have to extend my greatest thanks to my family. My wife, Leesa; my daughter, Sommer; and my son, Keegan, put up with the constant distraction of this book. They are happier than I that it’s finally done.

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher

Joseph B. Wikert

Contents