Dashcode Beta

Written on December 21, 2006 by Julian Bennett Holmes and 8 people have commented

Apple has officially released Dashcode, an application for developing Dashboard Widgets. It’s in beta, but from what I can tell from using it, it seems to be pretty feature complete, and very stable.

This application is really cool, I must say. It allows anyone, even someone with very very little technical knowledge, to create a dashboard widget in about five minutes. It took me about five minutes to make a Christmas Countdown widget, which I’m now happy to say is living in my dashboard.

You can check this out by downloading it from Apple’s Developer Site. If you aren’t a member already, it’s a simple 5 minute free registration. Once you’re registered, you can download lots of useful stuff besides Dashcode, like Apple’s Developer Tools.

If you’ve tried this out, what widgets have you made?

Comments RSSComments

#1 Darren Squashic says:
Do you have the exact address on the Apple site where I can get this? I can’t seem to find it.
#2 Michael Skelton says:
Cheers -Upcoming widget for many of my RSS feeds!
#3 Paul Stone says:
You have to log in to the Apple developer connection website (http://developer.apple.com/) - you can sign up for a free account if you don’t already have one. Dashcode is available in the downloads section.
#4 Adam says:
Its very nice, but I have no idea how I change it from displaying headlines only in the RSS widget. Hopefully in the full version, Apple will improve the CSS handling because currently it is just “prod-and-hope”.
#5 Andrew Creek says:
I have a feeling that the explosion of RSS feed widgets will remind us of the days Adobe added the lens flare filter!
#6 Paul says:
I tried Dashcode months ago, when it leaked from Apple. It was my numer one app in two categories:
- dashboard/widgets related, and
- apps that crashes more often than my spacebar is pressed

I did lorem ipsum widet, you can get it from this site http://mac.chwilami.pl/widgety but it’s nothing special. I did that wdgt just to find out, that it belongs to both mantionet categories
#7 Rich Tervet says:
I’m not yet 18 but really want to get it. Is there anywhere else that you can download it from?
#8 Julian Bennett Holmes says:
I’m pretty sure you don’t have to be 18.
Or if you do, just lie about it, that’s my suggestion.

If you don’t like lying, just drop me an send and I’ll email you a copy (julian@beautifulrecords.org).