CODEWITHSUNDEEP
desktopwidget
Brian Lyttle
Brian Lyttle

Reputation: 14579

UI and platform choices for developing desktop widgets

I've been asked to build 'widgets' that let users of a web application install a desktop, or web-based widget which will provide:

I'm looking for some information to inform our requirements and design discussions.

On the desktop you can target the Vista Sidebar, or on OS X there is the Dashboard, as well as others. From the web perspective you can target iGoogle and others. If I was to start by developing for the widget framework that had the greatest number of users, which would I choose? Does anyone provide statistics on the number of users?

The client would prefer to provide a richer experience for end users and I think this could be achieved using a desktop widget framework. However there would be some questions around the number of users that we can hit with any single framework (eg. sidebar). What technology or framework could I target that gives me cross-platform compatibility? Should we embed Flash?

Rather than live within a widget framework, I was going to suggest the creation of a standalone application. Are there any frameworks that help facilitate the creation of widget-like applications?

Target platforms:

Upvotes: 0

Views: 877

Answers (1)

Pierre-Yves Gillier
Pierre-Yves Gillier

Reputation: 505

You can put a glance on Adobe Air.

It allows a cross-platform development in Flash/Flex or HTML/JS.

Upvotes: 2

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