Dashcode comes on the Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) installation DVD. It's a tool for creating widgets (mini-applications made with HTML, CSS, images, and JavaScript) specifically for the OS X Dashboard. Apple did a great job in making Dashcode the epitome of simple so that non-programmers can create basic custom widgets with ease. And if installing Developer Tools isn't your thing, you can still create your own widgets using Web Clips.
Dashcode
You don't really need a tutorial, but if you'd like a quick overview there's a brief "howto" video on YouTube here.
This YouTube video requires Adobe Flash Player.
Dashcode provides step-by-step workflow instructions guiding you through the creation of your widget:
It's a good way for non-programmers to get their hands dirty and let the creative juices flow.
Download a Dashcode-built widget that retrieves and displays content from the bioneural.net RSS feed here.
Web Clips
Web Clips is also a feature of Leopard; these are widgets created via Safari's Open in Dashboard... menu option. Alternatively, click on the Web Clip button in the Safari menu bar:
You'll be asked to select the part of the current web page that you're interested in; move your cursor around until the correct section is highlighted, then click on it to show the trim handles. Now click Add to create and install your new widget to Dashboard.
For example, say I wanted to create a widget to display my (somewhat neglected) iStockPhoto photocast. I simply click Web Clips and select the appropriate area of my webpage where I have embedded it, resize the selection area to suit, click Add, and the widget is good to go. Even the RSS feed button works as you'd expect:
Tip: Dashcode will save your widget to a location of your choice (which will install to ~/Library/Widgets/), making it easy to share. Unfortunately, however, although the relevant data about Web Clips are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/widget-com.apple.widget.web-clip there is apparently no way to export or share them with other users.
Note that Web Clips won't work for all parts of all web pages (e.g. displaying your FeedBurner stats; this would require stored login details), but it's nevertheless worth experimenting with. You can even customise the widget appearance by clicking on the "i" button as usual.
Don't close your widget or disable the Web Clips widget, or your clipped widgets will be lost (they aren't recreated from saved settings stored in widget-com.apple.widget.web-clip as you might expect). This is not the case with widgets built using Dashcode, which can be reactivated at will. Not all widgets are created equal!
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