Convert Yourminis Widgets into Apple Dashboard Widgets

We just released our Yourminis Template Dashboard Widget. It makes it easy to convert any Yourminis widget into an Apple Dashboard widget.

• Download the Template and unzip the file (don’t the open the widget on the dashboard).
• Go to the Yourminis directory, find the Yourminis widget and copy its Embed Code.
• Paste the code into the yourminis.js file.
• Modify the Info.plist and optionally the Icon.png and Default.png files.
• Rezip to create a proper Dashboard Widget (see the Apple dashboard widget developer tutorial)

Please see the developer guide for more details.

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External links to add Yourminis Widgets

You can link to the desktop and open our Universal YourMinis Widget with any widget from the YourMinis directory.

How To

(from our syndication page)

Link to the Widgetop desktop http://www.widgetop.com and add the URL parameter ?addYourMini=[WidgetURL] where the [WidgetURL] parameter denotes the URL to the Widget you want to add. Just go to the YourMinis directory, select the widget you want, press the Copy Me button, copy the code and replace [WidgetURL] in the URL.

Hint: make sure you escape your URL parameter properly.

Example

This link will open your desktop with the Yourminis YouTube widget.

Of course you can use one of our buttons instead of a plain link.

Widgetop supports Opera

We are happy to announce that the ban for Opera is lifted. We love this browser suite and now you can open your Widgetop desktop without seeing the annoying Unsupported Browser page when you use the Opera browser. But be aware that a few widgets might not work equally well as with Safari or Firefox.

Widgetop on the iPhone – Welcome

Our Mobile Widgetop adds the missing Dashboard widgets to the new iPhone. Please give it a try and send us your feedback.

If you are a widget developer: Upload your widget to Widgetop and enjoy it running on one of the most hyped devices in history.

Link to your widgets

We added another syndication option. When you open our gallery you can see a new syndication section in the widget info with the links to open the widget on the desktop or in the gallery.

You can use these links to hightlight either your own little widget or any other widget you like from your own web site.

If you can’t find what you look for

Despite the large number of widgets in our widget gallery it might happen that you can’t find the widget which does what you have been looking for. There is no need to give up then you have several options:

1. Check if one of our generic widgets like the RSS widget for news feeds, the Picture Frame widget for images, web cams or weather radars might do the job.
2. Check the Google Gadget directory if there is a Google Gadget which does what you look for. Adding Google Gadgets to your Widgetop desktop is very easy.
3. With the help of our Universal widget you can easily turn content from almost any web page into a widget. Just type the URL, scroll to the part of the page you want to watch, adapt the size and lock the widget. It can even auto-refresh it’s content.
4. Check Apples Dashboard widget catalog if you can find what you want there. If that widget isn’t available on Widgetop ask the widget author to upload his widget to Widgetop or tell us and we will do it.
5. Last but not least, consider creating your own Dashboard widget. It’s easier than you might think and there are great tools like Apples DashCode: Easy to use and filled with rich and customizable widget templates, so you don’t have to be a programmer. Make sure you register as a developer on Widgetop and upload your great new widget so that other users can see and use it. If we find it as useful as you there is a good chance that it will be promoted as one of our featured widgets.

Support for localized widgets

The Widgetop desktop now supports localized Dashboard widgets.
If the default locale of your browser is not English there is a chance that some of the widgets will use your native language.

Please see Apples developer pages on how to write localized Dashboard widgets.

Examples:

• Wikipedia (English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish)
• PUGcast (English and German)
• Prototype Reference (English and German)

More syndication options

We added the possibility to add World Clocks, Countdowns and Calendar Countdowns directly from your web site to others users web desktop. Please visit our syndication page for more.

Example: This link will add a world clock widget customized for Berlin/Germany.

Widget Developer Info has been added to Desktop

We added the widget developer info to the Add Widget panel on the desktop to make it easier to find and contact the original the widget developers. So far this information was only available in the widget gallery.

New Syndication Page

We added a new page to Widgetop explaining the different syndication options. Please have a look to find out on how to:

• subscribe to our various RSS feeds
• add RSS feeds, images or Google Gadgets to the Widgetop desktop right from your web page
• use our buttons