Persistent Settings Update

WPF Vista Gadgets - Part 2: Using ActiveX

IRhetoric - Karsten Januszewski — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 01:42:42 GMT

In my earlier post , I talked about WPF in the Sidebar by using the IFRAME to host XBAPs. In this post,

re: Persistent Settings Update

Steve Waring — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:19:51 GMT

If you think re-entering your location into the weather gadget is a pain, try re-entering all your stock portfolio into a stock ticker gadget.

The article on persistent variables is very interesting.

However there are a couple of drawbacks.

1. For existing gadgets, you will have to wait for someone to redevelop them to use persistent variables - or do it yourself.

2. For some gadgets, some in the user community may prefer transient variables, whilst others might prefer persistent variables. It would be possible to cater for this using a persistent variable to hold the user’s preference, and then use transient or persistent variables within the gadget, but this is at the cost of more complexity and development and maintenance overhead.

A far more elegant solution would be for a change to the gadget engine. When the spanner (settings) icon is displayed, display another icon below it that allows the choice of transient or persistent variables. Have the code for this functionality within the System.Gadget.Settings object. At a stroke any gadget can have persistent variables without any re-coding, and users have the choice.

OK, a lot to ask, but it would be a great improvement to the gadget engine. Here is another one:

Allow multiple profiles for gadgets displayed in the sidebar. If I am working offline on my laptop, it’s pointless having gadgets displayed that depend upon an internet connection. However local only gadgets, such as a CPU monitor are still useful. By allowing users to add gadget profiles, u(eg online, offline,etc) gadgets could be displayed to match a users current requirements. This only really becomes viable if the gadget engine offers persistent variables.

Steve Waring