Windows Live Gadget Blog

Windows Live Gadget SDK Updates (6/26/2006)

2006-06-27T02:06:00Z

We have just updated the Windows Live Gadget SDK for June. For the most part, this is just a minor release. Changes in this update includes the following:

Added Developer's Checklist that enumerates items that well-written Gadgets should comply with.
Updated guidance on adding icons for Gadgets to reflect changes to the Live.com site. Images for Gadget icons should be in .GIF format instead of .PNG format.
All images in samples have been updated to use .GIF format.
Added more information in the Avoiding Memory Leaks section of the Developer's Guide.
Added a new section on how to Disable Caching in IE in the Developer's Guide.

Please let us know if you have any feedback!

thanks,
James Lau

Use GIF over PNG in your Gadgets

2006-06-07T20:47:00Z

I posted on the Live Gadget forum a couple of days ago about Using transparent GIF over transparent PNG (see post here). I thought I would publicize it a little more on this blog.

We have recently released a workaround for a bug in IE6 where image filters for PNG can cause a hang on the Live.com site. This IE bug is already fixed in IE7, but we still needed to workaround it to make sure the site works properly for IE6.

To understand the problem, here is an explanation from the IE team (thanks Peter Gurevich!):

Each IE 6 window is a UI thread.
The HTML page and any script you wrote for the page run in the UI thread. Therefore filters in your page or in script will download on the UI thread
IE’s implementation of the AlphaImageLoader filter downloads images synchronously
Synchronous loading of an image or successive images on the UI thread has the potential to hang the browser and adversely affect the user experience.

Our workaround is to stop applying transparent image filters to PNG. As a result, your transparent PNG will not look as great as it used to. I would encourage you to change to using transparent GIF moving forward.

Sorry for the inconvenience - the SDK will be updated with this new info in our next release.

Thanks!
James Lau

Developing Live Gadgets with IE7

2006-06-05T20:07:00Z

Those of you who have downloaded IE7 Beta or Beta 2 knows that IE7 actually makes life more difficult for you as a Gadget developer. This is because previous builds of IE7 has very strict cross-domain XMLHttpRequest restrictions, so you will not be able to run your Gadget while hosting it on localhost. That's actually one of the reasons why I ended up uninstalling IE7 on my developer box.

Here is the good news: I have spoken with the IE team recently, and they have confirmed that the cross-domain XMLHttpRequest restriction model has been reverted to the same model as IE6 since they shipped the last public Beta. So Gadget developers will be able to continue to debug and test their Gadgets while having it hosted locally. I think this is really good news for Gadget developers and I am excited to share this news with you!

- James Lau

Announcing Windows Live Gadget SDK

2006-05-26T06:48:00Z

I am very excited to bring you the first public release of the Windows Live Gadget SDK today! You can start using this SDK right now to build Gadgets that run on Live.com.

Since the initial Beta launch of Live.com in November 2005, we have added a lot of enhancements to the site to enhance the end-user experience. We know that the performance is poor right now, and our team is currently working feverishly to improve that.

But as many features as we are adding to Live.com, the site is still very much a Gadget platform for you developers out there to build on. We rely on you to build rich and interesting Live Gadgets that we haven't thought of, and to build a strong ecosystem around this platform. Live.com is still in Beta today, but it promises to be one of the most popular Internet destinations when we launch later this year. You can leverage on the high traffic site to extend services beyond your web site by building Gadgets that live on Live.com.

Although we are releasing the SDK today, the Gadget platform and APIs are still changing. And we want to listen to your ideas and feedback to help us build a better platform. Some of the things that we know we need to work on are:

Unified Gadget model - we want to enable developers to write a Gadget once and have it run on both Vista Sidebar and on the web, maybe even in other environments.
Allow 3rd party gadgets to change header and footer - today, all 3rd party Gadgets are hosted within and iframe and do not have access to the title, title icon and footer.
Make calling web services easier - this is self-explanatory.
Better Settings model - there is no standard way to do settings today for 3rd party Gadgets. We would like to move to a more declarative model.
Better Localization model - we provide API for you to find out the query the current locale but we don't provide much other support otherwise. This is not a big problem for most Gadgets, but it would be nice for more advanced Gadgets.

I can probably think of 5 or 6 others, but I'd rather have you tell me what you think are the important things you want to see. I can't promise that we will do all of them, but it will definitely influence our direction and investments. Anyway, enough babbling from me. I hope you will have fun building Windows Live Gadgets!

Thanks!
- James

Welcome to the Windows Live Gadget Blog

2006-05-19T02:41:00Z

Hey Live Gadget Developers!

We have just created this blog to talk about Windows Live Gadget development. On MicrosoftGadgets.com, there is currently a single Gadget blog. This is slightly confusing, because it implies that there is only a single type Gadgets. Right now, some folks are confused because we overload the term "Gadget". There are at least 3 types of Gadgets coming from Microsoft right now:

Windows Live Gadgets - these are gadgets that work on Live.com.
Sidebar Gadgets - these are mini-applications that work on the Vista Sidebar.
Sideshow Gadgets - these are gadgets that work on the auxilliary display of some Vista laptops

Longer term, we want to create a more unified model, where a single Gadget can run on multiple host. But in the short-term, these are separate entities that require different development models.

We are going to be releasing our first public SDK for Windows Live Gadgets very shortly (within a week) and it will be available on http://www.microsoftgadgets.com. It would be great to have your feedback.

- James