Datasheet

Chapter 1: Exploring the World of Apps and Widgets

At the bottom of Figure 1-13, you can see a section called Localization. This

section supports the ability to customize the interface automatically for vari-

ous languages. Note that the languages supported are more than just lan-

guages: They include dialects and variants, such as UK and U.S. versions of

English. The actual languages that are supported for your widget or app are

up to you (some topics rely on specific languages), and you must provide the

translations. The localization section at the bottom of Figure 1-13 illustrates the

basic idea: You specify words and phrases used in your interface, and you then

provide translations of them for specific languages. You can find more on local-

ization in Chapter 16, where you see how to implement localization.

Apps or widgets that present RSS feeds are a great way to provide language-

specific information to your users. If you subscribe to a feed that is in French,

then — voilà — you have a French app or widget. The only thing that isn’t

in French is any text that is in the widget itself, and that’s where localization

comes in. Many apps and widgets have no text in their interface other than

content: Plenty of icons and buttons in the Library provide functionality with-

out the use of text. But if you do need text, consider localizing it.

Dashboard widgets have a front and a back. The front presents the main

information, and the back presents credits, options, and other related infor-

mation. You flip the widget from front to back by clicking the i button. In

Figure 1-12, this button is in the upper right corner of the widget. This button

normally appears when you hover the mouse over the widget, and it’s typi-

cally in one of the four corners of the widget. The behavior to flip the widget

(complete with an animation of the flip) is built into your Dashcode project.

When you want to flip back to the front, a Done button does the trick, as you

can see in Figure 1-14.

RSS feeds are so useful because after you set them up, the feed you’re presenting

does all the work. That’s one of the reasons why Dashcode has several RSS feed

templates. Daily Feed shows the latest item from a given Feed. The RSS template

takes another approach: For a given feed, it shows you the latest stories rather

than just the most recent one. Figure 1-15 shows the RSS template in action.

Figure 1-14:

Flip back

to the front

with Done.

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