July 30th, 2006
The concept of the Journal has been around us here Widget Geeks for quite some time. When this project first began four years ago, myself and the original Mac engineer would post our progress on what was at the time a total mystery project. We’d tease folks with bits and pieces of information to whet their appetites for the cool application that was on its way.
It wasn’t a blog, as they’re called these days, it was a simple PHP script that I’d written that looked in a folder on my home web server and parsed anything that was a text file as an entry and filled it in with the author based on who owned the permission and when the file was created. Why… I almost feel like I need to say in a cranky old man’s voice “when I was your age we didn’t have any fancy blog software, all we had was a folder full of text files with UNIX permissions set and mod dates written…”… alright… never mind.
When we were absorbed into the fold by Yahoo!, the journal (which by then was just looking up data from our forums) went away. Not for any reason other than it was such a hack, it just had to go.
So here it is again. It’s back… this time as a WordPress blog.
Contributing to it will be myself, Arlo Rose… the inventor of the Widget concept that’s being so widely used by just about everyone these days, Ed Voas, lead engineer and architect for the Yahoo! Widget platform and all-around genius engineer, and Rob Marquardt, who owns a spoon.
A lot has changed since the early days of the journal I’d started. This site isn’t hosted on a Mac in my office, it’s on a farm of many distributed servers. I’m no longer spending 200% of my time hacking on Widgets, in fact, I’m not even officially part of the Widget team any more (though I still work on the project despite what my job description dictates). Our original Mac engineer has moved on from the project and from Yahoo!, and the team isn’t just two guys working to make ends meet, it’s a team that consists of Widget builders, engineers, product managers, product architects, and a poster of Shakira (since she turned down actually being a member of the team). We’ve come a long way.
So welcome to the new Widgets Blog, and watch for cool happenings, teasers of things to come, technical posts, design rants, and just about anything else we can think of that seems remotely related to what we do at Yahoo!.
Should be good to hear whats happening behind the scenes!
Arlo, can you tell us what does your job description does infact dictate?
I oversee the creative and feature direction for all of a group called Connected Life. So it’s basically all of Yahoo!’s non-web products, the exceptions being Messenger and Yahoo Music Engine, and on the web side the exception is or broadband and broadband portal projects.
I don’t have the involvement I probably should with some of these groups because I keep getting too focused on individual projects.
I have some influence over the Messenger team… but not as much as I’d like just yet.
Great to see the journal back… sad to see Perry leave though… Rock on…
Wow, the Widgets team sounds gi-normous!
It’s all smoke and mirrors… turn everything plural and suddenly the five people that make up the team seem like 20.
Well, don’t forget the folks that move the smoke & mirrors.. the one’s no one sees!
;)
Any chance of seeing Rob’s famous spoon?
When It comes to the creation of new widgets do you and your team actually spend some time on creating this widgets or do you now leave it up to the general public?
We create our own. Every Widget that ships in the engine is created by myself, and more recently Rob.
first of all you’re doing a great job!
i don’t know if this is the right place for that, but i guess a lot of people would be happy if there was a Gmail widget that ships with the engine. there are really no good gmail widgets for pc.
So are you gunna let us know all the new (and hopefully cool) features coming in the next Y!WE release? Come on you know you want to
Posters? Spoons? We need a blog entry with pics of the office … and the spoon … and the poster.
You should really be like Apple and have HUGE widgets cut out and hanging all over the place.
Rob’s spoon can be found here:Â http://www.flickr.com/photos/67832455@N00/118926520/
What of the chances of having a section either here in the blog or in the forums of suggestions for adding features to the website? I don’t know if you guys have any control over it or not but it sure would be nice to have a spot where users can add suggestions. I have noticed that there are ideas for added features (like a most popular or favorited section) all over the place in the forums, and since I have seen you guys all over the forums Im sure you have seen it also. Just a suggestion.
also we all need to get our hands on that WYSIWYG widget builder… since apple has released one in the new leopard… you gotta keep up with it guys!
My widget page has become over-run with non-relevant garbage.
There are some very rude people out there.
I think that widget builders should have access to their widget page to be able to delete nasty entries. If you guys already moderate these pages then you have fallen way behind, cause my page is a mess. Help.
Mr/Ms Builder… this isn’t the right venue for this kind of comment. Even less so if you don’t tell us which Widget needs the attention.
Please use the support link above or post in our forums. Either way, reference which Widget needs the cleanup.
As for allowing authors to moderate their own comments, that will never happen. Too many would just delete any negative comment and rating for the sake of driving their ratings up.
i heard a rumor from some yahoo friends of mine that ed v. was leaving. i hope that isn’t true. love all the widgets. big fan!
They must be very poorly connected Yahoos.
Where is the RSS feed for this blog? Come on guys.
Until we push an update to the template (sometime this week), it’s where every other WordPress feed lives.
http://widgets.yahoo.net/blog/?feed=rss
or
http://widgets.yahoo.net/blog/?feed=atom
Windows and MacOS.. what about Linux ?
)
Maybe when Ubuntu takes over and all the other many distros fall in the way background … that way they only have to code for one flavor. I wouldn’t want to develop for the many different ways you can code for Linux to satisfy everyone.
How often are you planning on updating this blog? It’s been about a month now since you last posted.
I bug Rob and Ed every day to a make a new post…
i think it is a great work. well only java need to make a widget?
if i want to make my own widget then what i need to learn? i mean only java or any other language also?
@avinash:
http://widgets.yahoo.com/workshop/ - resources and explanations of the widget system/coding.
ya i know this thing but i am not saying for widget tools. i am just asking that if i know only java and c language then can i make my own widget in by these languages
Linux users check this out http://www.kryogenix.org/code/jackfield/
Jackfield is an application for the Gnome desktop that plays host to widgets; small applications to do the things you need. It can run widgets from Apple’s Dashboard, will eventually be able to run those from Yahoo’s Widget Engine, Microsoft’s Gadget Sidebar, and Opera Widgets, and you can write your own.
I think its awesome work! :3
hey i just got on this wigets thing so can anyone help me out?
but i’m not new with yahoo avatars. but just tell me some stuff and maybe i’ll get to know all about widgets…
When will I can get the widget for Yahoo Messenger..?
That is a good question. Sadly, I don’t have an answer.
Widget for PDA…Palm, Pocket PC, etc., would b FANTASTIC!!!
[…] Join us for a day of food, fun, and Widgety goodness (not to mention a viewing of Rob’s spoon) on the Yahoo! campus in scenic Sunnyvale, CA. In addition to the pure pleasure of hanging out with the Widgets team and your fellow Widget authors, the day will be filled with interactive chats on everything related to the world of Widgets. […]
How to create a Widget(tm)? I know there’s a tutorial, but where to create it? What program?
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