Dash Clipping: Don't wait for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Dash Clipping is a universal widget tool that allows you to turn any part of any web page into a Dashboard widget with a couple of clicks. Download it here. Feedback to the usual address.
If this sounds familiar it's because it's a shameless rip-off of the new Web Clipping tool that's due in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and that I knocked together over the last 24 hours. If you watch the video on that page (and the keynote) carefully, you'll realise all Apple's doing is loading the whole web page but only showing part of it. There's nothing clever about what they're doing, and there's nothing clever about my version either, though I did have to write part of it in Cocoa to get in working (you can almost do it with just an IFRAME, but not quite).
(The icon and background were created in AppleWorks in all of 2 minutes and I cut a couple of other corners to get it done in one day, but it still does the job)
Update: Some tips:
Thanks for all your feedback. I'll incorporate it into an updated version.
- If it won't move past the URL field, that's probably because you haven't entered a full URL (beginning with http:// )
- You might have to wait a few seconds for the page to load
- To adjust the position of the top left corner, drag in the browser area while in resize mode.
- If you want to monitor multiple sites, drag another one from the Dashboard bar.
-- Graham, August 8th, 2006 9:10 PM.
Answers
This locked up Safari on me, with an exception in the lower part of the front-most window. I'm using Safari Version 2.0.4 (419.3) with Saft Version 8.3.4 (439), OS 10.4.7, Intel. I had four Safari windows open with about 35 tabs total.-- Paul Rodrigues, August 8th, 2006 11:23 PM.
Thanks for working on this. The clipping idea looked like it would be handy.Seems to work for me, but a couple of comments:
I'd like to see it refresh when dashboard is invoked.
Can't go back and reset update time (no "i"), but that'd be moot (for me, at least) if it refreshed when viewed.
Might be nice for it to "snap" to an area (seemed like the demo actually did that, to some extent, especially noticable on the webcam demo). For instance, if the section in the "view" resides in a table cell, (or, the enclosing frame), the size could be gleaned from it.
Again, nice job - and it was even "next day shipping"! Thanks!
-- Chuck Gould, August 9th, 2006 7:06 AM.
I apologize in advance, if the following was documented somewhere, and I just missed it....A FYI for other readers: Although it didn't seem to reload when Dashboard came up, I found a "right-click" would let you reload the page. Or, better yet, a "cmd-R", which causes a cool animation, while reloading.
-- Chuck Gould, August 9th, 2006 7:12 AM.
Reference Safari locking up -- Safari Version 2.0.4 (419.3) with Saft Version 8.3.4 (439), OS 10.4.7, Intel or PPC. That is a problem with Saft, not this widget. If you download and install any new widget with Saft installed Safari locks up. It then has to be quit and reopened.-- James McLean, August 9th, 2006 3:53 PM.
I am featuring this on Episode 103 of The Geekcast podcast. www.thegeekcast.com-- Aaron Crocco, August 9th, 2006 4:07 PM.
I clipped weather.com local forecast for my area. When reloading the widget, 2 to 4 pop-up ads open new tabs. This doesn't happen when I reload the page in Safari. Any ideas?-- Ray Link, August 9th, 2006 4:58 PM.
Having other options for the refresh would be helpful. Also the ability to scale the page that you are clipping.-- Samuel Oltz, August 9th, 2006 5:40 PM.
Would be great if it reloaded after invoked.-- james b good, August 9th, 2006 5:50 PM.
Just because it's simple doesn't mean its not clever... It serves a purpose, why does it have to be complicated?-- Mike Kraemer, August 9th, 2006 5:58 PM.
Nice, quick implementation. Wonder if you could get it to recognize and then retain login info? There's a site I'd love to monitor throughout the day but it requires a login and your tool passes the login back to a Safari screen.All the same... nicely done!
-- Gerald Buckley, August 9th, 2006 6:08 PM.
Fabulous! Wonderous! Just Amazing! I'd like to see shorter refresh times available in the UI. Also noted that sites which make use of a lot of hidden AJAXy iframes spawn many browser tabs when you right-click and reload in the window. Not sure if that happens on the auto-refresh, however.-- Joey, August 9th, 2006 6:41 PM.
Awesome work. Being able to resize the source WebKit view would be icing on the cake: Perhaps in a flip-side preferences:
Web page width: 640, 800, 1024, etc.P.S. This widget also works great as an OS X app (via Amnesty Singles).
-- Robert Sherbet, August 9th, 2006 9:27 PM.
Are you SURE the Leopard widget "loads the whole page"?That doesn't seem very logical. I understand that the "clipping" animation that Steve demonstrated looks that way, but it seems awfully inefficient to waste bandwidth loading all the components of a page just to show off a single GIF image. Isn't it more likely that the "clipping" action isolates the necessary components (by interpreting the HTML/XML etc.) and then figures out how to generate a "mini-page" of just that component? (Akin to "Open Image In a New Window"?)
-- Jordan Orlando, August 9th, 2006 11:05 PM.
The great thing and my understanding is: The content in a widget is changing every time if i change something in my newssite e. g.
Only a simple Screenshot can be done with other tools. A widget with a screenshot is not needed at all.-- Dirk Küpper, August 10th, 2006 3:40 AM.
Want to have:
- all four corners resizeable, or some kind of rectangle I put over the content I want to see. The rest of the website should hide
- a save option, to save the widget with the exakt content it shows and I can give it to friends
Thx and greetings,
Marty-- Marty, August 10th, 2006 6:57 AM.
He he, that is fast programming. Wauv!!! Would like it to refresh when Dashboard is activated and to be able to resize all four corners.-- Peter Gabriel, August 10th, 2006 8:40 AM.
TNX so much! Some change notification would be great, if a tracked web page has been updated.PS: When are you going to release a TimeMachine clone? ;-)
-- makai, August 10th, 2006 8:45 AM.
Great little program, it only took me a few seconds to make my first widget.-- Torben, Denmark, August 10th, 2006 8:51 AM.
Great widget, but could you expand the refresh intervall, e.g. refresh every minute? This way you could observe shares or watch webcams...-- Marc, August 10th, 2006 10:50 AM.
It doesn´t work for me. Tiger 10.4 Intel-Based....
It seems to load just right, but doesn´t do anything, even after entering an URL....
-- Micha-- Micha, August 10th, 2006 8:13 PM.
It doesn´t work for me. Tiger 10.4.7 G4 mini,
It seems to load just right, but doesn´t do anything,
even after entering an URL....
bregs Dirk-- Dirk, August 10th, 2006 8:43 PM.
It does work on intel 10.4.7but its a good work for few minutes.. but, really isnt useull if the top can be reduced..
-- Aberracus, August 10th, 2006 8:57 PM.
Maybe the reason it was so easy to put together is IT DOESN"T WORK!!!
Intel MBP 10.4.7
Based on the comments, I'm not the only one.-- anonymous, August 10th, 2006 9:33 PM.
Works fine for me. 17" MacBook Pro. 10.4.7.Can I suggest change the arrow to a hand when it's hovering over the web page, to indicate that you can move the page around in the widget.
I kinda figured it would work that way since that's what the Leopard preview did too, but it's not obvious.
Could that be why people are complaining that they can't move the top border?
Also: I agree with others - can you please allow smaller refresh intervals? Even as small as 5 seconds?
Otherwise, great job.
-- David, August 11th, 2006 3:16 AM.
There is something clever about it when Apple did it. It's clever because they were the first to think of it. There is definitely nothing clever about yours, because you ripped it off, douche.-- Neb, August 11th, 2006 5:16 AM.
Calm down, Neb. I remember putting cropped portions of web pages on the desktop with Windows in 1997.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Desktop
-- someToast, August 11th, 2006 6:11 AM.
Very nice. Folks, it's great to load the whole webpage because then the site's advertisers don't get grouchy, so the site admins don't try to make life difficult. And we can cut all the garbage out.:)
-- Me, August 11th, 2006 11:45 AM.
This is amazing. Thanks for posting it. I've already got some news and Joy Of Tech up so I can keep updated. Very nice.-- Trevor, August 11th, 2006 5:18 PM.
When I created a clipping, I was unable to interact with the page (click on links, etc.). Is that standard behavior, or am I experiencing a bug?For reference, I was trying to use pandora.com by clipping down to only the player, but it's not very useful if I can't click the pause, play, or next buttons.
-- Wonkey the Monkey, August 11th, 2006 8:58 PM.
the cpu usage is way to much - about 25% of my G4 - even in the background... any tips??? thanks-- fritz, August 11th, 2006 9:01 PM.
Thanks for making this available. Had no problems making a weather page. Worked great.One issue though. It uses considerable cpu time all the time (while in the background).
Thanks again.
-- Brett, August 12th, 2006 12:22 AM.
Hi, thanks, great concept. I've got a bit of feedback:
- some pages change their content when the browser width is reduced a lot (like tagi.ch). This makes it difficult to select for example the weather part of the site. I think the concept would be improved if the virtual browser window that one selects a part of stayed the same size when one scales down the widget size.
- when selecting the exact cut-out, I often accidentally select part of the site instead of dragging around. Couldn't you disable anything related to "selecting" inside the widget
- when a website has many links, the final widget is difficult to drag around, because one cannot drag the widget by its content (only its border). Couldn't you distinguish between a click and a drag motion, so that one can drag the widget around?
- many websites are huge, and I've got no small screen. How about the ability to reduce the size of a website by 90%, 75%, 50% and 25%?Thanks and Cheers!
Rupert-- Rupert, August 12th, 2006 2:14 PM.
Just tried out to frame the Pandora mini-player correctly, but it was extremely diffuclt: jumped around, suddenly the widget got smaller etc. And when one clicked on "save size", he player yet jumped once again. It was then over the top border, so one couldn't change the volume or stop. Try it out for yourself: http://www.pandora.com/?cmd=indexminiAnyway, thanks, cool stuff! :-)
-- Rupert, August 12th, 2006 2:25 PM.
Absolutely brilliant!
Apple should hire you.I did a a Step by Step tutorial on it.
http://myvideopodcast.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=119423-- new2mac, August 12th, 2006 6:11 PM.
Great widget! I've been looking for something like this right after I finished watching Jobs' WWDC keynote. But please make the intervals in which the widget should reload to something even shorter than "1 hour". Thanks in advance.-- Koki, August 14th, 2006 10:23 AM.
All I'd really want is that the navigation-buttons (javascript I guess?) within a site doesn't pop me out to Safari. Only links should do that.Great widget!
-- Oskar Lissheim-Boethius, August 14th, 2006 2:01 PM.
Great widget. Only feature request would be more granular refresh times. Ideally you should be able to set any refresh rate you want.-- Jeff, August 15th, 2006 6:43 PM.
Nice widget! It would look a lot more spiffy if there's no thick gray border and if the widget has a little bit shadow! Thanks!-- Joe, August 17th, 2006 10:53 PM.
Either your quite smart widget has a memory leak or Webkit (using the following site: http://www.meteosuisse.ch/web/fr/meteo/temps_actuel.par0004.reg7.stationKLO.html)-- Markus, August 18th, 2006 1:03 AM.
SOLUTION FOR SHORTER REFRESH TIMES!!Download http://samuelandheather.com/Samuel/iframe.html and save it into the Package Contents of the widget before you install it. This adds options for refresh every 1, 5, 10, 15 and 30 minutes.
-- Sam Oltz, August 19th, 2006 9:20 PM.
I made a version that reloads each time you open the page. The problem now it, that the widget turns blank for a few seconds on a slow server, while it is refreshing the page (the content is gone during the reload). I don't know if that could be fixed, probably not without some heavy coding in the embedded widget-plugin (the frame inside the widget is displayed by some obj-C code methinks). Would be great to continue showing the old content, fetching the new and then replacing the old by the new without ever having the content go blank.-- Markus, August 21st, 2006 3:35 PM.
First of all thanks for the widget and great work.
If i can share a couple ideas, here they are:1- Add a minimise button (to shrink it in place to a icon size for ex. 128x128px) that would allow us to have plenty more active. (plus Apple's WebClip won't have this ability and therefore yours would be considered less as a "ripp-off")
2- Allow the user to change the refresh rate and address once the widget is already active (on the back panel).
Voila, but great job and keep up the good work.
P.S. Mine stopped working after a defrag of my disk (i now get a white screen) perhaps it's saft interfering but it worked just fine before the defrag... will investigate.
-- gaf, August 23rd, 2006 7:32 AM.
Awesome!As soon as I saw this new feature I was drooling for it.. YOU ROCK!
-- Ron Rattie, August 29th, 2006 9:46 PM.
Developer, you might want to consider looking at the code from Shiira mini.-- Sam Oltz, August 31st, 2006 8:29 PM.
Great toy! But (as has been mentioned before) could it refresh more frequently than once per hour?-- Jim Scott, September 3rd, 2006 1:53 PM.
i've actually been trying to figure out if this could be done. a brilliant solution, brilliant.-- Scholes, September 13th, 2006 3:46 PM.
Any chance there coul be an option to disable flash in the clip, in the next version?-- Matt Jeffryes, September 13th, 2006 5:06 PM.
Great widget- I've run into one small bug; not sure if it's been reported yet. After each webclip widget refreshes, it goes back to the mode where using the mouse moves the webpage around (instead of being able to interact with the webpage). To get it to stop, I have to click on the resizing corner and then "save position and size". Thoughts?-- Ted, September 28th, 2006 9:40 PM.
and where is the promised update? a one time shot only? how sad, maybe you have received mail from apple?-- ch, October 4th, 2006 10:31 PM.