There’s nothing revolutionary in this post but I’m very happy to show you one of the project I worked on this summer. It’s my first widget for Mac OS X Leopard (that has been launched today). It’s something I wanted to do since my return from the WWDC. It’s called “Time Machine Launcher� and it’s a very simple widget that allows you to launch Time Machine directly from Dashboard so you don’t need the Time Machine icon in your beautiful dock anymore! You can change it’s size and you’ll automatically be noticed when a new version is available. For more information and to download it for free please visit the Time Machine Launcher page.

It’s my first widget, and I hope it will be useful for you. If you have any comments feel free to contact me! I hope I’ll be able to show you some other projects I’m working on in the coming weeks.

Enjoy!

[Update] More than 1,200 downloads in just 4 days! Thanks a lot to everyone! I’m already working on a new version with new little features and improvements. Stay tuned!

My friend Stephane wrote recently an article about the different controls that are available for you to use on the Web. Sometimes a check box is better than a radio button and sometimes not… that’s why Stephane thought about replacing them by a switch. I’m convinced that this control can be used (and so, is better than other controls) in some cases on the Web or in other non-Web Applications. Apple is using it in the new Pages as well as in the iPhone. On the iPhone the switch is very useful and fits perfectly in the multi-touch interface.

On the other side, you know that the only solution for you to develop application for the iPhone is to the AJAX and other « Web 2.0 » technologies. There is a lot of very good application out there : Facebook (direct link to the app), Hahlo or Meebo. Based on Stephane’s idea, I tried to reproduce the exact same switch used on the iPhone but in Javascript so you can use it on your website (or even better, on your iPhone web-application!). Here is an animated gif but you can also try the live demo of the switch on this page:

You’ll now have the same switch the iPhone is using directly in your iPhone web-app! It increases the consistency of your interface in the « iPhone environment » and we all knows that it is very important. You can download this ZIP file that contains the Javascript file, the 2 images that compose the switch as well as the HTML page with the example of how to use the switch.

What’s next ?

It’ll be even better to animate the switch when you change its state. But to realize that you’ll have to separate the background and the movable part of the switch (I hope it’s clear enough). I tried it but I wasn’t able to finish it yet. So, if you have the time and the skills to do that, feel free to modify the code!

The images used to created the switch are the property of Apple Inc.

Le Cocoa (qui en anglais signifie Cacao) est l’environnement de programmation (orienté objet) natif sous Mac OS X. N’ayant pas eu l’opportunité d’apprendre et de travailler sous cet environnement pendant mon IUT Informatique, ce n’est qu’il y a quelques mois que je m’y suis sérieusement intéressé. Quelques mois après l’achat d’un livre sur le sujet, de nombreuses heures de lecture, de la WWDC et de quelques projets réalisés voici mes impressions et conseils pour ceux qui s’apprêtent à découvrir les joies de la programmation Cocoa.

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