Scott Howlett & Jim Schwartz Imason inc Jean-Luc David & Christian Beauclair Microsoft Canada blogs.msdn.com/cdndevs

Introduction Gadgets we’ve built Inside the code Challenges Gadget Tips and tricks Summary

 Scott Howlett is a Principal with imason inc. in Toronto, Canada. Scott is also a Microsoft Regional Director.  Jim Schwartz is an Internet imason inc and has been involved in multiple Vista Gadget development projects. Jim is also a SharePoint specialist.

Workopolis gadget displays number of jobs and resumes for a particular industry in a particular city. Savings and event calendar mini-app gadget built for a large Canadian financial institution.

Demo: Watch the Gadgets in Action!

Flyouts Docked / undocked views Gadget timeouts Exception and Trace Logging Storing local gadget XML data Signed gadgets Debugging gadgets in Visual Studio 2005 Integrating 3 rd party controls

Lack of IntelliSense Debugging is tricky Gadgets aren’t meant to be full-blown applications Writing data access code can be tedious Gadgets don’t integrate easily with ASP.NET AJAX currently

10 Gadget Tips

10. Catch exceptions properly 9. Use caution with flyout timeouts 8. Flyout objects can be referenced from the gadget 7. Use Docked/undocked views 6. For overflow, use Div tags with scrollbars

5. Use caution when displaying dates 4. Do not store persistent data in gadget folder 3. Use a clean folder structure and naming convention 2. Sign your gadget with a digital id 1. Do not try to build too much functionality into a gadget

Gadgets should be mini-applications Gadgets can be tricky to debug Gadgets are still evolving

Gadget Links: Sidebar Gadget Development Overview: 10 Vista Sidebar Gadget Development Tips: Gadget Corner: Sidebar Security: Gadget Development Overview: Gadget Object Reference: Windows RSS Platform: FeedsManager Object:

Scott Howlett – Principal – imason inc. Jim Schwartz – Internet Architect – imason inc Vista Sidebar Gadget Development Tips: