A few months ago I decided to write my own Windows Sidebar Gadget and thought that pulling the graphs from the Seabreeze mobile site would be useful so I could keep track of Wind at my local spots.

Well one thing led to another and I've ended up creating a Gadget that can access all of the Seabreeze wind and tide charts that are on the mobile site.

The Gadget lets you choose two graphs and then displays these on an alternating frequency that you choose. The Gadget pulls new charts from the Seabreeze web server on a regular basis so the graphs are always up to date.

At the moment I'm waiting to hear back from Seabreeze to make sure they are OK with the whole thing.

In the meantime I thought that I would ask what kind of interest there is in such a gadget and if you would like anything added.

I don't plan to sell the Gadget and all of the development work has been done in my limited free time. So any major changes may not happen at all.

So what do you all reckon about this Gadget?

Cheers,
Sprinter.

that's brilliant - I don't have to look at any of the adverts that fund the site.

Awesome

I'd use it

Great idea.

If you have a mac you can do a similar thing without downloading anything and without any programming knowledge.

Here's how:

Open up safari and go to your favourite mobile graphs:

ie:www.seabreeze.com.au/Members/Mobile/graphs/vic.aspx

either right click or control click somewhere on the page and select "Open in dashboard..." then move the white square over the graph you want and click "add"

After that you will see the graph in your dashboard.

Dashboard in a mac is different from the yahoo widgets or stuff you get in windows in that they are displayed on demand. You press f4, click on the dashboard icon or hit a button on your mouse to make it appear. It disappears when you click anywhere else on the screen. The widgets are updated each time you display the dashboard.

Does anyone know the best way to contact Seabreeze Administrators/Management? I'm trying to make contact with them about this Gadget. I submitted a couple of their feedback forms on Saturday and Tuesday and so far there is no response.

Do they even read the submissions from the feedback forms?

Can someone give me a direct email address that will get read by someone who can help me?

Just finding it a little frustrating trying to do the right thing by Seabreeze.

Sprinter.

Well I haven't released the Gadget, its only installed on my own PC's. If they have a problem with me releasing it, it's no loss to me as I wasn't planning to sell it to end users.

On the positive side there is an opportunity for Seabreeze to have their logo on the Gadget and I think the community would appreciate getting access to the Gadget.

I'll give them a few more days and see what happens.

dirtyharry said...

Sprinter seems to be on the level to me? Hasn't given the widget to anyone yet, isn't planning to sell it and is seeking the approval of the website owner before going any further.

Hardly "shoot first, ask questions later"!!

Ginge - do you know Sprinter or have some grudge against him? You seem to be on his case a bit with this one.

I'm not on his case. It's a cool gadget.

It's fair what he's done and I'm not suggesting that he's broken any laws. He's just spent quite a bit of his own time doing something that someone else may veto - that's all.

The bom provides the data in xml format on its site if he wants to use it...

ginger pom said...
It's fair what he's done and I'm not suggesting that he's broken any laws. He's just spent quite a bit of his own time doing something that someone else may veto - that's all.

The bom provides the data in xml format on its site if he wants to use it...

If you have a look at this Seabreeze page - www.seabreeze.com.au/widget.asp

They encourage Website owners to add the graphs to their sites. What the gadget does is very similar, it takes these graphs and displays them in a mini web browser, which is what a Windows sidebar gadget does.

So hopefully it will be all OK with Seabreeze but I just wanted to check first. And then there is the opportunity for them to get their logo onto the Gadget. (The logo advertising idea was really an after thought and was never an original motivator).

G.P. I like your idea of using the XML data from the BOM for another project ;-)

There's still an opportunity for SB to get their logo onto the gadget, etc which would be good marketing. If they are interested they only need to ask.

Sprinter.

Sprinter - I've not received any emails from you, I will send you a PM.