Wikipedia Widget
version 0.9.4 for mac os 10.4 or greater
updated September 28th, 2009

download
A Dashboard widget for browsing the free, user-created encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Search for articles, view and edit right from the Dashboard, complete with pictures and links.
September 28, 2009 5:56pm
New version available: 0.9.4. Should fix the link problems everyone was having, along with the Snow Leopard incompatibilities.
For the curious: the link issue was caused by a formatting change on wikipedia's html output. The Snow Leopard issues were caused by a widget.system('mkdir ...') call -- I changed to it widget.system('/bin/mkdir ..') and all is well (hopefully).
Please let me know if any other problems arise. An email is the best way to get my attention: sbillig@whatsinthehouse.com
- Fixed links-not-working bug
- Fixed Snow Leopard behavior issues
- Wikipedia account login support (courtesy of Nick Lane-Smith). Press ctrl-o to view the login page.
- Fixed caching in OS 10.5.6 and later (no more qzq nonsense or broken links)
- Quickly search different language wikipedias without changing the language setting. Just add the language code to the front of your search term. For example, search for "fr: Kosovo" to view the article on Kosovo in French, or "sv: Stockholm" for the Swedish language article on Stockholm.
- Added more languages to the menu on the back
(for previous changes, see the change log)
Features:
- Compatible with any language wikipedia, just enter the 2 (sometimes 3 or more) letter code on the back. Defaults to English.
- External links open in your preferred browser.
- Click the 'wikipedia' button to the left of the search field to open the current article or search term in Safari.
- The little '?' button to the left of the search field fetches a random article.
- Back and forward buttons with page caching.
created by sean billig
If you would like to submit a bug, or make a comment or suggestion, please email me at
sbillig at whatsinthehouse dot com
If you especially enjoy this widget, and would like to support development, you can donate through paypal.
Download and Installation: Apple's Mac OS X 10.4 or later is required. If you're using Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget's icon in the Widget Bar to open it. If you're using a browser other than Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, unarchive it and place it in /Library/Widgets/ in your home folder. Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget's icon in the Widget Bar to open it.
Interested in the source code? Just download the file above. If you're on a Mac, right-click the .wdgt file, and select Show Package Contents. If you're on something else, just browse though the Wikipedia.wdgt directory. The guts are in Main.js.