7. LG Mobile
Starting in 2010, LG Mobile is offering on its devices a
widget platform supporting the W3C widget standard, a subset of the
BONDI APIs, and some LG proprietary APIs.
You can download an SDK at http://developer.lgmobile.com. The SDK includes a project
creator, a widget validator, a packager, and a widget emulator. The
emulator allows us to configure emulation data for the device API, like
the gallery or contact list. It also supports a DOM Inspector,
JavaScript debugger, and Memory Viewer, as any Firebug developer will
want.
An LG widget includes the typical files (HTML, icon, and config.xml files), and a mandatory wgt.dat file for persistent storage. The best
way to create them is using the SDK. The LG extensions support the
widget object with the preferenceForKey and setPreferenceForKey methods we’ve
seen in other platforms. It also supports the openURL method to open the browser, and a
localized string framework for multiple languages.
The additions to the BONDI APIs include:
7.1. Distribution
A wgt package can be distributed for free
via the LG Widget Gallery, available on the developer website, or you
can upload it to the Business Proposals section to see if LG knows how
to make money from your widget.
8. Samsung Mobile
Samsung is a pioneer in widget development, providing
widget support from all of its TouchWiz UI devices. TouchWiz is a
toolbar on the left side of the home screen where all widgets are
installed, as shown in Figure 5. When the user
drags your widget to an empty space in the home screen it will appear as
a non-full-screen application, sharing the screen with other widgets. If
you need more space to show details, you can resize the widget or open a
mobile website in the browser. You can see how widgets will be displayed
at http://www.yourwidgetworld.com.
The widget platform is cross-compatible between Symbian, Windows
Mobile, and proprietary OS Samsung devices. It may also be compatible
with the new Bada platform.
The widget platform is based on the W3C package specification and
has different property support in Windows Mobile and in the other
platforms. Check the documentation for details.
Every widget has an icon that can be one of the following:
Long vertical
Long horizontal
Square
This icon will be available in the lefthand scrolling list of
widgets. Every widget also has a first depth size (the normal size when
the user activates the widget) and an optional second depth size (for
more detailed information). You can update the information displayed
using a timer and maybe an AJAX request to a server.
Samsung’s widget platform supports the widget object with some known features, such
as the key/value storage we’ve already discussed, the openURL mechanism, and a widget.window.resizeWindow(w, h) method to resize the widget so there is more
space on the screen.
Starting with Samsung Mobile Widget SDK 1.2 the platform supports
full BONDI APIs, so it will be easier to port between platforms.
Note:
If the Samsung widget is running on the Symbian OS, it also has
full support for WRT APIs for calling all the Platform Services. These
are not compatible with the Windows Mobile and Samsung OS devices on
which the same widget can run.
8.1. Distribution
The .wgt file can be served
from your code as application/vnd.samsung.widget or can be
installed by any other offline method. You can also distribute Samsung
widgets in the U.S. and Europe via the Samsung Apps official store, by
registering as a seller at http://seller.samsungapps.com for a fee of $1 (yes, one
dollar). You will receive a 70% revenue share.
If your widget is free, you can offer it globally using the
“More Widgets” feature available on every compatible device. You can
also submit a proposal to the Market.Dev section of the website to
receive business feedback from Samsung.
9. JIL
Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) is a joint-venture company
created by China Mobile, SoftBank (Japanese carrier), Vodafone, and
Verizon Wireless, covering more than 1 billion customers worldwide. The
company has created a widget engine that works on a variety of
devices.
Note:
JIL offers a widget porting engine to automatically port
Symbian, Opera, and Dashboard widgets to the JIL widget standard,
uploading your original package to the website.
You can download the SDK for Windows or Linux from the official
website, http://jil.org. Each operator should use
its own trademark for widget development; for example, Vodafone 360 uses
http://360.com as the end-user website and http://jil.vodafone-developer.com for the developer SDK
and documentation.
JIL uses a modified W3C widget API package standard with a
.wdgt or a .wgt extension served as application/widget. It supports the Dashboard
Widget object with the cross-platform methods and some widget
event handlers. JIL also supports the Opera CSS conditional query
extensions and a new conditional for touch devices, -o-touch.
A typical config.xml file
will look like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<widget xmlns="http://www.jil.org/ns/widgets" id="http://jil.org/myWidget"
version="01.00.Beta" height="150" width="100">
<name>Widget Example</name>
<icon src="icon.png"/>
<access network="true" localfs="true" remote_scripts="false"/>
<content src="main.html"/>
<feature name="http://jil.org/apis/api.DeviceInfo" required="true"/>
<feature name="http://jil.org/apis/api.CalendarItem" required="false"/>
<billing required="true"/>
</widget>
The widget engine supports a JIL JavaScript API with the following
modules:
The framework includes a Charging API for payment processing and
usage authorization. You can distribute your widget for free or as
premium content. You can also use the JIL Advertising Program for
monetizing.
At the end of 2009 many vendors announced that they would support
JIL, including RIM, LG, Samsung, and Sharp.
At the time of this writing, JIL widgets can be distributed in the
Vodafone Store for free or as premium content. The widgets will soon be
available in the other operators’ stores, and possibly other independent
application stores. You can sign the application from the JIL website
before posting it to the stores.
10. Opera Widgets
The Opera browser also has a widget engine that works in
desktop and mobile environments using the same widget package. An Opera
widget in the mobile environment works with Opera Mobile (Windows Mobile
and Symbian) and with the optional runtime (Widget Manager). In 2010,
Opera announced that the widgets will also work under the Opera Mini
engine, so widgets should soon work on almost every device on the
market, from low-end devices to smartphones.
Some operators use this platform to offer widgets to their users
along with the runtime or browser that comes preinstalled on devices
purchased from those operators. That is the case with T-Mobile, for
which Opera has developed a widget engine with additional APIs,
including integration with the idle (home) screen and access to the
devices’ features.
You can download the Opera Widgets SDK and the T-Mobile Developer
SDK from http://dev.opera.com/sdk, and you will
find the documentation at http://dev.opera.com/articles/widgets.
Opera uses a ZIP package file with .wgt extension, served as application/x-opera-widgets. Its config.xml configuration file is very similar
to the W3C standard:
<widget>
<widgetname>
First Opera Widget
</widgetname>
<width>
300
</width>
<height>
300
</height>
</widget>
In JavaScript, the widget
object exists with the now well-known openURL and the preferenceForKey/setPreferenceForKey storage mechanism. It also
supports a user notification mechanism and the onshow and onhide events.
Note:
The Opera Widgets SDK supports a CSS extension for conditional
media queries to define different styles depending on the running mode
of the widget—application, docked, or fullscreen—using the -o-widget-mode condition.
10.1. Distribution
You can distribute the widget via your own server, in the Opera
widget gallery, or through some operators’ stores (like T-Mobile’s).
There is also an autodiscoverhead, the browser should detect the widget
and suggest the download to the user: mechanism that
works when the user is browsing your website using Opera and you want
to share a widget. If you define a link in the
<link type="application/x-opera-widgets" rel="alternate"
href="http://mobilexweb.com/widget.wgt"
title="Mobile Web Client" />
11. Operator-Based Widget Platforms
Many providers offer widget engines to operators to serve content
to their end users. Two classic browser companies, ACCESS (NetFront) and
Myriad (Openwave), offer widget engines for operators and manufacturers,
like Opera Mobile.
NetFront Widgets (http://widgets.access-company.com) is a widget platform
whose player is currently available for Windows Mobile 5.X/6.X and
Symbian S60 3rd edition devices and will
support new platforms in the future. Download the NetFront Widgets
Content Development Tools, including a packager and a viewer, from the
website.
Myriad also offers a widget engine for low-end devices
(available at http://www.myriadgroup.com/Mobile-Operators/Mobile-Widgets.aspx),
but no information is available for developers at the time of this
writing.
Qualcomm Plaza (http://plaza.qualcomm.com) is a multiplatform widget
engine for operators (actually already available through some carriers)
that uses the W3C widget standard and a free distribution channel for
end users.
Obigo (http://obigo.com) created the
widget framework that is the base for the LG widget platform.
Finally, Orange created Djinngo (http://publisher.djinngo.com), a Java ME client to
install widgets created using JavaScript and a VRML language.
