Check out Michael Howard's and Dave Ross' nice article on how to write a more secure gadget at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb498012.aspx .

Our friends in Switzerland are hosting a gadget development competition. Here are some highlights: What is the Swiss Gadget Competition about? Contestants develop their own Windows Live or Vista Sidebar Gadget to become the Swiss Gadget Champion...

We’ve heard from several OEMs who are having trouble pre-configuring Sidebar gadgets using the Sidebar unattend settings. We will explain in more detail how these settings work. First, the Sidebar unattend settings are overrides for the default gadget...

Windows Live released two gadgets that really showcase some Windows Live services, as well as being terrific examples of how to give users quick access to lots of data in a Sidebar gadget. Live Search Gadget - download Live Search Traffic Gadget...

Here's a few tips for developers writing Sidebar gadgets that interact with Sideshow (the Windows Vista support for auxiliary displays): Early versions of the Sidebar/Sideshow documentation incorrectly refers to the enabled method as a property. The...

Really, this post is about Flash. But it will probably apply to quite a few other ActiveX objects out there, too, so use it liberally! Unfortunately, Adobe Flash does not support the x64 processor architecture. The basic upshot of this is that you...

One of my favorite new web technologies is now available for preview. I’d urge to you go check out the developer center and team blog . Of course, since “WPF/E” is a technology designed to work in web pages, many of you are going to try it out inside...

Ben Betz has a pretty cool post about building some advanced queries in the UI ( http://shellrevealed.com/blogs/shellblog/archive/2006/10/31/Query-Composition_3A00_-Building-a-search-upon-another-search.aspx ). Did you know that you can direct the...

The final RSS gadget, “Feed Headlines” is done and available with Windows Vista! This gadget is featured on the Vista Sidebar by default and allows users to see new headlines peripherally. We built the gadget using the Windows Feeds Platform, which greatly...

DISCLAIMER: This post is relevant for the Vista v1 version of Sidebar, but isn’t guaranteed to work on future versions. Hopefully we’ll be able to devise a more streamlined method of roaming gadgets and settings in the future. Sidebar by default will...

I just saw this interesting exchange on an internal discussion list, and thought I'd pass it on: From: A Microsoft Guy Subject: Formatting date/time strings Is there a good way to format a date/time string using the current system local? The javascript...

A while ago, I wrote a tutorial explaining how to create an ActiveX control and use it inside a sidebar gadget. If you are finding yourself limited by the capabilities of DHTML and script in your gadget development, you will find this a useful way to...

Soon after I posted my persistent settings library , I received my first bug on it. I'll discuss the bug a bit, but first things first - the bug is fixed, and the links updated; if you previously downloaded the library, please go ahead and get the updated...

Here is a question that seems to pop up with some regularity on the sidebar newsgroup: "Why doesn't the weather gadget remember where I live, if I close it and then add it again to my sidebar?" The answer is that every time you add the weather gadget...

In the RC1 release of Windows Vista, the Sidebar received a number of changes in the APIs that make up our object model. These APIs make building rich gadgets that interact with other Windows components, and the Sidebar itself, easy and familiar to HTML...

Brian Teutsch, Windows Sidebar Program Manager The Windows Sidebar is a new Windows Vista component that provides a runtime for "gadgets." Gadgets are mini-applications designed to present the user with information or utilities. The Windows Vista Sidebar...

This is our first blog post to help out with some common gadget authoring situations. Today's post is about managing gadget updates in response to having your gadget hidden and shown by the user. Windows Sidebar provides support for informing a gadget...

Windows Vista is proud to present....Sidebar! Watch this space for posts from the cast and crew of this new epic.The special effects will amaze and delight! The dialog will be sharp and witty! The gadget community will go where no gadgeteer has gone before...