Section 6.9. The Sidebar: All Versions


6.9. The Sidebar: All Versions

As you know, the essence of using Windows is running programs , which often produce documents . In Vista, however, there's a third category: a set of weird hybrid entities that Microsoft calls gadgets . They appear, all at once, floating in front of your other windows, at the right side of the screen. They're there when you first fire up Vista, or whenever you press +Space bar. (You can also open them by choosing Start All Programs Accessories Windows Sidebar.)

Welcome to the new world of the Sidebar (Figure 6-10).

Figure 6-10. When you summon the Sidebar, you get a fleet of floating miniprograms that convey or convert all kinds of useful information. They appear and disappear all at once, on a tinted translucent sheet .


What are these weird hybrid entities, anyway? They're not really programs, because they don't create documents or have listings in the All Programs menu. They're certainly not documents, because you can't name or save them. What they most resemble, actually, is little Web pages. They're meant to display information, much of it from the Internet, and they're written using Web programming languages like DHTML, Javascript, VBScript, and XML.


Note: They're generally distributed as .zip files that, when decompressed, have the filename extension .gadget .

Vista's starter gadgets include a calculator, current weather reporter, stock ticker, clock, and so on. Mastering the basics of Sidebar won't take you long at all:

  • To move a gadget , drag it around the screen. It doesn't have to stay in the Sidebar area.

    In fact, you can drag all of the gadgets off the Sidebar, if you like, and park them anywhere on the screen. You could even close the now-empty Sidebarright-click a blank spot and, from the shortcut menu, choose Close Sidebarand leave the gadgets themselves stranded, floating in place. (If they look too lonely , you can reopen the Sidebar by right-clicking the tiny Windows Sidebar icon in your notification area and, from the shortcut menu, choosing Open.)


    Tip: If the gadget doesn't seem to want to move when you drag it, you're probably grabbing it by a clickable portion. Try to find a purely graphical spotthe spiral binding of the calendar, for example.And if all else fails, right-click the gadget. From the shortcut menu, choose Detach from Sidebar.
  • To close a gadget , point to it. You'll see the square X button appear at the gadget's top-left corner; click it. (You can also right-click a gadget and choose Close Gadget from its shortcut menu.)

  • To add a gadget to the Sidebar , click the + button at the top of the screen (Figure 6-10), or right-click any gadget (or the Sidebar notification-area icon) and choose Add Gadget from the Sidebar.

    You've just opened the Gadget Gallery, a semi-transparent catalog of all your gadgets, even the ones that aren't currently on the screen (Figure 6-11). Open one by double-clicking its icon, or by dragging it to a blank spot on your Sidebar.

    Figure 6-11. You may have to scroll the Gadget Gallery to see all the gadgets, by clicking the Page arrows at the top left of the window. When you're finished opening new gadgets, close the Gadget Gallery by clicking its X button .


    If you add more gadgets than can fit on the Sidebar, a tiny appears at the top of the Sidebar. Click it to bring the next "page full of gadgets into view.

  • To rearrange your gadgets within the Sidebar , just drag them up or down, using any blank spot as a handle. The other gadgets slide out of the way.

6.9.1. Losing the Sidebar

To get rid of the Sidebar, you have several options.

  • Hide it by right-clicking a blank spot on the Sidebar. From the shortcut menu, choose Close Sidebar.

    This technique just hides the actual Sidebar rectangle. It doesn't close any gadgets that you've moved onto your screen, and it's still technically running, using memory.

  • Quit it completely , so it's not using up memory or distracting you, by right-clicking the Windows Sidebar notification-area icon. From the shortcut menu, choose Exit.

  • Make it stop auto-starting along with Windows by opening the Windows Sidebar Properties control panel. (Quickest way: Right-click the Windows Sidebar icon in your notification area. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties.) Turn off "Start Sidebar when Windows starts." Click OK.

6.9.2. Sidebar Tips

Like most new Vista features, Sidebar is crawling with tips and tricks. Here are a few of the biggies:

  • You can open more than one copy of the same gadget. Just double-click its icon more than once in the Gadget Bar. You wind up with multiple copies of it on your screen: three Clocks, two Weather trackers , or whatever. That's a useful trick when, for example, you want to track the time or weather in more than one city, or when you maintain two different stock portfolios.

  • If you point to a gadget without clicking, two or three tiny icons appear to its right. One is the X (Close button), which you've already met. The one that looks like a tiny wrench opens the gadget's Settings dialog box, where, for example, you can specify which stocks you want to track, or which town's weather you want to see. The third one, a tiny grid, is a "grip strip" that lets you drag the gadget to a new spot on the screen.

  • Once the Sidebar is open, you can "tab" your way through the gadgets, highlighting one after another, by repeatedly pressing +G. When a certain gadget is highlighted, you can manipulate it. Close it, for example, by pressing Alt+F4.

  • The "Search all gadgets" box (top right of the Gadget Gallery) lets you jump directly to a certain gadget, of coursea real sanity saver for the hard- core gadget collector. But if you click the to its right, the pop-up menu lets you restrict your search to only "Recently installed gadgets or gadgets that came from Microsoft itself (choose "Microsoft Corporations").

  • Many of the gadgets require an Internet connection, preferably an always-on connection like a cable modem.

  • Ordinarily, your everyday work windows are allowed to cover up the Sidebar and its gadgets. If you have two monitors , though, or one really huge one, you can reverse that logic; you can tell Vista to put the gadgets on top of all other windows.

    To do that, choose Start Control Panel Classic View Windows Sidebar Properties. Turn on "Sidebar is always on top of other windows."


Tip: The same Control Panel applet lets you place the Sidebar on the left side of the screen, if you like, or even specify which of your many monitors it should appear on.

6.9.3. Gadget Catalog

Here's a rundown of the standard gadgets that come preinstalled in Vista. True, they look awfully simple, but some of them harbor a few secrets.


Tip: If you right-click an individual gadget, the shortcut menu offers, among other commands, an Opacity control. That is, you can make any individual gadget more or less see-throughsomething that makes more sense for, say, the clock than the photo slideshow.
6.9.3.1. Calendar

Sure, you can always find out today's date by pointing to the clock on your taskbar. And this gadget isn't much of a calendar. It doesn't show your appointments, and it doesn't hook into Windows Calendar.

But it's much nicer looking than the taskbar one. And besides, you can use this calendar to look ahead or back. Here's the scheme of things you can click:

  • Click today's red "page" to open the month-view calendar.

  • Navigate to a different month by clicking or buttons . Change the year by clicking the current year digits at the top of the month view.

  • Click a date square to see its "page," identifying its day and date. (Not that you learn much by doing thisclicking Wednesday, June 22 makes the big date squares read "Wednesday, June 22." Ooooh!)

  • Click the red peeking corner to return to the month-view calendar.

6.9.3.2. Clock

Sure, this clock shows the current time, but your taskbar does that. The neat part is that you can open up several of these clocksdouble-click Clock in the Gadget Gallery repeatedlyand set each one up to show the time in a different city. The result looks like the row of clocks in a hotel lobby, making you look Swiss and precise.

  • Point to the analog clock without clicking to see a digital rendition of the current time ("5:34 p.m.").

  • Click the Options (wrench) button for a choice of eight good-looking analog clock faces. The Options dialog box also lets you choose each clock's time zone, add a sweep-second hand, and name this clock"New York" or "London," for example. This name appears on the clock's facea handy option when you've opened this gadget more than once, creating different clocks that track different time zones.

6.9.3.3. Contacts

The concept behind this gadget is, of course, to give you faster access to your own address book. (Trudging off to the actual Contacts folder, described on page 250, takes way too long when you just want to look up a number.)

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
The Disappearing Notes, Stocks, or Weather

Hey! I filled my Notes gadget with grocery lists and Web addresses, and now they're gone!

Hey! I set up my home city in the Weather gadget, and now it's showing Redmond, Washington!

Hey! I painstakingly typed in all my stocks, and now it's forgotten them all!

Welcome to gadget hell, buddy.

Remember, gadgets are not actually programs. They don't, therefore, have their own preference files stashed away on the hard drive.

And sohere's the bad newsany time you close a gadget, you lose all the data you had typed into it . When you reopen Weather, it always shows Redmond, Washington (Microsoft's home town); when you reopen Stocks, it always shows the NASDAQ and S&P indexes; when you reopen Notes, the sticky notes are always empty; and so on.

And so, a word to the wise: don't click that X button unless you really mean it!


The gadget may look like a simple Rolodex card, but it's actually filled with clickable shortcuts. For example:

  • Search bar . Type a few letters of somebody's name here. As you type, the gadget homes in on that person's entry from the Contacts program. (Clear the Search bar by clicking the little X.)

  • Names . Click a name to open this person's Contacts entry, complete with phone number, email address, and so on.

  • Red tab (left side) . Click to return to the full master list of contacts.

  • Email address . Click to fire up the Mail program (or whatever email program you use), complete with a fresh outgoing message already addressed to this person. All you have to do is type your message and click Send.


Tip: This gadget is easier to understand if you drag it off of the Sidebar. Once free on your screen, it appears as a two -page binder, with the master list of contacts on the left side of the binding, and the individual Rolodex "page" on the right.
6.9.3.4. CPU Meter

A power user 's dreamnow you can watch your PC wheeze and gasp under its load in real time, with statistical accuracy.

The CPU Meter has two gauges. The left-side one shows how hard you're driving your CPU (central processing unitthat is, your Intel or AMD chip), expressed as a percentage of its capacity. The smaller dial shows how much of your computer's RAM (memory) you're using at the moment. Watch the needles rise and fall as you open and close your programs! (Watch them go nuts when you open Microsoft Office!)

6.9.3.5. Currency

This one's for you, world travelers (or global investors). This little gadget can convert dollars to euros, or shillings to francs, or whatever to whatever.

From the upper pop-up menu, choose the currency type you want to convert from: U.S. Dollars, Norwegian Krone, or whatever. Into the text box, type how many of those you want to convert.

Use the lower pop-up menu to specify which units you want to convert to .

You don't have to click anything or press any key; the conversion is performed for you instantly and automatically as you type. (Never let it be said that technology isn't marching forward.)

Some of Currency's features are available only when you drag this gadget out of the Sidebar and into a spot where it has room to expand. For example:

  • See more details about your currency's current situation by clicking the little ~ button to the left of each pop-up menu. Your Web browser opens and takes you to the MSN Money Web site, already opened to a details page about that currency and its history.

  • Convert more currencies at once by clicking the + button (lower-right of the gadget). That is, you can see $20 represented as dinar, baht, and shekels simultaneously .

  • Find out where the data comes from by clicking the words Data Providers.


Note: This gadget actually does its homework. It goes online to download up-to-the-minute currency rates to ensure that the conversion is accurate.
6.9.3.6. Feed Headlines

An RSS feed is a newfangled Internet feature, in which the headlines from various Web sites are sent to you automatically (see page 380 for details). Internet Explorer 7 can accept RSS feeds, of coursebut you don't have to fire it up every time you want to know the news of the world. Just take a look at this little gadget.

Actually, don't look yet; out of the box, this gadget doesn't show much at all. But if you click its "View headlines" link, you get to see 100 recent headlines, all from Microsoft sources: Microsoft news, Microsoft tips, Microsoft articles, and so on.

  • Substitute your own feeds . This gadget is much more attractive when you fill it with your own favorite feedsthe New York Times , sports-score sites, favorite online columnists, and so on. Fortunately, the gadget inherits its list of feeds from those you've subscribed to in Internet Explorer, as described on page 380.

    Once you've subscribed to a feed there, click this gadget's Options (wrench) button. Use the "Display this feed" list to choose the feed you want displayed.


    Tip: You can choose only one item from the "Display this feed" pop-up menu. Fortunately, that doesn't mean only one feed. If you take the effort to create a folder for your favorite feeds when storing them in Internet Explorer, you can choose that folder's name in this gadget, thereby getting a rotating list of multiple favorite feeds.
  • Scroll the list by clicking the the or buttons.

  • See more of each headline by dragging this gadget off the sidebar, if you've got the room.

6.9.3.7. Notes

Notes is a virtual Post-it note that lets you type out random scraps of texta phone number, a Web address, a grocery list, or whatever.

  • Edit the note by typing away. Right-click to access Cut, Copy, and Paste commands.

  • Add another page by clicking the + button (lower right); delete the current page by clicking the X button (lower left). Once you have more than a single page, use the or buttons to move among them.

  • Change the paper color , font, or size by clicking the Options button (tiny wrench) at the right side of the gadget. Font and Size controls appear there; click the or buttons to see the different pastel paper colors available.

6.9.3.8. Stocks

Hey, day traders, this one's for you. This gadget lets you build a stock portfolio and watch it rise and fall throughout the day.

It contains your list of stocks, their current prices (well, current as of 20 minutes ago), and the amount they've changedgreen if they're up, red if they're down. Click a stock's name to see its chart and other details in a Web page.

To set up your portfolio, proceed like this:

  • Add a stock by clicking the + button below the list, typing its name or stock abbreviation into the box at the top, and pressing Enter. If there's only one possible matchMicrosoft, for examplethe gadget adds it to the list instantly. If there's some question about what you typed, or several possible matches, you'll see a pop-up menu listing the alternatives, so you can click the one you want.

    Collapse the "Add a stock" dialog box by clicking the + button again, or simply by clicking anywhere else on your screen.

  • Scroll the list by clicking the or buttons.

  • Remove a stock from the list by clicking the little X button that appears when you point to its name.

  • See company names instead of abbreviations by clicking the Options (wrench) button and then turning on "Display company name in place of symbol."


Tip: Ordinarily, the gadget displays the ups and downs of each stock as a dollar amount ("+.92" means up 92 cents , for example). But if you turn on "Show change as a percentage"which also appears when you click the Options buttonyou'll see these changes represented as percentages of their previous values.
6.9.3.9. Picture Puzzle

For generations, Microsoft Windows fans had their Solitaire gameand only occasionally looked over the backyard fence to see the Tile Game that their Macintosh friends were playing. The idea, of course, is to click the tiles of the puzzle, using logic to rearrange them back into the original sequence, so that they eventually slide together into the put-together photograph.

  • Change the photo by clicking the Options (wrench) button.

  • Pause the timer ( upper-left corner) by clicking the tiny clock.

  • See the finished photo , so you know what the goal is, by holding the cursor down on the little ? button.

  • Give up by clicking the double-arrow button in the upper-right corner of the puzzle window. (The same button rescrambles the puzzle.)

6.9.3.10. Weather

This gadget shows a handy current-conditions display for your city (or any other city), and, at your option, even offers a three-day forecast.

Before you get started, the most important step is to click the Options (wrench) button. In the Options dialog box, you'll see where you can specify your city and state or Zip code. Type it in and press Enter; the gadget goes online to retrieve the latest Weather.com info . You can also specify whether you prefer degrees Celsius or degrees Fahrenheit. Click OK.

Now the front of the gadget displays the name of your town, general conditions, and current temperature.

  • See more details by dragging the gadget out of the Sidebar. Now you see today's predicted high and low, the sky situation (like "Clear"), the current temperature, and the three-day forecast.

  • See the complete weather report by clicking the underlined location (such as "Central Park, NY") to open your Web browser and call up the full-blown Weather.com page for that location.

6.9.3.11. Slide Show

So you've got a digital camera and a hard drive crammed with JPEGs. What are you gonna do with 'em all?

Slide Show offers an ingenious way to savor your handiwork all day long. It's just what it says: a small slideshow that presents one photo at a time for a few seconds each. Think of it as an electronic version of the little spouse 'n' kids photo that cubicle dwellers prop up on their desksexcept that the picture changes every 15 seconds.

The buttons in the tiny translucent control bar at the bottom of picture correspond to Previous Photo, Pause/Resume, Next Photo, and View (which opens up the picturemuch larger nowin Windows Photo Gallery).

  • Substitute your own photos . When you first install Vista, this gadget presents Microsoft's favorite nature photos. But where's the fun in that? Once you're sick of them, click the Options (wrench) button. In the dialog box, use the Folder controls to choose a folder full of your own pictures.

  • Set up the show timing . Fifteen seconds is an awfully long time to stare at one photo, of course. Then again, if the pix change too often, they'll be distracting, and you won't get any work done. Nonetheless, the Options dialog box lets you keep each slide on the screen for as little as 5 seconds or as long as 5 minutes.

    The Options box also lets you create a crossfade effect as one slide morphs into the next. And the Shuffle checkbox, of course, makes Slide Show present your pix in a random order, rather than their alphabetical order in the folder.


Tip: If you drag this gadget off the Sidebar itself, you get to see your photos at a larger, more pleasant size.

6.9.4. More Gadgets

The gadgets that come with Vista are meant to be only examplesa starter collection. The real beauty of gadgets is that people can write their own new ones for the whole world to enjoy: gadgets that show your local movie listings, regional gas prices, your email Inbox, upcoming Outlook appointments, and so on (Figure 6-12, bottom).

Figure 6-12. Top: After downloading the new gadget (you'll have to click a couple of confirmation buttons along the way), you see this display. Click Install to install it (or Don't Install, if you think it's evil) .
Bottom: Not all good things come from Microsoft. Here's a handful of neat gadgets written by other people .


To see the current list of goodies that have been vetted by Microsoft, click "Get more gadgets online" in the Gadget Gallery described above. That takes you to the Microsoft Gadgets Gallery downloads page. (Alternatively, go straight to http://gallery.microsoft.com.)

You should have no problem finding gadgets that tell you local traffic conditions, let you know if your flight will be on time, help you track FedEx packages, provide a word (or joke, or comic strip) of the day, and so on.

6.9.4.1. Installing a gadget

Downloading and installing a gadget isn't hard, but there are a number of steps. Here's what you'll see if you use Internet Explorer, for example:

  • A warning that you're installing software not written by Microsoft (click OK).

  • The File Download dialog box (click Save).

  • The Save As dialog box, asking where to store the download (click Save).

Unless you interfered, Internet Explorer drops the new gadget into your Personal Downloads folder. Open that folder, and then double-click the new gadget to install it. Figure 6-12 illustrates the process.

6.9.4.2. Uninstalling a gadget

If you decide you don't want a gadget, you can just close it (right-click it; from the shortcut menu, choose Close Gadget). That leaves it on your PC, but dormant .

If, on the other hand, you really doubt you'll ever need it again, open your Gadget Gallery. Right-click the offending gadget; from the shortcut menu, choose Uninstall. Now it's really, truly gone.




Windows Vista. The Missing Manual
Windows Vista: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 0596528272
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 284
Authors: David Pogue

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