With Tiger’s dashboard feature. I mentioned in the past how useful it would be for note-taking. And I was right… if only there was a widget that did it right. Apple’s built-in Stickeys widget (not to be confused with the actual Stickeys application) should’ve been called “suckys.” You can’t paste long lines of code because it dynamically adjusts the font size… and it doesn’t scroll. Pasting long code/text that exceeds the limit will not paste at all. And you can’t type anymore either if you’re at the said limit.
Then I stumbled upon Wikity Widget. A cool wiki-style, database-driven, auto-linking note taking widget, and winner of the Apple dashboard widget competition. Simple and extremely effective implementation – perfect for my note-taking preference. But alas, the interface (if you visited the site) looks horrible.
Since I really wanted to use the app, me being turned-off by its aesthetics on all counts didn’t deter me from using it. First thing I did was check the license to make sure I wasn’t breaking any laws, then started hacking the visual aspects of the widget. I think I did enough tedious work to merit dubbing a new name for it. I decided on iStickyWiki to hit multiple birds with one stone. One is to acknowledge Wikity Widget‘s original concept that it is a wiki-type widget. Another is to emphasize that it has been somewhat “merged” with the Stickeys interface. And the “i” is both a tribute to Apple’s naming convention… plus it makes the widget very Filipino when pronounced as ees-TEE-kee-WEE-kee 🙂
Of course for good measure, I hacked the the scripts to insert a “readme” or “ReleaseNotes” entry to give credit where credit is due. Honestly I think I would’ve modified it regardless of the legalities, since everything was done for personal use. But since the license which governs it stated that it could be modified and re-distributed – so I thought I might as well share it with others. Read More