NASA TV Sidebar gadget

[RentedMule]

I created a WORKING sidebar gadget for NASA TV. Grab it and enjoy the Curiosity landing on Mars:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BydS_K ... kdjZjdsWE0

[Ricardo95]

Can you provide a/some screenshot(s) before I'm downloading this? Just to be sure...

[eXcite]

Here ya go:

I tested it in Windows 7 and Windows 8 RTM.

[Ricardo95]

Very nice, but an option to mute/pause the stream without having to go full screen or close the gadget might be a good idea.

[DeFacto]

I'm curious about how you made it...

[eXcite]

I may be completely wrong here, but it looks to be a video player embed placed inside the gadget.

[annihilator]

My countdown gadget has been running since last November when Curiosity launched. It's synced to the second with NASA's official countdown I'm very excited !!

[eXcite]

My countdown gadget has been running since last November when Curiosity launched. It's synced to the second with NASA's official countdown I'm very excited !!

Where can I download that?

[annihilator]

My countdown gadget has been running since last November when Curiosity launched. It's synced to the second with NASA's official countdown I'm very excited !!

Where can I download that?

It's a countdown gadget. You can make it countdown to anything.


Download it from my skydrive.
http://sdrv.ms/NcOTN1

If you want, I can give you my sidebar files to get my current countdown...

[annihilator]

A bit unrelated, found this on tumblr Martians protest against curiosity's landing. Good Photoshop work I'd say

[eXcite]

My countdown gadget has been running since last November when Curiosity launched. It's synced to the second with NASA's official countdown I'm very excited !!

Where can I download that?

It's a countdown gadget. You can make it countdown to anything.


Download it from my skydrive.
http://sdrv.ms/NcOTN1

If you want, I can give you my sidebar files to get my current countdown...

Thanks, could you upload your sidebar files please?

A bit unrelated, found this on tumblr Martians protest against curiosity's landing. Good Photoshop work I'd say

Yankee

[annihilator]

If you want, I can give you my sidebar files to get my current countdown...

Thanks, could you upload your sidebar files please?

Uploaded to the same folder. It's a .Zip file. You probably already know this but paste it here: C:\Users\*user*\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets\

http://sdrv.ms/NcOTN1

[eXcite]

If you want, I can give you my sidebar files to get my current countdown...

Thanks, could you upload your sidebar files please?

Uploaded to the same folder. It's a .Zip file. You probably already know this but paste it here: C:\Users\*user*\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets\

http://sdrv.ms/NcOTN1

Thanks!
EDIT: It shows a Christmas 2012 countdown, not Curiosity.

[annihilator]

EDIT: It shows a Christmas 2012 countdown, not Curiosity.

Umm. Don't know what is wrong probably is a data conflict, yours and mine computers have different time zones

[RentedMule]

I won't pretend that a sidebar app is complicated. What I did was simple.

In short, as been discussed before, a sidebar app is an IE window, running in the local zone, which has (more or less) oodles of access to ActiveX libraries and the scripting engine.

In this case, I wanted a sidebar app that showed me NASA TV. I've seen it before, even as a windowmaker dock app. However, these didn't work anymore. Looking closer, they streamed an .asx stream that NASA TV no longer provides.

So I went to the NASA TV website to see what they DID still provide. I couldn't find any streaming file references, however, I instead saw that they used a ustream.tv media player, streaming an affiliated video stream. The media player is flash based. I simply embedded this player with the same code as is on NASA TV (well, it wasn't copied, but referenced) with the same video id param, jammed it down to the size of other sidebar gadgets, and covered unusable video player controls with a div/anchor that launches a browser to the actual NASA TV site.

This took me a few hours, but I thought, if even for a day, someone else may find it useful.

I know there are some deficiencies with this release. I just wanted to get something functional out there before the landing. Here are my plans:

- Detect if running user is not active (switch user, sleep/hibernate, screen saver running). By default if they are not active, the video object will be destroyed and recreated when user is active, with a switch to toggle behavior. This saves computing resources and sound playing when you likely don't want it to

- Volume control/mute. I dug into the Flash video players external interface and there SEEMS to be volume control exposed, but I haven't played with it. If I can't access it that way, I may need to create an ActiveX control and distribute that along. I have no idea the security implications (as will it need digitally signed). Either way, this is intended

I'm not sure what else would be useful. Suggestions are welcome

[eXcite]

Pretty simple, but nice! I guessed that you embeded the player.
I suggest:
- Play/pause functionality without having to fullscreen the player.
- Make the "Go to NASA TV" font more clean/smooth (maybe use Segoe UI font), make it smaller.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

[annihilator]

She's down guys Woohoo!!!

First images:
front haz cam:


Rear haz cam: