Hello Sidebar!

Posted by Mihai Ionescu, Software Engineer

A "hello world" program is used in many introductory programming tutorials, so we thought we would follow the tradition and show everyone how easy it is to write a "hello world" plug-in for Google Desktop.

So let's get started:

  pluginHelper.title = "Hello World!";


We're done! We just created the simplest Sidebar panel welcoming you to the world of programming for Google Desktop.

Of course we can make the plug-in more interesting. Let's add "Hello World!" greetings in various languages. It is very easy to add items to a panel and provide descriptions for each item.

  var item = new ContentItem();
  item.heading = "Bonjour Monde!";
  item.snippet = "Hello World! translated in French...";
  pluginHelper.AddContentItem(item, gddItemDisplayInSidebar);



You can find more detailed examples and documentation online or by downloading the Google Desktop SDK. The Google Desktop Developer group is also a good source of information.

Once your program is ready, use the plug-in installer tool provided in the SDK to generate a plug-in package ready for deployment.