WebOS 2 Devlog #16: Widget implementation + debugging

In this session, i made multiple changes to the OS to improve the overall UX. I had to pull another all nighter again 🥲. Here is what i changed:

Change 1: Debugging

• Everytime i enabled the system daemon in the settngs, the entire os reloaded which was quite annoying so I ripped out the location.reload() in the Settings app. I also moved him to the body so he didn’t get trapped behind windows, because most of the time the daemon was floating behind windows and i couldnt really see him.

• I also gave the Welcome screen a massive 9999999 z-index so the daemon would float behind it because my previous step was too effective and he was infront of every single screen including like the bootloading screen.

Challenges: I ran into z-index hell because I didn’t plan the stacking initially. He was either in the very front or at the very back and it was all a bit weird.

Change 2: Widget implementation

• I initially wanted to implement sticky notes as a widget which was inspired my the mac sticky notes so i coded all of that in first but I realised i can take it a step further and code in multiple widgets.

Challenge: But the thing was i hardcoded the sticky notes widget so i had to recode everything and integrate all of the widgets at once

• I added a simple analog clock widget
• I added a calendar widget
• I initially added a system monitor with like the ram and cpu data but the thing was due to the security restrictions, I can’t get the actualy live hardware data so it would have to be a simulation, which i didnt want so I replace the system monitor with a live weather widget which uses the BigDataCloud and Open-Meteo APIs to provide weather data.

Change 3:

Originally I had all hte widgets in the context menu on after the other but they looked like a list and a bit redundant. So i removed all then in the html file and added one ‘Add a widget…’ option which connects to a screen with all the widget options