Google Gadgets on Linux is an open-source implementation of Google's platform for widgets, allowing users to personalize their desktops with a range of small applications.
The application consists of two main components. The first is a common gadget library responsible for running and presenting a gadget, while the second is a host program that allows the user to choose gadgets and run them on the desktop. The project comes with GTK+ and QT hosts, with the GTK+ host providing a sidebar similar to that of Google Desktop for Windows.
Users can configure and build the project using autoconf/automake. We suggest building outside the source tree to keep the source tree unchanged. The source tree will not be touched at all, and all files will be output into a user-specified directory. The project's configure script has many options, including --with-smjs-incdir and --with-smjs-libdir options to specify the include and library directory of installed spidermonkey library.
If the configure and build process finished successfully, users can either install it or run it directly. The default installation directory is /usr/local, but users can change it using the --prefix configure option. Users may need root privilege to do installation. To run all unit tests, users can use the command: $ make check. It's not necessary for ordinary users to run unit tests.
There are two runnable binaries in the project. The first is ggl-gtk, which uses Gtk widget libraries, and the second is ggl-qt, which uses Qt widget libraries. They have identical functionalities, and users can choose either one. However, for now, ggl-gtk is more mature than ggl-qt. Users can run these binaries from the command line and use the -bg option to turn them into background mode. The -h option can print a brief description of available command options.
Version 0.11.1: N/A