Google Desktop Sidebar: Green Light Plug-in

The Green Light plug-in is a simple file existence tester for the Google Desktop Sidebar (GDS). If a designated file exists, the plug-in shows a green light. If not, it shows a red light. Pretty simple. An pop-up and sound plays when the existence of the file changes state.

You might be wondering, "What the?" This plug-in came from a request on a forum and the application in that case for for a developer to be able to check the status of a build via the Google Desktop Sidebar. As a part of his build script, he was planning to create or destroy a status file. You could use the same technique for almost any application. Check the status of a download, stock market conditions, etc.

Note: this plug-in will now check that a website or a webpage is available. Instead of entering a filename, enter the URL you wish to check including the "http://"

Where it is now:

Version: v1.2 // 2006.04.20
download (90k) instructions (2k) small screenshot large screenshot

Implemented v1.2:

check that a website or webpage is available

Implemented v1.1:

utilized cleanup function introduced in GDS 3

Implemented v1:

check file existence
play sound
start and stop checking
configurable interval between checks

GDS Head Scratchers:

What's with the direct linking? In the past couple of months, I've had over a gig of bandwidth used each month (that's a lot for me), but not nearly as much traffic to my pages as you'd think. Most of the traffic was from the Timer plug-in, and there were about 8-10 times the number of hits for the plug-in installer than there were for its project page. This is because Google provides a direct link to my installer from their site. Rude. If you want a link like that, host the file and give me a page of stats and a way to update it with newer versions. Else, just provide a link to my page. It's like direct linking to images -- using someone else's bandwidth to add value to your own thing in this way is the ultimate internet faux pas.

last modified // 2006.04.20 // 17:31

kstroke // projects // nerdy