What's a Widget? - DISCONTINUED

Note: As of 1st Jan 2013 IceTV ceased updating and supporting the desktop widgets. These archived knowledgebase articles are retained for customers still using these unsupported widgets.


Widgets are mini computer applications. They typically perform only one task, like showing the time, weather or tracking stocks. IceTV's Widget displays a searchable TV guide and can be used to remotely schedule recordings on your Media Center PC, Mac or PVR at home while you're still at work, or anywhere in the world.

There's quite a few different flavours of Widgets and the types of widgets you can run will depend on your computer's OS (operating system).

Mac OS X Dashboard Widgets.

These require Mac OS X 10.4 or later and only run on Apple Macs. There's an IceTV Widget specifically designed for Mac OS X's Dashboard.

Yahoo! Widget Engine Widgets.

These require either a Windows PC (Windows XP or Vista) or a Mac. The Yahoo! Widget Engine needs to be installed separately first before installing any widgets. It can be downloaded from the Yahoo! Widget Engine download page. There's an IceTV Widget specifically designed for the Yahoo! Widget Engine.

Vista and Windows 7 Sidebar Gadgets.

These require a PC running Windows Vista. Currently there's no IceTV Widget specifically designed for Windows Vista's or Windows 7 Sidebar. This is because we currently don't believe we can build a Vista Sidebar Gadget that would be at the same standard as the Mac OS X Dashboard or Yahoo! Widget Engine Widget.

A note about widgets.

Widgets are visually quite compact and are intended for use on a desktop computer or laptop. We don't recommend trying to use our IceTV Widget on a TV screen as the text will be too small to read easily. Please use the full screen EPG on your Media Center PC, Mac or PVR for scheduling recordings from your TV.

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