Widgets
About Widgets
Widgets was introduced in PS3 firmware 2.00 as a way to display dynamic information from web servers in XMB, are very dependant and managed by the Web Browser
The only official widget (included between firmwares 2.00 and 3.00) was called Information Board.
In firmware 3.00 widgets was removed because his initial purpose of displaying dynamic content was superceeded by Life with PlayStation (in firmware 2.40) and later by the "what's news" display mode (in firmware 3.00)
- Notes
- PSP introduced widgets in firmware 5.50 (the same information board inherited from PS3). This firmware update for PSP also had some improvements related with the web browser (Internet search for games directly from the XMB, Trend Micro Web Security, and Trend Micro Kids' Safety). See: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/04/20/psp-firmware-v550-update/
Information Board
It was posible to enable or disable Information board by pressing triangle over his icon in network column. The way is built allowed them to add more widgets in case was needed (but never happened, they removed it instead of adding more). For an overview of how was working originally see:
- http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/informationboard/informationboard.html
- http://ps3explained.com/beginner/using-the-information-board/
The removal of this widget was made only partially! (are still supported by loading the widget from external devices), so it should be possible to (re)create it, if not create even more widgets to add to the XMB experience of the user.
The widget management was well integrated in the firmware, so there is a list of files/functions/calls related with them:
Other settings related with widgets:
- Information Board QA Server: Off/On (see: QA_Flagging). Debug XMB loads the widget by using the view ID "root_info" and Query "host_provider_flash". Same than retail XMB, but debug needs this setting enabled
- XMB loads all available widgets by using the function host://localhost/q? and the subclass x-host/widget (see: XMBML Functions), and are displayed using the class x-xmb/xmliboard (but the class x-xmb/xmliboard is not used anymore and has been replaced by x-xmb/xmlnpsignup). See: XMBML Coding
Widgets (information board - use)
Widgets (information board - tab)
Widgets (information board - news)
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In dev_flash
dev_flash/vsh/resource
explore_category_network.rco
There is a widget entry missing in the xml
Code Sample
dev_flash/vsh/resource/explore/xmb
category_widget.xml
Widgets XMB configuration file, this file exists in all firmwares with some segments disabled
Code Sample
category_network.xml
Widget icons loaded by XMB in Network column, widgets related segments was removed in firmware 3.00 by removing his <View id> and his attr
Code Sample
dev_flash/vsh/resource/explore/icon
widget.png
widget configuration icon, this file exists in all firmwares
dev_flash/vsh/resource/silk/xai
extensions.xml
Contains: extensions.entry.module=Widget and extensions.entry.plugin=xai_plugin
Code Sample
dev_flash/vsh/resource/silk/etc
fontinfo-Xai.xml
Code Sample
dev_flash/vsh/resource/silk_nas/etc
fontinfo-Xai.xml
Code Sample
widgets.xml
contains: xai.widget.url=/dev_hdd0/widget/npdrm/informationboard)
Code Sample
dev_flash/vsh/resource/silk/xai/widgets/informationboard/
Information board main executable and settings files, removed in 3.00
rss.swf
Main widget window, in shockwave flash format
For a preview of how it works you can drag-and-drop the file to your PC webbrowser... or use a shockwave flash editor/player
Icon.png
widget icon identifyer
config.xml
config for rss.swf
Code Sample
setting.xml
RSS URL list by Target_ID, for non QA flagged consoles
Code Sample
setting_qa.xml
RSS URL list by Target_ID, for QA flagged consoles
Code Sample
strings folder
1 folder named strings containing 16 files for languages named: informationboard_<language>.xml (e.g: informationboard_german.xml, informationboard_french.xml, etc...). Example from informationboard_english.xml
Code Sample
language.lproj folders
15 folders for different languages named <language>.lproj (e.g: German.lproj, French.lproj, etc...)... every folder contains a file named InfoPlist.strings with the same data:
Offset(h) 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F 00000000 43 46 42 75 6E 64 6C 65 44 69 73 70 6C 61 79 4E CFBundleDisplayN 00000010 61 6D 65 20 3D 20 22 49 6E 66 6F 72 6D 61 74 69 ame = "Informati 00000020 6F 6E 20 42 6F 61 72 64 22 3B on Board";
mac widgets also use .lproj localization so maybe can use custom language files.
In dev_hdd0
dev_hdd0/widget/npdrm/informationboard
- dev_hdd0/widget/npdrm/informationboard (loaded by Query "host_provider_flash" using src="host://localhost/q?path=/dev_hdd0/widget/npdrm&suffix=informationboard&subclass=x-host/widget")
