Apple Releases Sherlock 3 SDK

stevenprentice writes "Ken Bereskin's Radio Weblog just announced, 'Big news on the Sherlock 3 front. We've released an SDK that allows you to build your own Sherlock channels. The user interface of your channel is built using Interface Builder and the logic of the channel can be written in JavaScript and/or XQuery. You need to have the Mac OS X Developer Tools installed along with the 10.2.2 update and the SDK adds a technical reference on building a channel, a Project Builder template, the Interface Builder palette and a sample channel to help give you a jump start.'" It took them long enough, but better late then never.

Re:Parsing your clause

[Morky]

Neither of you passed 7th grade grammar. THAN is used in a comparison, THEN is related to time. If you're wondering, yes, I'm a dick.

Important link...

[3-State Bit]

For those of us wondering, here's an important link [apple.com] left out of the write-up.

It's quite revolutionary.

Re:Important link...

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Cecil: Goodness! I had no idea! For you see, I have been on Mars for the past decade. In a cave. With my eyes shut, and my fingers in my ears.

Bob: Touche, Cecil.

;-)

Re:SDK?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, did you just think Mac software emerged from dirty rags via spontaneous generation?

SDK's have been available for every new mac technology at least since the early 90's. Eventually the winners get merged into the OS.

One could argue that Apple pioneered the modern SDK with the Mac Toolbox, which it shipped in ROM in 1984. The Mac *was* a SDK.

Not Really Clear

[rixstep]

I'm not really clear on this - Apple is distributing an update to PB/IB inside of 10.2.2? This doesn't sound right. R.

Re:Not Really Clear

[Twirlip of the Mists]

No, Apple included an update to Sherlock inside 10.2.2. If this kit depends on anything in 10.2.2-- I haven't found anything that indicates that it does, exactly-- that's probably it.

Late?

[node 3]

"It took them long enough, but better late then never."

Late? Sherlock 3 has been out for less than 3 months. I suppose the Sherlock team could have waited until Sherlock 3 and its SDK were both ready.

Of course, then Jaguar would have just been released.

I'll take later on some things if it means earlier on others. As cool as the SDK is, it's kinda useless without the actual app itself. However I've found Sherlock 3 to be quite useful without the SDK.

Slashdot

[bats]

So Pudge, where's the /. channel already?

TV listings with HD info!

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I'm not sure if I'll have the time or the motivation to do this myself, but I really would like to build a Sherlock channel for TV listings, similar to Watson's TV channel, but including information about whether a program is available in HDTV or not. The web sources for such info aren't that hot; TitanTV, the best-known, is slower than ass and a pain to use.

Maybe some enlightened reader with free time and energy will take this idea and run with it.

Re:TV listings with HD info!

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I use Sherlock almost every day. I keep an eye on a number of stocks, and Sherlock shows me their activity and news about them. I use the Yellow Pages feature regularly. The killer for me was the map feature: every entry you find comes with driving directions and a map automagically. Same with the movie browser; Sherlock shows me a list of theaters in my city and the movies playing at them. Click a movie and the trailer starts downloading automatically. Finally, the flight info tracker is critical to anybody who travels even occasionally. It's really neat that it gives you a real-time map of the plane's location as it's in flight, too.

And all of this without advertising. It's schweeeet.

Re:TV listings with HD info!

[Triv]

As great as all that is, it shows how much of the internet we without broadband are missing. Yeah, I can conveniently grab the trailer for "Awsome New Movie 3", assuming my definition of conveniently is waiting three hours for the download.

I wish broadband didn't cost a small fortune. :(

Triv

Re:TV listings with HD info!

[runenfool]

Most of what Sherlock does (not all) can be done better in Watson. http://www.karelia.com

Its worth the small cost. It would be neat if Watson could support sherlock plugins just in case it takes off.

Good SDK, Bad SDK...

[absharp]

The release of the SDK is great - and yeah I think better late than never! But the documentation could use some beefing up (well, err, as could the rest of the OS) - for people that want to do channels other than pure web searches, like LDAP lookups, the help just isn't there...

Can't beat Watson

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the plug-ins are not Cocoa bundles like watson's they're scripts ( can you spell S-L-O-W? )

Watson's SDK is sooooo superior.

Well, neither searches Canadian movie listings...

[Trillan]

And considering how busy I am, I think I'd rather write a script than a Cocoa bundle.

Sherlock Request

[thatguywhoiam]

Could someone with a clue (and some spare time) come up with versions of some of the channels that are missing for Canadians?

Note to Apple: we have electricity now, and everything. Really.

I plan to.

[Trillan]

Now that the SDK is out, I hope to get a few basic ones together. Hopefully someone will beat me to it though! :)

Newbie all around

[HomeGroove]

I'm looking to get into programming (currently, I'm just a poor web designer...html, javascript, php) and I thought this might be a good way. Any good pointers? I DL'ed the SDK and was completely lost (I found the examples in the dev folder..yes I installed dev tools). Anybody?

Has anyone successfully written...

[themexican]

a new plugin using the 3.0 SDK. Also has anyone successfully imported an old plug. I'd love to check out the results.