The Text Widget
Author: EdThe text widget is pretty cool and allows either text, html or code to be added to the sidebars. On the I.G.S. Widget pages there are plenty of links as to where to get different code to be cut and pasted into the widget. On this page i’ll be reviewing as many of these as possible. First up was babelfish/yahoos “translate this page” code which adds a nice little page translator into your sidebar. This is pretty much an essential for your site if you want members from other countries to have a rough idea as to what you are posting about!
yahoo page translator
The only down side to the machine text translator is the lack of languages available at the moment, but I’m sure in the near future that systran will add other languages.
Second up was a quick visit to Last F.M.’s site and here if you click on their widgets section it allows you to select artists and genres to make into a radio for your sidebar or an album quilt. The quilt let’s you click on a band or artist’s albums which then whisks you to their site and lets you play them.
Last F.M. Quilt
The radio player let’s you just play the music you choose directly on your site. The code that’s generated when you make either a radio station or quilt can be then pasted into the text widget. Have a play around on their site to custom build one yourself and choose the right skin to match your site.
Radio Player
Have fun! 
Youtube Code
Well today I nipped over to youtube to get their embed code to see how it wouldwork with the text widget!
Firstly the code you need is the bit highlighted in blue in the pic below. Here you can also choose the colour of your controls for the flash player.
youtube code
It’s simply a case of getting this code, then choosing the colour for your controls on the player! Post the code to whatever video you want on your page at the I.G.S forum and we will then alter the players size into the sidebar for you (just specify which side you would like it on if you have left & right sidebars)
and here’s how it looks! (below) Not bad at all I think, especially if you like to take a lot of vids of your gerbies!
Enjoy!
youtube video
The Bitty Browser
The Bitty Browser
The bitty browser is pretty neat once you get used to its functions, but basically its a mini browser that lets you keep track of all your fave web stuff, and enables you to navigate to them in the mini browser. It’s kind of like a picture within a picture for the web. You can also set it to automatically load content from numerous sources such as flickr, google, ebay, amazon, BBC news, an RSS feed you like, or in my case I set it to open with my own website, eGerbil
The neat thing is that people who view your site need not navigate away from your page to surf the net. They can stay on your page and surf around. Personally I think it’s a very neat little hack! Well worth a little play around with.
To get the code and customise it to how you want it to open up (say on your own webite like I did) just follow the steps on their website and then grab your code at the end. You can then post this code on the I.G.S. Forum and we’ll add it to your site.
Enjoy
Google Page Translator
Well after trialling out Yahoos babelfish/Systran translator, I think Google has just gone one better.
The Google website page translator takes advantage of Googles powerful AJAX language API and offers many more languages than Yahoo’s does. It’s also more upto date, and the way it is designed allows users to post more effective translations of words, sentences and phrases, etc,
For I.G.S. members websites this is quite an essential gadget, especially as it has the capability to machine translate many more languages than the present Yahoo online translator. The other big plus is that users can contribute a better suggestion for a word, a sentence or phrase, etc. so that Google continues to keep improving its online translation capabilities.
Google Translator
All you have to do to get this gadget is to visit the google translate section, and under tools you will find it. Simply select which country you are in, then paste the corresponding code on the forum. We will then insert it into your website for you.
To visit the Google tools page go here
