Digital_Utopia

To be fair, I don't think Microsoft intended for so much information to be displayed in a gadget - the default ones are probably more along the lines of what was intended. However, there's no mistake that something of this nature is more than at home in such a concept, so in the end, it's just unfortunate.

As far as things on Turbine's end goes - I can think of, and have suggested numerous ways for them to improve on their existing systems. Not only the data API, but plugins as well. However, I do realize that they're a pretty small company, and most of these features are the result of dev "pet projects" - something they work on when they're not working on the game itself. On that note, it is important to understand that, unlike other MMOs, there is an explicit difference between their skinning system (implemented somewhere around initial game launch) and their plugin system (implemented with F2P). Those two are completely different systems, and the best way to differentiate between the two, is to go by the rule that skinning is for existing elements, and plugins are for new ones.

Although I admit, I'd probably find a way to have fun with a complete and full-featured API (whether it be data, like in EVE - or plugins/addons like in WoW), I do have to admit that I'm also having a lot of fun seeing what I can pull off with what they do give us. One already existing example of that are Palantir's bars - which really depend on a lot of graphical "black magic" in order for those bars to fill like that. Other examples, from demo projects, is a (very poorly performing) raycasting engine ported from a C++ example (think old-school "3D" games like Wolf3d or Doom), and an interpretation of Google's tile-based map system. The latter actually performed quite well, however its usefulness was hampered by no player coords/heading data available to the API, as well as the client's lack of garbage collection on images. In other words, every tile loaded, whatever the zoom, whether its terrain or parchment, stays in memory until you exit the client. One final example, which will be appearing with Palantir 2, is basically a class for generating UI from XML - something that needed to be done to separate the visuals from the logic, and by proxy, help make "skinning" possible for plugins.

Long story short, while having the entire kitchen sink would be nice, being forced to "make do" certainly forces one to really make the most out of what one actually has to work with.

Oh, one last thing - regarding Thelyn or anything else really, any news, previews, or just results of watching myself type will be posted to my blog/site. Among the previous posts, you'll find some screens of what I've managed to get accomplished with that app to this point, before I had to switch gears on account of RoI to go back to working on Palantir. Basically, the character screen, and the manager, which allows you to add/edit/remove/sort characters, kinships and servers - and of course, eventually use that as a jump list, in addition to the eventual addition of simple menu lists. (See? I told you I thought that was a good idea :P)

guren

Good one, its a nice app.
I tried it today but i have 1 problem seeing the stats of my orc char.
And could you change the size of the letters, its a little small,... dont you think?

Regardless to this its a nice app. Good job!

Digital_Utopia

Oh yeah - way on the small side. Sadly, considering the size limitations (among other faults of Sidebar gadgets) I didn't exactly have a lot of room to work with. It's one of the main reasons why I created the AIR version, which is quite a bit bigger, and considering it was written in Flash (i.e. Vector text/graphics) it's a lot easier to read not to mention support for PvP info and crafting (whenever Turbine decides to start updating the data the latter)

vecny.samotar

I know the author has finished developing both applications but I can't add a comment
I've tried both applications and here's the result:

LotRO Character Journal Gadget for Windows Sidebar - the application started but after entering the name and server searched for about 5-10 min and after that time when it was looking for it I gave up

LotRO Character Journal Gadget for Adobe AIR - After installing Adobe AIR, I followed the installation instructions and reported an error message when I tried to run applications. "The application cannot be installed because the installation file is damaged. Try obtaining a new installation file from the author of the application. " so I couldn't test the app

Digital_Utopia

"I know the author has finished developing both applications but I can't add a comment
I've tried both applications and here's the result:

LotRO Character Journal Gadget for Windows Sidebar - the application started but after entering the name and server searched for about 5-10 min and after that time when it was looking for it I gave up

LotRO Character Journal Gadget for Adobe AIR - After installing Adobe AIR, I followed the installation instructions and reported an error message when I tried to run applications. "The application cannot be installed because the installation file is damaged. Try obtaining a new installation file from the author of the application. " so I couldn't test the app"

I'm honestly not sure if this game has suddenly gone through a revival, or you're using the comment section to log your findings from sifting through the ashes of projects dead and gone.

It's been seven years since the last release. During those years they axed the Lorebook (where these apps originally farmed the data from), and the web based data API, the new (at the time) way to get such character info that these apps ultimately made use of. Without a data source these apps are useless

I do hope you enjoy the game, but sadly, external apps died with Turbine