To underscore your special status as readers of The Dilbert Blog, here’s a sneak peak at the totally free and ridiculously awesome Dilbert Widget (See the post below). You can’t see this anywhere else until the end of the month.
What’s a widget?
A widget is a little application you can easily stick to your own blog page, including Myspace, Friendster, Facebook, iGoogle, TypePad, Blogger, and lots more. Think of it as a little window that is programmed to do a variety of cool things.
The Dilbert Widget allows you to see the daily Dilbert comic, for free, and ***IN COLOR FOR THE FIRST TIME***, on your own page. You can also see the Dilbert archive all the way back to January 2005, with the entire archive coming online in batches. All free, which is your favorite price.
TEST IT
I need your help testing this puppy before the larger masses get their mitts on it. Break it if you can.
SHARE
Please grab it for your own page, e-mail it to friends, and share like crazy. It is specifically designed for sharing. Part of what we want to test is how easily it can be shared with friends.
VOTE
For those of you who have opinions, and you know who you are, the Dilbert Widget lets you rank each Dilbert comic. The votes are tabulated in real time, so you can find out how odd you are compared to normal people. This might surprise you.
GRAB IT
To get the widget, simply click the “Grab It” button on the widget you see below. Or to shop for a different size, go to http://widget.dilbert.com and pick from a wider selection.
FAQ
Here are some answers to the questions I expect:
1. The daily comics on Dilbert.com will eventually be in color too.
2. Later this year we’ll have a widget that shows all three panels at once. The current panel-by-panel viewing widgets are more compatible with most web pages.
3. The entire Dilbert archive will be available via the Dilbert Widget eventually. We’re working on it in batches.
It's great but it seems to eat up the carriage return on the google home page. So, if I type in the search box and hit enter, nothing happens.
Posted by: Julie | February 04, 2008 at 02:58 PM
Hi Scott,
Love your comics. They are a true solace for me and my friends at work. I have your older Dilbert widget on my Mac, but unfortunately the new one requires OSX Leopard, which is a dinger cause I'm still running OSX Tiger. But I have it downloaded on my PC and am thoroughly enjoying it!
Peace,
Shaun
Posted by: ShaunMac | February 02, 2008 at 11:22 AM
Sorry, but I absolutely hate this widget. Perhaps it's just the way I read it, but it's amazing just how unfunny Dilbert is if you can't see all the panels simultaneously. For me it completely eliminates the spontaneous chuckle I often get AFTER I have read all three frames and then let my eye wander back over the strip.
If Dilbert were only available in this format I would stop reading it. It reminds me of the experiment you did with "Basic Instructions" recently - who would have thought that just changing the format could reduce the impact so dramatically?
Posted by: Ross | January 29, 2008 at 04:20 PM
Hi
Tried looking at it in firefox, and the boxes start up ok butt are all grey. When I run my mouse over it, it's like a scratch off a grey layer and revel the strip underneath.
Not sure what the problem is there.
I have some other computers running firefox that I can try it on. It displays ok, if I switch the rendering engine to ieTAB in firefox. It wouldn't surprise me if there is a problem with my firefox, I have problems running https stuff from it
love the work
antony
Posted by: antony wardle | January 29, 2008 at 11:40 AM
Sorry, it is available for Vista, but the size is too small.. You can't read it...
Posted by: Ankit | January 28, 2008 at 06:02 PM
Amazing idea, Scott keep it up.
Could you also get it compatiable for Windows Vista Sidebar?
Thanks
Posted by: Ankit | January 28, 2008 at 06:00 PM
hey, the widget is good. but i do not want to enter my site credentials (login/passwd) on your page. why dont u provide a simple page embed option, with a link to script code?
Posted by: Vinod | January 27, 2008 at 12:01 AM
The widget installed easily on my iGoogle homepage. Pretty sweet. A bit of feedback: I like the frame at a time format, with these caveats. I would like to see the first frame of today's comic without having to click first. When I do click, have it expand to full width of comic. The comic needs to be bigger, like the size used on the website. The mini three frame thingy could be moved or be removed for more space. A calendar would be awesome.
Overall, I like the color comics and the widget cool factor. Keep up the good work!
Posted by: Jim | January 26, 2008 at 05:25 PM
Ok. Tryed to go back before 6/26/06 in daily mode. Same thing. The widget goes all gray.
Posted by: Pender | January 26, 2008 at 10:35 AM
When you click prev on the week of 6/26/06 (weekly view) the widget locks up.
Posted by: Pender | January 26, 2008 at 10:13 AM
Posted on my blog and it's working great. I like the one panel at a time approach so that you don't accidentally speed read and hit the punch line before the setup.
The control buttons on the 160x300 obscure the panels. The 300x250, which I went with, is the stuff of Dilbert geek dreams. Muy cool.
Posted by: GeoffB | January 24, 2008 at 11:40 PM
Scott this is the best idea ever apart from the song lyrics idea.
Currently I've posted it on my livespaces site but it'll be a while before unsigned members (basically anybody without a hotmail address) can see it on my page.
Also love the idea of posting the Dilbert.com comics in colour definitely will be looking forward to those.
(Is there any possibility of slipping in a 'Dilbert Classic' into your dailies or just the widgets?)
Posted by: Struan | January 24, 2008 at 09:35 PM
Seems to function ok, but it does throw a javascript error: 'W479961f9dfaec80' is undefined. I tried putting it in a standard HTML document, and no error was thrown, and then tried one in an ASP.NET page that contained other javascript, and that's where it errored (but still displayed properly). Not sure if it's just not friendly with ASP.NET, or maybe with other javascript, or maybe it's just me...
Posted by: Joe | January 24, 2008 at 08:20 PM
I see you've already turned off the floopy slide. My suggestion was going to be to do it on the first strip, and *then* turn it off.
You get the bennies of the cool idea, without annoying people.
I do agree, though, with the "less white space" comments (even though, of course, the white space is actually dark grey...)
Posted by: Baylink | January 24, 2008 at 07:47 PM
Yay, there's even Mac OS X Dashboard version (but deeply hidden — open widget on the webpage, click Grab tab and look for the black icon like OS X Dashboard's).
Posted by: kL | January 24, 2008 at 02:51 PM
I have Firefox 2.0.0.11 and everything works as long as my NoScript extension is configured to allow the necessary domains.
Posted by: Yuriy | January 24, 2008 at 12:01 PM
Don't go color... you will kill the sabbath!
Posted by: J Gould | January 24, 2008 at 09:25 AM
Great stuff. I actually don't mind the "one frame at a time" aspect.
Posted by: Nick | January 24, 2008 at 07:16 AM
Ladies and Gentlemen,
My blog site is now a proud host of 'a Daily Dose of Dilbert'.
Thanks Scott!
Posted by: Nikhil | January 24, 2008 at 04:00 AM
It's pretty nice, I almost put in on my home page, but the available widget dimensions are impractical - I would want a wider version of the widget, so that you can view a standard weekday strip without having to fiddle with the scroll buttons.
I also noticed that the widget does a bad job on scaling the strips to the size of the widget - the black-and-white-strips on www.dilbert.com look a lot better, at least resolution-wise.
Posted by: Andy | January 24, 2008 at 02:48 AM
Hi Scott, I like the widget, but I have some comments about the interface, all aiming to a simpler design:
- Why the extra click at the beginning? I'd prefer to start with the first panel of the strip.
- I'd like that the strip occupies the whole frame, since it will be the most important part. The menu on the top makes the frame harder to read. It could be hidden by default, and get displayed when you hover over the top side.
- Also, from the bottom side, I don't see the need for a "Other Sizes" button. It can be other menu entry that is hidden by default and pops up when hovering in the upper area.
- Finally, I'd say to remove the tiny preview strip that is below the visible panel. It would just make the strip area visible larger.
Overall, it's a cool thing, and an easier way to tell my friends about Dilbert.
Regards,
Javier
Posted by: JavierIbanez | January 23, 2008 at 07:47 PM
I installed it into my widget column on a blogger template, and it worked fine in Internet Explorer, but on Firefox (version 2.0.0.11) it doesn't even appear.
Posted by: Transplanted Lawyer | January 23, 2008 at 07:13 PM
Long time reader - first time poster. Love the widget but...
it doesn't work on the facebook. When I click the "click here to read" button it closes the panel 9 times out of ten.
Thanks for a nifty iGoogle gadget though.
Posted by: Raleigh | January 23, 2008 at 06:16 PM
what about a dashboard version for Mac OS X?
Posted by: Charlie | January 23, 2008 at 01:22 PM
awesome!! i can't wait to try it in my facebook!!
:)
Posted by: yael | January 23, 2008 at 12:26 PM