By NOTE: This version of the AFL Ladder Widget has been superseded and is no longer available. Please visit the AFL Widget Ladder home page to download the latest version.
Here’s the latest update to my AFL Ladder Widget for OS X Tiger Dashboard.
It looks basically the same as the last version except for a few new graphics, most of the changes are beneath the skin – I had to re-write a lot of the Javascript to make it work properly with 10.4.4 and the changes to the AFL website.
It loads and displays the current Australian Rules Football season ladder and provides a link to each team’s website, that’s about the long and the short of it.
According to the information from Apple this widget should work on both PowerPC-based and Intel-based Macs, ie it is universal, but let me know if you have any problems with it!
Here’s how it looks when it’s running:
Get the widget for free here or click on the icon below to start downloading.
Instructions for use:
Mac OS X v.10.4 Tiger is required. If you’re using Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget’s icon in the Widget Bar to open it.
If you’re using a browser other than Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, unarchive it and place it in /Library/Widgets/ in your home folder. Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget’s icon in the Widget Bar to open it.
Feel free to contact me if you have any comments, questions or requests!
Change log:
- v1.4 – Major rewrite to adjust for 10.4.4 and AFL website changes plus add better error handling and new graphics
- v1.3 – Added favourite team highlight, plus many code revisions, and a new look
- v1.2 – Fixed a formatting bug for the Sydney Swans
- v1.1 – Fixed an update bug and tidied up the code
- v1.0 – Initial release
By
thanks tom i’ll give it a go
iT’S GREAT!!
Make it universal!!!
Hi,
Great widget….
Does the AFL Ladder automatically update to season 2006 or will I need to download it as the season begins.
Also, will the widget automatically update results each week or will I need to refresh/download after each round.
Apologies if this sounds a dopey question!
All the best
Regards
Brian
Rozelle, Sydney
Hi Brian,
The widget downloads the latest ladder from the AFL website from the ladder web page (http://afl.com.au/default.asp?pg=ladder) so it will automatically update once the 2006 season starts.
Every now and again the AFL changes the structure of the ladder web page and the widget breaks because it can no longer find the ladder data on the page – give me a shout if that happens and I’ll fix it.
Tom
Great widget.
I’m actually doing something that is in a similar vein as this program.
I’m developeing(for uni) an online footy tipping site, and I was trying to work out how to get the data of the afl’s site so i could use it on my own.
If you could give me a run down on how you managed to use the afl’s data I would really appreciate it.
thanks.
Hi Luke,
The Widget is basically HTML and Javascript, and the smarts that fetches the data from the AFL site and parses it is in the Javascript.
The script basically grabs the web page with the ladder data then parses through the page source for the actual ladder table then reads in the ladder data from there. I suggest you look in the widget code itself for a more detailed run down of what it is doing.
You should be able to do a similar thing in perl or PHP or whatever you put in your website.
The only thing you might want to keep in mind is that a while back I read somewhere on the internet about a link on the AFL site where you can directly request information, like last weeks results or results for any given round etc, and it gave you back an XML formatted data with the information you requested.
This might be more use to you (and easier to parse too) because the way I do it, everytime the AFL changes the layout of the website it can potentially break the widget code….
I have since lost the reference to the link, but you might find it with some expert Googling.
Good luck!