Google Maps Widget Generator – come grab your own!

One of the coolest and most powerful features of Notes 8 is the MyWidgets sidebar and the ability to link widgets to text selection actions and/or LiveText.

The only thorn in the side is that not all users are capable of doing their own widgets and some widgets cannot be sent to them because they contain custom data. Take a widget that generate directions for instance. Normally the starting address and you choose the destination address but since the starting address it set it makes the widget difficult to share. What to do?

The solution is of cause to generate the widget on an ad hoc basic. Meet the Google Maps Widget Generator. The widget generator works as follows.

You point your browser at the Google Maps Widget Generator. From this page you follow the short instructions and drag the extension.xml to your MyWidgets sidebar. This installs the widget into your client.

To generate a directions widget you right click the widget and choose to open it in the sidebar (it isn’t visible by default).

Now specify the title you would like to see when right clicking text in the client in the top field (e.g. Google Maps from the office) and the source address in the bottom field (e.g. 1500 Epcot Resorts Blvd, Lake Buena Vista, FL‎). Then click “Go!”

From the resulting page simply drag the extension.xml link to your MyWidgets sidebar to install the Google Maps widget.

Now your new Google Maps widget is available in your Notes client. To generate another widget click the “Generate another widget”-button and simply right click the widget header and choose “Close” to close it. You may always reopen it to generate new widgets.