IDNet Bandwith Usage Monitoring Gadget for Windows 7 / Vista Sidebar

[tKe]

OK I've created a Windows 7 / Sidebar gadget (Download).

Once installed, set up your idnet username/password (same ones you use here) and your monthly allowances (peak/offpeak).

The gadget will display your current peak/offpeak usage as progress bars either side of a thin progress bar that shows the progress through the month.

If a usage progress bar is more than one percent less than the month progress bar, it's green. One percent more and it's red.  I can make this adjustable if people want me to.

Please post any suggestions / bugs in this thread and I'll try and keep on top of them - either that or I'll commit the gadget to git for any budding developers to play with (or cry over, when they see my nightmare javascript code).


The Username should be your normal username, the "key" is not your password, but is the "key" part of your RSS feed URL.
You can obtain this by doing the following:

    Log in to the IDNet.net customer portal: https://www.idnet.net/secure/
    Down on the bottom of the list on the left should be a link for Updates Via RSS
    Right click on one of the top two links and choose to "Copy Link Address" (or something similar - depends on your browser)
    Paste this into notepad or the address bar or somewhere and it will show you your "key" (everying after "key=" on the URL)
    NB: to make things easier, you can paste this into the Username or Key box in the gadget setup and it will automagically extract the required components for you.

[faircot]

tKe
Excellent and useful gadget, thanks. Works just fine and, personally, I wouldn't complicate it with other features.
Regards

[karvala]

Good job; very nice.    If you fancy making the background and font colours customisable, that would be nice, but it's no biggie. 

[wecpcs]

OK I've created a Windows 7 / Sidebar gadget (Download).

Once installed, set up your idnet username/password (same ones you use here) and your monthly allowances (peak/offpeak).

The gadget will display your current peak/offpeak usage as progress bars either side of a thin progress bar that shows the progress through the month.

If a usage progress bar is more than one percent less than the month progress bar, it's green. One percent more and it's red.  I can make this adjustable if people want me to.

Please post any suggestions / bugs in this thread and I'll try and keep on top of them - either that or I'll commit the gadget to git for any budding developers to play with (or cry over, when they see my nightmare javascript code).

Very useful gadget but I have noticed that both figures are consistently 0.1GB less than the actual figures on Idnet.

Colin

[tKe]

Very useful gadget but I have noticed that both figures are consistently 0.1GB less than the actual figures on Idnet.

Colin

Interesting - I hadn't noticed. It might be a difference in the way it's calculated.  The widget sums up the figures provided by the CSV file available through the customer portal and rounds to two decimal places.  I'll have a look when I get home.

[faircot]

Very useful gadget but I have noticed that both figures are consistently 0.1GB less than the actual figures on Idnet

Interesting, because here the meter stats are 0.1 Gb more than the IDNet figures!

[Technical Ben]

I was just wondering why we needed our password and login name? Does the RSS feed not give the info without having to login? 

[kinmel]

I was just wondering why we needed our password and login name? Does the RSS feed not give the info without having to login? 

The RSS feed URL includes your username within it,

[tKe]

I was just wondering why we needed our password and login name? Does the RSS feed not give the info without having to login?  

The gadget doesn't use the RSS feed to obtain the data (instead it uses the CSV files through the customer portal).
I can assure you I do nothing with your credentials other than pass them to idnet to log into the portal, however feel free to look through the code (win+R -> "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets\IDNetBUM.gadget"). settings.html and index.html contain the only Javascript code I wrote (the javascript files in the js folder are all libraries or library extensions).

It might be possible to add a configuration option to not try and log in to the customer portal and use any cached/saved login details in IE (as the IE engine is used to display the gadgets) - something else I can look into tonight.

Good job; very nice.    If you fancy making the background and font colours customisable, that would be nice, but it's no biggie.  

This would be a little more difficult to do with the rounded background, however you could always replace the img/background.png file with your own and modify the CSS styles in index.html to suit.
To change the progressbar colours, there are two CSS statements that specify the warning and good colours:

    .pbwarning .ui-progressbar-value { ... }
    .pbgood .ui-progressbar-value { ... }

To change the default progressbar colours, you'll need to add a statement above the warning and good statements (so that they will override it)

    .ui-progressbar-value { ... }

To specify progressbar colours for the month progressbar, add a statement (after the default colours, if you've added some)

    #pbmonth .ui-progressbar-value { ... }

Hope that helps if you want to play around, you'll need to remove and re-add the gadget to pick up any changes made to any files and you'll need to re-enter your settings (as they're specific to the gadget instance).

[tKe]

It might be possible to add a configuration option to not try and log in to the customer portal and use any cached/saved login details in IE (as the IE engine is used to display the gadgets) - something else I can look into tonight.

Turns out this isn't possible (or at least not how I can think of doing it). Unfortunately the gadgets are run in a seperate IE environment so the existing login session in IE doesn't count for the gadget. Other ways of logging in (for instance, displaying the idnet site in a flyout and logging in through that) doesn't work as any form submission or links clicked inside the flyout are opened in a new browser window.

There may be another alternative to storing login credentials but I'll have to see how that plays out.

[endpoint101]

Superb; I was just about to code one of these up using the Netvibes API.. this one looks great & I've already customised it's look to fit in with my desktop I like the fact that these widget frameworks often use HTML + JS.. makes life easy! In fact, that's exactly what I'm using to develop iPhone and Android apps

[tKe]

I just need to look into an issue with the gadget seemingly not refreshing and then I'll have an even better version to put up (same styling, just some javascript changes) that should show the most up-to-date bandwidth information available and without requiring your password (just the username apikey from your RSS feed url).

Watch this space.

P.S. Just in case others appreciate your design changes - would you mind posting them somewhere?
P.P.S. I've also got an almost-finished Android appWidget that shows the same information on your homescreen which I should be finishing at some point.

[Rik]

How about a version for those of us dinosaurs still running XP?

[tKe]

Best I could do there is maybe a system-tray icon (maybe with floating window?) unless you're using a particular desktop widget app?

[Ray]

How about a version for those of us dinosaurs still running XP?

You'll soon be extinct.  

[Rik]

I already am.

[Ray]

I think I'm heading in that direction too.

[Rik]

 

[endpoint101]

This is the background image I'm now using.. nicked it off another gadget Once you've stabilised the code I'm going to resize the whole gadget to be more compact & add a tiny refresh icon.

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[zappaDPJ]

OK I've created a Windows 7 / Sidebar gadget

Downloaded, installed and very much appreciated.  

[tKe]

OK I've completed the Android gadget at long last.

Download link
Landscape Screenshot
Portrait Screenshot

Configuration asks for Username and API key from the RSS Feed url, along with your bandwidth limits and your desired update frequency.

If you copy the RSS subscribe url from the idnet portal (long press on the "Subscribe" link and choose copy link) before adding the widget, it will automatically populate the Username and API Key fields.

[Glenn]

I tried to install the app, it gave a phrasing error when installing and quit. The phone is an HTC Desire.

[tKe]

It's still very much in beta for other users (works fine for me, but I can't test it on any other phones).

Which Android version are you using? I've only tested it on 2.1 for the moment (but can probably set up a 1.6 emulator for testing and debugging on if need be).

Can you post the exact error message?

Thanks

[Glenn]

2.1, the phone is due to upgraded next month to 2.2 when T-Mobile get their finger out.

[Glenn]

2nd time around it installed, but now it doesn't like my idnet username which I have copied straight from my account details, I still have a dsl4 account.