Steve On Java

I am pleased to announce the winners of the WidgetFX Developer’s Contest.  There were lots of great entries (22 in total), which made this a very hard decision.  You can browse the full set of entries yourself on the WidgetFX Library page:

http://widgetfx.org/portal/library

To try any of the contest entries below, simply click on the image which will install/open WidgetFX and add the widget to your dock.

1st Place – ScreenshotFX

In first place is Pär Dahlberg with his ScreenshotFX widget.  Pär definitely went above and beyond in all respects, entering a full-blown application for taking screen captures and then editing them in a pop-up window.  Some of the cool features in his application include:

• A delay timer to give you time to arrange windows and menus before the capture occurs
• Multi-monitor support via a drop-down (This was sure to impress Keith)
• Drawing tools to markup the image with annotations
• Crop/Fill and a whole host of other editing tools

Pär has a great blog on JavaFX, WidgetFX, and other topics of interest, so make sure to check out his contest winning speech.

2nd Place – RadioFX

Second place went to Yannick Van Godtsenhoven for his RadioFX Widget.  In terms of visual design and widget polish, Yannick was head-and-shoulders above the competition.

He built a simple, yet functional widget that streams radio over the internet right to your WidgetFX dock.  No more reaching for a web browser to catch your favorite Belgium tunes on StuBru!

Check out Yannick’s blog to hear about the contest results and his experience with JavaFX.

I am definitely looking forward to more great creations from Yannick!

3rd Place – Infix WeatherWidget

Finally, third place went to Larry Dickson for his Infix WeatherWidget.  Besides his Weather widget, he also submitted 3 other widgets including a Clock, Calendar, and G-Mail widget, although his original creation was still the judges’ favorite.

By the way, Larry submitted this widget before the start of the contest, which was perfectly valid.  Similarly, if you submit a widget anytime between now and the start of our next contest you will automatically be entered to win!

Congratulations to all of our winners!!!  I have already sent them their prizes, which were contributed through a generous donation from my publisher, Apress.

WidgetFX Developer Contest