This Fall the widget wars will move into high gear. The battle for the desktop is about to begin. And with Longhorn’s XAML technology lurking in the distance (and Apple’s Dashboard), widgets are likely to deliver a whole new era of desktop customization. Read the article here, by the CEO of Stardock, Brad Wardell.
Widget Wars: The battle for your Windows desktop
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Mmm I’m not sure if it’s me, but this article has some serious mark-up problems, lines are double printed, paragraphs are double printed etc. It’s unreadable…
Oh, my God, what is wrong with that page?
The page Renders the wayit’s supposed to.
The author must either be having a really bad day, or isn’t very good at theses computer thingiies.
http://www.joeuser.com/index.htm
This link works better and is properly formatted. I guess if you use the wrong link to an IIS server you have formating probelms.
I thought that that was a really great and informative article. Now I know all about widgets all about widgets.
I thought that that was a really great
I thought that that was a I really hope to see more innovation in the widgets field as Longhorn progresses.
User this link:
http://frogboy.joeuser.com/index.asp?c=1&AID=27014&u=0
There’s some weird database lookup problem with the other URL for some reason. Very annoying.
Yes, Yes, Yes, Arlo’s product will take over the Windows platform too…
http://www2.konfabulator.com/journal/index.php?start=72&show=1
Screenshot:
http://www.widgetgallery.com/WindowsShot.jpg
Slack: I think that unlikely (Regarding Konfabulator). On Windows, it will be one amongst many and it has entrenched competition that has the same abilities of Konfabulator and then some.
Slack: I think that unlikely (Regarding Konfabulator). On Windows, it will be one amongst many and it has entrenched competition that has the same abilities of Konfabulator and then some.
I dont know for sure, but I do know that Arlo has the ability to make anything happen. He is an awesome developer.
Same problem. Can someone just post the plaintext of the article here?
Slack: That’s kind of a slap in the face to the other developers. The developers of the other programs are pretty amazing too.
I’ve run all of them. I’m a registered user of Konfabulator. Unless it has all kinds of features not in the MacOS version, it’s going to be pretty similar to these other programs. And in fact, in features and content, it’ll be at the lower end.
Konfabulator is a very good program and has the Mac market pretty wrapped up. But even if it is just as good on the PC as it is on the Mac, it isn’t compelling over any of these other programs. It’ll boil down to the widget content. Plus, some of these other programs, such as Kapsules, are freeware.
I really don’t see how Konfabulator will make any sort of inroads into the Windows market. It already has a freeware equivalent called Kapsules which aims to do everything Konfabulator does, but is free.
On the pay side, there is DesktopX, which does a lot more than Konfabulator, has a lot more users, and a lot more widgets.
In the end, not sure why anyone would get Konfabulator.
Slack: That’s kind of a slap in the face to the other developers. The developers of the other programs are pretty amazing too.
Oh I did not mean to insult other developers. That was not my intention.
I have tried StarDock products only and i always have weird crashes, dumps, etc after installing it. I tried it just recently and the same happens.
Just try the print version, that works fine.
I love the way they think this “new and exciting” technology. HAhahahahaha
Take a look at some other platforms.
I notice that most of this stuff looks to be nothing but ‘prettier’ versions of stuff we already have (media players, weather apps, calculators, etc). Does any of this stuff do anything else except slow down your computer? I mean, are there any productivity gains associated with all the eye candy?
I dunno .. personally, I’ve been using the Win32 ‘classic’ look since it was introduced about 10 years ago, and I have been quite happy with it ever since.
What’s special about widgets isn’t that they’re “new” in what they do but rather new in HOW they do it.
End users can make these things. The things shown in the screenshots are generally not made by developers but rather by graphic artists without needing developers. That’s what’s new and interesting about this.
…being able to check the weather at a glance without having to go to http://www.weather.com
Plus, they look pretty!
do they fully integrated it into the OS or will they only use a runtime environment like all othesr?
Not surprising they don’t talk about beos
but that OS have an interesting equivalent called Replicants.
Replicants share the BView limitation as far as display goes as they are rectangular only, but it’s about the only limitation.
On BeOS they have been under-utilised for ages, only becoming to get attention. they could not be seen as a full “widget” solution yet but more as a widget solution framework.
An advantage is that they don’t need any runtime, they are pure binary. They are even more integrated to the OS than that as they can support the full BMessage system, making scripting them really easy from a GUI or from a CLI like HEY.
What would they lack to be full fledged “widget”? Arbitrary shape (that might come from haiku over time as BView get it) and an editor with a set of primitive replicant.
Eye candy could come from a Mesa openGL BView, a SVG BView or a AGG BView.
If you want to toy with them in BeOS get some app with replican support (soundplay, Net+, fRiSS etc..) and place them into replican ready space like the desktop itself or the app “shelfer”.
To probe further read the issue 53 of the haiku newsletter (Replicants – More application than an application):
http://www.haiku-os.org/learn.php?mode=nsl&haikuusersession=eb02cb0…
All I see on the linked page are a bunch of useless utilities. On my desktop these are either relegated to a line of text on the taskbar (well, panel), or hidden because I *really* don’t need crap like a pre-schooler calculator cluttering my desktop.
To those who say ‘but its not a window, its a desktop item’ I say its all in the perception — and its more troublesome to *move* applications out of the way than it is to launch that app you use once every few days from a shortcut menu.
Desktop applets need to be universal, so themes like postit notes, calculators, or weather reports are always used. Trouble is, we don’t use or need these 90% of the time. Applications we do use take up our screen real estate.
Nothing but useless eye candy.
Yeah i don’t get the point of them. I love eye candy and all and have toyed with samurize a few times over the last couple of years but I just never end up seeing the damn things.
My desktop is always covered with windows so whats the point in having these stupid things behind behind my applications where I cannot see them?
This article isn’t about widgets, it’s about applets. Widgets are graphical interface elements, such as buttons and scrollbars.
So basically we are at the point where every application will have its own visual paradigm, often a clunky carryover from the physical world into the virtual.
It started with the “trash can”. Why the linux environments have carried over this ridiculous anachronism is beyond me.
The utility of most of this crap is beyond me. Weather applet? The weather isn’t changing much over the course of a day, not sure why you need it on your desktop. Google searchbar? Sure, because we don’t already have browser windows open…Oh and I love the clock – lets project a low res display (LED clock) onto a high res display (your monitor) but not improve the readability of the numbers. Dumb!
These toys are amusing for a few minutes, longer if you are a home user or unemployed, but if you actually use the space on your screen to accomplish something useful, this is clutterware.
personaly i have my own samurize config sitting on my desktop. it shows (in % and bar) used space and in number free space on all partitions. then i have a calender, cpu and ram readout, cpu and motherboard temp numbers, winamp readout, a analog clock and some network info (bps, traffic since last script/pc restart, number of open file by external users and number of external users). oh and the allways important uptime
all done in a nice drag and drop way with no codeing (compiled or scripted) in any way. there is no high rez graphics, only what the program comes with. 2 plugins, one to get temp readouts from speedfan and one for the calendar.
sure there are no real use for this but then there are a lot of stuff done in this world that there are no logical use for
It was a shame to see the author not give any of the free programs, like SuperKaramba and gDesklets a mention.
Also, it was obvious that Konfabulator had to go Windows; Apple pretty much killed any future it had on the Mac when they announced Dashboard.
Remember when “push technology” was going to be the next big thing, when it was going to blowup and revolutionize the way we use computers? Remember the “web browser as desktop” metaphor that was related to that? This story reminds me of those.
This article isn’t about widgets, it’s about applets. Widgets are graphical interface elements, such as buttons and scrollbars.
Read the article dude, Brad states that widgets is a confusing term. But well yeah, they’re called widgets too.
i don’t understand the hype around widgets, what’s the big deal about it? … But hype gets all kinds of creeps coming out and doing some hypestuff… as usual.
First off, as the article mentions, most of these programs (some of which are freeware btw) do come with a hot key that will totally hide them or show them.
For example, DesktopX lets you load up widgets and have them completely hidden and bring them up by hitting F10 (or whatever you assign that hot key to).
So picture putting things like resource monitors, email checkers, network status, database monitors, search tools, and other unglamorous things all being a single mouse press away.
I find it ironic that people who talk about useless eye candy don’t condemn icons on the desktop then? Widgets, in the sense we’re using the term, are really a natural evolution of desktop icons.
OMG! PUSH TECH!!! hahhahahah I thought I was the only one who remebered that! Web browser desktop – remember Netscape constellation? Active Desktop? Subscribing to channels? ROFL!
>> I find it ironic that people who talk about useless eye candy don’t condemn icons on the desktop then?
I do, I also find Nautilus useless.