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Konfabulator v. Widgets


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Konfabulator v. Widgets
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surjones
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Join Date: Apr 2005
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2005-05-23, 17:43

I dont like widgets for the fact that I cant keep it on my desktop like I can with Konfabulator. Now I dont have konfab , cuase I thought this would be simular.

Are there widget that all me to know when someone loggs on, off, becomes available.?? or a MAIL widget that pops on so I can ead my message on the widget?
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theyoda3
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Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2005-05-23, 17:54

If you are talking about AOL IM notifications, then why don't you just use the ones supplied by AIM or iChat? Why have a widget for that if the application does that?

I'm not so sure I understand your mail question. Do you mean reading a recently recieved piece of mail or all of your mail?
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Stevuh
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2005-05-23, 18:32

or if you install growl on your machine that can notify you of those things
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surjones
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2005-05-23, 20:08

If you know confabulator's widgets, it will make more sense
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naren
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2005-05-23, 21:58

I have to agree that dashboard has a bit of maturing to do before to equals Konfabulator. Stability, range of available widgets, absence of random and meaningless error messages and not to mention the inexplicable amount of RAM each Dashboard widget uses, what's up with that anyway?

Yeah, still some work to do...

The future is tomorrow!
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Franz Josef
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2005-05-24, 01:10

The RAM point is well made - I'm amazed at how much RAM widgets appear to use. The more fundamental point is Dashboard's user interaction. Sometimes it seems half-hearted - for example not being able to cut and paste from translator into a Pages document. This will no doubt mature over time - Dashboard is a great addition but Apple still seem to be working out how to use it.
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Gargoyle
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2005-05-24, 04:02

... and you have to click the last line of text in the stickies widget, you can't just click anywhere and start typing...

The amount of ram does not bother me - nor should it really bother you!

All the widgets are put to sleep when dashboard is not active, so the ram they use will be avaiable to be swapped out. Then when you activate dashboard, in the time it takes you to blink (and for the zoom effect) all the required memory will have been swapped back into active RAM.

OK, I have given up keeping this sig up to date. Lets just say I'm the guy that installs every latest version as soon as its available!
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Franz Josef
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2005-05-24, 06:11

One point I didn't make was about the address book widget - it may seem a trivial feature but struck me as stunnningly helpful and, frankly, very Apple. It's simply that clicking on a tel. no. in the address book widget brings up the number in big friendly ( ) characters in the middle of the screen.
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ast3r3x
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2005-05-24, 06:48

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gargoyle
... and you have to click the last line of text in the stickies widget, you can't just click anywhere and start typing...
This is annoying...or maybe was.

I think it's better this way because it increases the area where you can select to drag it, but it becomes a problem when there is no text and the select area is very small.
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Amadeus
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2005-05-24, 19:21

Apple had to start somewhere with Widgets. They can only improve.
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Franz Josef
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2005-05-25, 14:48

Quote:
Originally Posted by Amadeus
Apple had to start somewhere with Widgets. They can only improve.
18 mths from now we'll be amazed at how far Dashboard has come. We're still understanding its uses and I think we'll look back and view it as truly revolutionary.
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surjones
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2005-05-26, 09:06

I dint think revolutionary is the right word, being in which Konfabulator has been out for a long time. But you are right about one thing, We will def. look back in 18months and see how boring and lame our dashboard's widgets were.
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saddino
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Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2005-05-26, 09:12

Quote:
Originally Posted by surjones
I dont like widgets for the fact that I cant keep it on my desktop like I can with Konfabulator.
If you use Amnesty, you can run Dashboard widgets floating on your desktop, in the same level as your other windows or embedded in the desktop. You can also set each widget's opacity, click-through, etc.

And you can also run Amnesty in Panther (10.3.9), for those of you who haven't upgraded to Tiger yet and want to play around with third-party Dashboard widgets.
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BarracksSi
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2005-05-26, 16:30

I don't see a need for a Mail widget to allow message reading. Just keep Mail open. The text will be bigger anyway.
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surjones
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2005-05-27, 00:34

Becuase when people work on mulit layers and might have audio on, or full Screen such as DVDplayer, or Fireworks, it wont show through UNLESS you have a widget such as the one for Konfabulator. Sames goes with the Ichat one.
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Brad
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2005-05-27, 00:58

How is a widget iChat window sitting in front of a full-screen app any better than a regular iChat window sitting in front of a full-screen app?

This seems like a case of KISS (keep it simple, stupid ). Widgets are meant for quick, small tasks. Dashboard provides a separate layer for this different type of quickie application. When you start implementing a function in a widget that is practically identical to that of a full-fledged application, the widget loses sight of the purpose of the Dashboard layer and you might as well be using the separate application instead.

Reading e-mail is a task much better suited for a full application. How could this even be implemented in a widget? It would take up a disproportionately large area and would require you to stay in the Dashboard layer for a long time (unless you're a really fast reader). What would you gain by making this a widget instead of simply bringing the Mail app's message viewer to the front?

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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johnq
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2005-05-27, 01:06

Widgets should require approval from a third party committee before being developed.

Honestly, some of them are the stupidest things going. Particularly the idea behind them, not so much their implementations.

Brad's on the committee, and I volunteer too.
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BarracksSi
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2005-05-27, 01:12

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad
How is a widget iChat window sitting in front of a full-screen app any better than a regular iChat window sitting in front of a full-screen app?
Exactly -- there's no point when they do the same thing.

Quote:
When you start implementing a function in a widget that is practically identical to that of a full-fledged application, the widget loses sight of the purpose of the Dashboard layer and you might as well be using the separate application instead.
That's also what Apple's guidelines for widget development say, although more cordially. A widget needs to be for a small, temporary, specialized task. A dancing hula girl is hardly broad enough in scope to warrant full application status.
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Koodari
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2005-05-27, 03:30

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevuh
or if you install growl on your machine that can notify you of those things
I second that. I installed Growl, tried it with Adium and it's obviously very powerful. It just needs some configuration to be useful.
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surjones
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2005-05-27, 11:25

My previous statment goes back to one of my first statements.. When someone comes on line or goes offline, or someone sends you a message, a lillte window in the middle of the screen pops up for about 5 seconds, so you can see and Read it.. And then goes away, as well as for new mail...
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BarracksSi
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2005-05-27, 11:30

Nah... when I'm watching a DVD, I'm watching a DVD. That's "me time", and I don't want some danged IM to interrupt.
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scratt
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2005-05-27, 11:39

If you have a few widgets up which require internet data to do anything then you will have to wait what seems too long for them all to then appear to display their data at the same time...

Obviously this only happens once per start up, but is, I think, a more fundamental problem with the Dashboard system, which needs looking at...

For example at the moment I have the weather widget, the calculator, the currency converter widget and an IP address reporter... That is enough to make me have to wait 15 seconds or more to be able to actually use the calculator.. The calculator should really be online instantly!

I would far rather see that sorted out than worry about the crap Widgets that first time developers are putting out which don't conform to any sort of point of existence or usefullness set of rules!

Put me down for the Widget approval board if you like!!

EDIT: As for Konfabulator.. It was nice... But had just as many bugs as Dashboard has now and that was after quite a few revisions...

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
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Franz Josef
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2005-05-27, 11:42

Quote:
Originally Posted by surjones
I dint think revolutionary is the right word, being in which Konfabulator has been out for a long time.
It makes all the difference in the world having it embedded in the OS rather than as an app - if it's embedded, other apps can over time use the functionality - I'm hopeful that Dashboard will actually change the way we use Macs. It's one of those things which intuitively seem to have other uses we just haven't stumbled upon yet.
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Moogs
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2005-05-27, 13:18

I'm a widget man myself... when you got 6GB of RAM it doesn't matter how much they use.
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Brad
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2005-05-27, 13:34

RAM isn't really the real issue, though. Usability is.
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johnq
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2005-05-27, 13:44

If Apple would only make the Google search bar officially extensible (I know there are solutions out there, like Acid Search) then half of these widgets wouldn't even need to exist.

I'll grant you that it is easier to type a query on the client side without first needing to navigate to a webpage's initial search page. That's why the Google search box is so handy. And that's what many widgets try to recreate. But I think it's horrendous to have to go into Dashboard to enter a string only to be taken back to Safari for the results.
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