Joho the Blog
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January 03, 2006
Yahoo has done a good job emulating the Mac's Dashboard widgets with its own Yahoo Widgets. (Yahoo bought Konfabulator to get its Widget engine.) They even look cool like the Mac ones do. But, Yahoo is not doing a good job helping us to find them. For example, there are 186 widgets in the System Utilities folder on the Web site, and 276 in the Fun and Games category. Then there are nine more categories. That's too much to browse, even if you set it to show 25 at a time. How about taking a page from Firefox Extensions and offer listings by most popular and highest rated? Or, heaven forbid, do we need a meta-Widget? [Tags: yahoo widgets macintosh firefox] Posted
by D. Weinberger at January 3, 2006 12:01 PM
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Comments
I believe Apple ripped off Konfabulator, not the other way around. http://news.com.com/2100-1045_3-5250692.html
Posted by: Mike M | January 3, 2006 02:42 PM
Yes, Apple did rip off Konfabulator.
I actually use Konfabulator on my mac now instead of Dashboard; the problem with Dashboard is that the widgets are usually paged out, and the act of zooming them into view is more like dragging them into view through waste-deep frozen mud (and I have 2.5 GB of memory).
Posted by: Bill O'Donnell | January 3, 2006 05:22 PM
I have the same findability issues with Google products. Can't they just create a DHTML dropdown with all of their services, ala Amazon, NYTimes, etc.?
Posted by: sean coon | January 3, 2006 10:00 PM
My problem w/Widget programs (this is my 2nd time messing with 'em) is that they lack the MAIN UI features I like in my OS. I recall liking the Konfabulator version MORE than the Yahoo one, but the plugins that work with Yahoo are GREAT.
I'd like MINIMIZE, STRETCH, MAX buttons on each Widget (or via rightclick) and an option to show on the taskbar, at the least. I definitely like the "stay on top/float" option (which I get in Windows with the excellent and free PowerMenu ... http://www.veridicus.com/tummy/programming/powermenu/ ) and transparency is fun but not quite as essential.
I like the F8 'heads up' display, which is much like a Mac OS X feature (but on Mac it's animated and beautiful), but this one is 'Yahoo Widgets' only.
My main issue w/widgets is --> Not sure why they need a separate engine, not sure why they're managed via this separate engine instead of the OS, and I don't like that MOST of the web functionality when I click goes to IE.
I prefer Opera over IE any day.
(http://opera.com)
Posted by: REkz | April 24, 2006 02:38 PM
I just downloaded 3 widget to try and I am new to the computer world like file savvy and all that...it's telling me that my computer cant read it so I went to the filex and downloaded whatever there and I still don't know what I am doing. Can you all help. I have a Dell xps400.
Posted by: Paula Rice | May 19, 2006 07:20 PM
Personals website is looking for a talented freelance widget developer. If you're interested and have a portfolio, or at least samples of widgets you have developed. Please contact me at the address above.
Thanks very much.
Donna
Posted by: Donna Milnes | August 19, 2006 10:32 PM