A number of subsystems for creating small utility applications called widgets have appeared over the last few years. One of our favorites is Stardock’s DesktopX, which we reviewed a couple of years ago.
DesktopX provides a framework for running widgets under Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and (the company claims) Windows Vista. What is cool is that you can create your own DesktopX widgets using JavaScript and the DesktopX development environment. With the Pro version ($70), you can build widgets that are stand-alone applications that can be freely distributed.
In the Apple world with the appearance of OS X 10.3 (aka Tiger) and its Dashboard subsystem (free with OS), the Macintosh world gained a widget system all its own. As with DesktopX, Tiger’s Dashboard widgets are built using JavaScript, but unlike DesktopX the Dashboard system relies on XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to define the nuts and bolts of widgets.
A key difference between DesktopX and Dashboard is DesktopX widgets are like any other application when running, and each can have its own “Z” order (where the widget is in the layers of windows that conceptually run “into” the screen). Dashboard widgets exist as a single layer and appear and execute only when the Dashboard application is launched. Click on anything other than a Dashboard widget, and they stop running.
One problem with DesktopX and Dashboard is they work only on a single platform: Windows and Macintosh OS X, respectively. If you want cross-platform there’s just one serious widget solution we know of: Konfabulator .
The original publisher of Konfabulator, Pixoria, was acquired by Yahoo last month. Until the acquisition, Konfabulator was sold for $20 a copy, but Yahoo immediately made the product free and refunded the money to anyone who purchased the charged-for version in the two months before Pixoria was acquired.
Running on XP Service Pack 1 or later, 2000 Service Pack 3 or later and OS X 10.2 or later, Konfabulator widgets are completely cross-platform. According to Arlo Rose, the creator of Konfabulator, who now has the title of director of widget technology at Yahoo, “one of our goals is to investigate ways to open up Konfabulator to things like cell phones and maybe even Linux and your Tivo device.”
Konfabulator widgets are created in JavaScript, XML and CSS, and while they are easy enough to build, the system cries out for an integrated development environment.
What impresses us is that many of the widgets available (all free) are really useful and visually sophisticated. One of our favorites is The Weather widget, which also is used as an example in the extensive and well-written developer’s documentation.
On both Windows and OS X, Konfabulator places an icon in the system tray or menu bar, respectively, that allows you to check for updates, bring widgets to the front and set preferences. A great feature is Konsposé, which brings all widgets to the foreground in much the same way that Dashboard does. Konsposé can be invoked from the system tray/menu bar icon or configured as a global hot key.
One complaint we’ve seen in various forums is that the Konfabulator engine is instantiated for each running widget, making each one a regular application, with the exception that the widgets don’t appear in the task bar or dock. This is good because a badly behaved widget can’t trash any other widget, but bad because this scheme uses up a lot more memory (a minimum of 2M bytes per widget).
This is such a great set of tools that we have to officially declare Konfabulator fabulous. Now when will they bring out an enterprise version?
Wild about widgets? Tell gearhead@gibbs.com. And check Gearblog.
