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Konfabulator: Whatever You Want It To Be
Squidgee writes "Arlo Rose, one of the developers who worked on Kaleidoscope, and the ill fated Eazel desktop environment for Linux, has come out with another potentially Mac-shaking app: Konfabulator. Konfabulator lets you run any program written in XML/Applescript/Javascript (It's own little hybrid of all three) in its engine, seamlessly placing the app onto your desktop. Examples of such apps are: A CPU Monitor, a Multi-Clipboard tool, a weather monitor, a battery monitor, etc. It allows for easy developement, beautiful apps, and unlimited functionality."
Right now the widgets are a waste of desktop space. What is so special about this in terms of the actual technology? What does it enable that would be worth the desktop space? What's better about it than a cocoa app? I mean, I can have a 256x256 cpu widget on my desktop, or a 16x16 menu item. I don't get it yet. Anyone?
skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
An important part of this is that it uses Javascript and the DOM as a scripting language. This opens up basic GUI wrapping of OS X API frameworks to a lot of individuals out there who would probably never try programming if they had to use PERL, C, or any other regular language for development.
So what comes out of this is that non-CS folks can easily put together 1-trick ponies that look amazing. This adds a completely new level of customization for those out there who want to create utilitarian applications for their desktop.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I can save most people the trouble of checking out the site.
1/2 the widgets are clocks.
1/3 of the widgets are newsreaders.
The rest are silly widgets that do nothing but take up space.
All of them are HUGE and take up tons of desktop space.
If you want to check their forums, I can save you that trouble also. 1/2 the posts are people having orgasms over the product and 1/3 of the people are complaining about the price.
Right now the widgets don't do anything that menu items or docklets do much better.
Woo. Active Desktop comes to the Mac about four years after everyone decided it was pretty much useless. Oh well, I guess some people will really like to fool with it and say how great and superior it is to active desktop even though it is the same exact fucking thing. I made lots of little Active Desktop widgets at one point that are now lost to the annals of time I suppose. It was fun while it lasted.
~GoRK
Konfabulator proved its worth when a coworker had to use the weather module to find out it was raining outside.
Cursed cubicles.
I totally agree that the current widgets in the gallery are not particularly useful - and nothing to make me want to buy it...
But the value of Konfabulator is not in those widgets... the value is in what might come in the future. The value is in what *you* write for yourself...
As an example, a colleague of mine has written his own widget for monitoring/restarting web servers...
What is special about it? Nothing much... What does it enable? People with some scripting skills, but not the ability to write Cocoa apps, an easy way of creating small pieces of functionality that are useful to them (if no-one else). What's better about it than a cocoa app? It allows many different pieces of functionality to be hosted in it. It allows creativity. It is an app with components, rather than a multitude of apps eating up menu / dock space.
No, there may not be any immediate value for you yet. There isn't for me. But Konfabulator should not be judged on what it is... you should keep an open mind to see what it can become.
I have a weather monitor window. It's in my wall. It works great.
-- Cheers!
I thought John Gruber's review of Konfabulator at Daring Fireball was interesting: he points out that you can't use native widgets -- every graphic element has to be composed -- and that he'd have liked an IDE. He also thinks that adoption rates would be better if they gave away the runtime engine (the app itself) but charged for the development environment.
I can't see this getting past the "this is cool" stage, or getting anywhere near the "this is useful" or even the "this is indispensable" stages.
See also Crazy Apple Rumors, which, as usual, hits the nail on the head: "While there is widespread confusion about what Konfabulator specifically does, there is little confusion about the fact that it is stylish and it is the hottest new application for OS X."
Uh, wtf?
Konfabulator is a runtime engine for scripting languages. It allows very functional applets, which Konfabulator calls widgets, to be written quickly without higher level language knowledge. It's $25 shareware.
All the widgets that come with it are useless to me.
The widgets that come with it are merely very simple examples! You can make a widget to do that task you've always wanted to do even if you have no programming knowledge. A widget that does about anything can be made with about a page of code.
OMG, the widgets are just eye candy that take up to much desk space!@ Plus, I have menu extras that do everything!@
1. Then make a widget that is whatever size YOU want it to be!
2. Make a widget that ISN'T eye candy (in your opinion), and displays the data however YOU want!
3. The widgets that come with Konfabulator are simple examples, to show the kinds of things that can be done, while also being visually pleasing.
4. The size issue has been discussed at length. The response seems to indicate the ability to actively scale any widget just didn't make it into 1.0. (I don't speak for the authors, but that was my interpretation.)
Konfabulator still isn't worth it to me...like I said, I have menu extras and docklings that do all this stuff!
If you can't see any purpose for Konfabulator, and can't think beyond applications you already have, and are stuck on the size of the default widgets, then you have utterly, totally missed the point of Konfabulator: to let people with very minimal programming language, i.e. almost anyone, make a small application that does whatever they want it to and looks however they want it to; the ability to actively obtain and display information by any scripted action, or to cause events to occur by any scripted action, all in the interface of your choosing.
The widget library is all clocks and newsreaders!@
Konfabulator has only been out for a week, and relatively few people know about it. There are already over 75 widgets. Yes, there are a lot of people who are just "skinning" the existing widgets, but this is the beginning. There are two people who can benefit from Konfabulator: those who are willing to write a little JavaScript, and those who are talented with artwork and graphics. There's nothing wrong with 20 beautiful clocks that people may want to choose from. Lots more widgets will continue to come.
OMG, they used Java??! Java is slow as HIZZELL on Mac OS X
1. Uh, this is JavaScript, not Java. They have nothing to do with one another.
2. As an aside, Java on Mac OS X is not slow.
This is Active Desktop all over again.
No, it's not, because this doesn't suck.
This is bullshit! They're charging you $25 so that YOU have to go out and do the work of making widgets!!
Look, you can decide if this thing is worth $25 to you or not. They're not charging $25 for the default widgets; they're charging $25 for an easy-to-use and innovative programming/scripting framework. The default widgets are JUST EXAMPLES. Also, we'd better warn Metrowerks to stop charging for CodeWarrior, after all, CodeWarrior is useless unless you actually make an application with it!
By the way, anyone reading this at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, we have a site license for Konfabulator. Email for info.
I still don't get it/think Konfabulator is usless/think it costs to much.
Well, no one's forcing you to use it. Sorry you don't see the value in being able to quickly whip up little mini-apps that can do pretty much anything, AND be visually pleasing!
I'm all in favor of easy-to-use, accessible programming systems, and I'm very much against the kind of snobbery that says "everything must be programmed in C++ 'because' that is the language that is correct for modern development.'"
But I don't quite see why this is a breakthrough or how it is dramatically different from any of a number of accessible programming systems. AppleScript Studio... REALbasic... Hypercard. (OK, I know Hypercard is pretty much dead... but it SHOULDN'T be!).
What would be a breakthrough would be a change in PHILOSOPHY.
If only Apple (OR Microsoft) to return to the philosophy of the earliest days of micros, in which an accessible, easy-to-use, elementary programming system WITH GOOD END-USER TUTORIAL DOCUMENTATION was bundled with every computer.
One of the saddest features of the evolution of microcomputers has been the progressive development of an elitist attitude. In the eighties, retirees would buy these PC things just to see what they what they were all about and days later would be bragging about something they had written in QuickBasic...
"Computer literacy" USED to mean the ability to write simple programs. Now, it just means the ability to memorize the meaning of Excel toolbar pictograms...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The problem with ideas like this (and don't get me wrong this is a nice implementation; it's the concept I have a problem with), is that they assume your desktop is going to be visible to you. In fact, that is not true very often in modern computing circumstances, as you are almost always running something that is taking up most of your screen.
After all, why wouldn't you? This is why we want big screens in the first place. Even if you're Aaron Sorkin and you have a 17" PowerBook, you're using that width to show two scripts side-by-side.
So the problem with Konfabulator is that, to access the widgets, you have to 'switch' to the desktop, which means its no faster than any other application you could switch context to. The desktop becomes an infinitely configurable tabla rosa, which is cool, but it gets hidden by whatever app(s) you're using regularly. (I find this is less of a problem on the Mac by the way. On my Windows machine at work I tend to maximize everything, but on OS X I always leave room around windows... anyways...)
Now, to take another Mac example, the top-right toolbar widgets. These, I love, and they are the real answer to Konfabulator-type flexibility. They are always visible and always 'live'. I mine alone, I have a CPU/Net monitor (Spy), the weather (WeatherPop), battery, Airport strength, Bluetooth status, iSync trigger, monitor rez, sound volume, and date/time. In a line appox. 15 pixels high. They may not be as lickable as Konfab's widgets but they are much more readily available, and easier to hit with the mouse (top-right corner, Fitt's Law mouse-flinging).
So you're back to Active Desktop, which no one uses. I think the context-switching is the reason.
One side-note.. the only really cool thing I want fron Konfab is the webcam feature. I really like the idea of placing borderless, floating webcam images around my desktop...
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.