Slashdot Mirror
Konfabulator Coming to Windows
islandroots writes "Arlo Rose, developer of the popular Konfabulator widget, is moving his application from Mac OS X to Windows. Back when Apple unveiled their next OS, Mac OS X Tiger with Dashboard, Arlo Rose accused Apple of copying his application. 'We're all diehard Macintosh developers here, but we recognize that Windows is the dominant platform,' Rose said in a statement. 'When you have a great idea, you want more than 2 percent of the global market to have access to it.'"
... for everyone keeping an eye on the developer's weblog.
All in all it's just good news for us windows users. By the way, there are a plethora of other Konfabulator-alike utilities (Kapsules, Samurize, Ave Desk...)
(From the site) Konfabulator is a JavaScript runtime engine for Mac OS X that lets you run little files called Widgets that can do pretty much whatever you want them to. Widgets can be alarm clocks, calculators, can tell you your AirPort signal strength, will fetch the latest stock quotes for your preferred symbols, and even give your current local weather. What sets Konfabulator apart from other scripting applications is that it takes full advantage of Apple's Quartz rendering. This allows Widgets to blend fluidly into your desktop without the constraints of traditional window borders. Toss in some sliding and fading, and these little guys are right at home in Mac OS X. The format for these Widgets is completely open and easy to learn so creating your own Widgets is an extremely easy task. For the "skinning" crowd, Konfabulator is a dream come true. You can easily change the look, feel, layout, even functionality of a Widget so that it matches your lifestyle, your desktop, or the pants or skirt you have on that day.
I don't know about you guys, but there already is an excellent utility for system-monitoring on Windows, it's called Samurize.
It's totally configurable and can be made to be a lot of eye-candy as well. Also it can be extended with scripts and plugins for everything from weather to television listings.
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
From the article --
:-)
"Even moving to Windows may not ensure Konfabulator free reign. Microsoft plans for the next version of Windows to have a slightly different twist on the same idea. The company has demonstrated a feature called Sidebar that allows access to similar sorts of information in one part of the Windows screen."
That answers your question
Widgets are NOT a new idea, and everyone ignores that his implementation is a memory hog and prone to crashes. How is he getting credit for things invented in 1984 and shipped alongside the original Macintosh?
Daring Fireball's take: http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/dashboard_vs_kon fabulator
"Even moving to Windows may not ensure Konfabulator free reign. Microsoft plans for the next version of Windows to have a slightly different twist on the same idea. The company has demonstrated a feature called Sidebar that allows access to similar sorts of information in one part of the Windows screen."
Uuuhhhhh, isnt the same concept that Mozilla uses for easy access to bookmarks, history, seaches and what not?
It's something like GDesklets for Gnome.
Short answer: Konfabulator is a product for writing little eyecandyful tools in JavaScript, like Weather monitors, calculators, yaddida, yaddida, yaddida. They are _very_ similar to the widgets being offered in the next version of OS X.
Long answer and editorial: Konfabulator is a resurrection of the old Apple Desk Accessories if you used those. This has been used to claim that really, Konfabulator isn't doing anything new, and that Apple isn't stealing Konfab. I find this argument to be malarky. Sure, Konfab is the spiritual decendent of Desk Accesories. And maybe even Tiger's widgets started as a coincidentally parrallel development within Apple. But writing them in JavaScript? The look and feel? The likely base package of Widgets? Come on. The most you can give Apple is that someone started working on a primitive version of a Desk Accesories successor, and someone came along and said "That's neat. Why don't you make it more like Konfabulator?"
DesktopX for Win32 is similar -- I have never used Konfabulator -- however DesktopX allows you to write simple vb (or any other installed scripting language including perl) scripts and attach them to interactive desktop objects.
If interested, check it out www.desktopx.com
Home Automation & Linux -- now I know I'm a geek
So....it's essentially DesktopX?
My Tech Posts on Twitter
Arlo Rose is an ex-Apple employee that build Konfabulator based on his experiment at Apple. Steve Jobs would have been stupid to buy his own ideas back from Rose. And same goes with Watson: Sherlock was clearly first on the market.
On the other hand. Apple has bought some cool technology to next Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). Pixelshox Technology is one great example. It's been renamed Quartz Composer in Tiger and is basis of CoreVideo.
So Apple will buy great inventions to their OS, but they're not that stupid to buy their own inventions back.
(Sorry about typos, English is not my native lang.)
If you would like to see a summary of most of the posts here and a general discussion of what Konfabulator does and Arlo Rose's history and general discussion ... see a recent story I did on this on my jackwhispers website:
HERE IT IS
Titled: What A Kon!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
www.stardock.com
Been around for years.
official site gallery(can't zoom in, since site is /.ed)
widget gallery
google image search of 'konfabulator'
apple's dashboard
When there was the Dashboard brouhaha a while back over ideas being 'stolen' from Konfabulator, I got linked to an interesting comparison between the two. It's quite illuminating reading, and should explain some of the performance, um, issues of Konfabulator:I really got the impression that one reason Apple passed over it for incorporation into MacOS X Tiger was because of the low-level architecture not being up to scratch. Instead of using the same, single instance of Safari's rendering and Javascript for all widgets, booting up some monolithic monstrosity for each sounds just... Horrid...
Oh, and the Windows port was apparently announced in December last year.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
It may have been some gee-wiz-bang swell tool for the MAC guys...but that kinda stuff is a dime a dozen for us Windows peeps since even Windows 3.1. And with the newer Windows GUI there are tons of free apps that do the same thing.
"Welcome to the group Mr Rose...here's your number."
And you know it kind of reminds me of the "star quarterback" from a high school thinking he's the stuff...then he joins a college or pro team. You're with the big boys now and you're just another player.
Don't worry about this
or this
or even this
or this
hmm, or this
There's nothing "Mac OS exclusive" about widgets. Apple didn't do them first, just like they didn't do alpha blended shadows, app skinning, a dock, etc... first. But, for some reason, Apple users like to attribute all sorts of misplaced creative distinction to the folks in Cupertino.
Konfabulator coming to Windows is old. old news. In fact, that announcement on December 16, 2003 predates the Apple Dashboard announcement on June 28, 2004 by over 6 months. Konfabulator for Windows was even already in beta form at the time of its announcement, so the idea of porting it is definitely older than 6 months before any word from Apple.
It comes down to this: Arlo Rose was porting Konfabulator over to Windows way before Apple even announced Dashboard. The port has very little to do about Apple coming out with a product similar to Konfabulator, it's more about Arlo Rose wanting to tap into the large Windows market.
That's not to say that Arlo Rose is not bitter about the whole thing - he has made a lot of snide comments on the matter - but the fact is that "little desktop applications" have been a part of Mac OS ever since it first came out. Apple has always had Desktop Applications, small applications that take up minimal RAM and do one small thing well, such as a note pad, a calculator, a clock, etc. If anything it is likely that Rose was inspired by Apple, not the other way around.
Sapere aude!
Minor nit but I never miss a chance to provide educational opportunity. The phrase is "free rein", meaning that you let your horse go wherever his will takes him, rather than guiding him yourself. The implication is that you can reassert control if and when you choose.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
They're ultimately all ripoffs of Apple's Desk Accessories {more info}.
mbbac
While Nat's project shares the name of Apple's new technology that will be included in Tiger, it's a completely different concept. Instead of having customizable UI widgets Nat's stuff displays "relevant" information as you use your computer.
For example, if a friend IMs you and says "I can't wait for our camping trip this weekend!" the dashboard will show things like your recent emails about the camping trip, your camping bookmarks, and any files or notes you've got on your hard drive about camping (example stolen from Nat's site verbatim).
If you're going to compare Dashboard to any OS X technology, it's probably closer to a tweaked Spotlight.
Are you saying coconuts migrate?
According to their website, the developers had ... issues ... with the sole Windows developer, including the belief that he would own the source code. They got rid of him and started over. Thus the delay.
The reason why it's news now is because its release is Monday, instead of next year or the infamous "real soon now..."
I, for one, welcome our new widget overlords. I love the Mac version and can't wait to use it on Windows too.
Watson/Sherlock
They offered to hire the Watson developer, he turned them down because he wanted to be retro-actively paid for all of his Watson work even though Apple wasn't going to use his codebase for Sherlock.
Konfabulator/Dashboard
Both of these are inspired by Apple's Desk Accessories from 1984.
SoundJam/iTunes
Apple bought SoundJam and turned it into Itunes.
LiteSwitch X/Command-Tab
Please -- this has been in Windows for years. I've also heard it was in Next as well.
mbbac
Apple actually licensed Xerox's GUI tech which implemented some of Jef Raskin's (Apple) pre-existing concepts.
mbbac
Two problems with that list:
Konfabulator is a rip-off of the old Desk Accessories that were more plentiful in the earlier days of the Mac OS. (Right up through 8, if I'm not mistaken).
And LiteSwitch X was a "prettied-up" version of Alt-Tab in Windows.
To say that Apple is stealing someone else's idea is only half the story. They're stealing someone else's stolen ideas, often times they're stealing back their own ideas.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
Sherlock came out before Watson. Watson cried a bit when Sherlock was updated but then went on to make a better product.
Konfabulator was not first. Apple had desktop widgets quite some time ago. Not to mention Stardock, Karamba and lots of others.
SoundJam was purchased to become iTunes.
LiteSwitch was implementing a feature that used to exist in System 9 and disappeared in OS X. Apple merely added the feature back in. Even without LiteSwitch command-tab worked, the functionality was simply enhanced with the latest version of OS X.
Konfabulator and LiteSwitch are simply a case of outside developers filling a hole that was obvious. OS X did not hit the shelves as a complete operating system. Every version that has been released has added features back in that were missing. Sometimes these features step on a developer's toes. It is sad, but it happens and it should be expected. These developers should be happy they got paid while the feature was missing and move on to the next big thing. It is unrealistic to think that a simple little toy program is going to be a permanent cash cow.
If Longhorn came out without Active Desktop and then put it back in at a future date, would anyone cry foul? This is the exact same situation.
These developers need to face the facts. Their implementation is a copy of an idea that has been around since the 80s. Their implementation is bloated and runs like crap. I know, I used to run their software until I realized it was slowing down both my cpu and my gpu, then I junked the entire mess.
Let them move over to windows, they will be right at home.
seSales, Point of Sale software for OS X.
erm, the guy is being serious. The parent post should not be modded funny. It should be modded insightful. The widgets concept is a derivative of Apple's original Desk Accessories from OS 9.
Dashboard looks similar externally to Konfabulator because both are OS X looking applications, with a glossy theme. Internally, they are different, although some of their feature sets overlap by allowing use of HTML common scripting languages.
Sorry if I'm vague and foggy, but I just woke up. Please feel free to flame and roast this post.
a company actually already does this so you dont have to wait for longhorn:
http://www.desktopsidebar.com/
I tried it out and it is OK. nothing special but kinda handy.
i'm still looking for something with a smaller footprint.
Pretty much except DesktopX is highly integrated into the OS and includes much more than just widgets and such. It has those but it's so much more.
I'm wondering what the memory footprint will be with the Windows version of Konfabulator as compared to the original Mac version.
The whole thing was actually Apple's idea.
20 years ago.
When they first made the desk accessories on the original Macintosh.
Copied Arlo my ass. The only thing that makes people say it's copied is because the widgets look similar - but that makes sense. Arlo used to work at Apple, so why wouldn't he share some of its design tendencies?
(props to Daring Fireball)
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
It would seem Arlo is a bit late in providing his great widget application to the other 98%. The windows desktop widget application DesktopX predates even the Macintosh version of Konfabulator. And he's accusing Apple of ripping off his "idea"? Arlo , do a Tom Cruise and Open Your Eyes.
They did not license Xerox tech. They allowed Xerox to buy a chunk of discount Apple stock in exchange for seeing a technology preview at Xerox PARC. This is well documented by Jef Raskin, Andy Hertzfeld, Larry Tesler, and scores of Apple history books.
It's nice that Konfabulator is coming out for Windows but Arlo knows that Konfabulator is old news on Windows. Programs like DesktopX not only do everything (and more) and cost less, but have existed far longer than Konfabulator. http://www.desktopx.net.
And he also has to compete against freeware alternatives.
Here's an article that compares ALL of them:
http://frogboy.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=27014
It should be noted that Desk Accessories are a lot older than Mac OS 9. In fact, they are from the original System 1.0 of the year 1984.
Dashboard is an inevitable result of Apple providing the webkit for easy use of HTML, Javascript, and other web technologies. I doubt very much that it is a response to Konfabulator. The three similarities usually cited are:
1) it looks like a bunch of little apps
2) they're programmed in Javascript
3) they're called widgets
The third one is just silly. They're called widgets because they *are* widgets. Konfabulator did not invent the name.
The first one is something apple's been doing; they want developers to be able to create quick little things that enhance the user experience. For example, applescript studio, services, docklets, scriptmenu. Some of them disappear--I haven't seen a docklet for quite a while. But this is clearly a direction Apple has shown interest in from the beginning of Mac OS X.
That Dashboard widgets are programmed in Javascript appears to be a slight misstatement. Konfabulator does use Javascript; as I understand it, it uses the open source javascript renderer from Mozilla. While Dashboard's widgets are for the most part going to be programmed in Javascript, simply because it's the programming language that's available, they are really programmed in WebKit.
WebKit is the underlying web rendering engine that powers Safari; it is based on an open source rendering system and Apple makes its version available to all Mac OS X developers; so we've seen lots of webkit-enabled applications, such as HyperEdit (a text editor that automatically renders HTML as you type it) and web browsers (I believe OmniPage now uses WebKit). I haven't upgraded to Panther yet, but I understand that Apple's Mail program also uses webkit.
Apple has been trying to make their scripting languages easier to use to create quick and dirty apps. They've made AppleScript Studio for Applescript; in Tiger they are also coming out with Automator, which appears to also be for AppleScript, making it even easier to use.
Dashboard appears to be the same thing for WebKit: something that jumps it from being a way to enable other apps to display web pages; to something that lets web developers create apps.
It may well be that Apple was influenced by Konfabulator; but I think that something like Dashboard from Apple was inevitable from the moment Apple came out with webkit.
Jerry