Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

10.4 Widget Site Opens Doors

Posted by timothy on from the or-at-least-pages dept.

sammykrupa writes "My new venture has just opened its doors. Dashboard Lineup is a site where developers can talk about the OS X Tiger widgets they are developing and and tips and tricks can be exchanged. There are also discussions about ideas for widgets. It's also worth mentioning that if you are a developer you can use the free hosting for widgets I have set up."

9 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. This one has been around for years... by profet · · Score: 1, Insightful

    http://www.konfabulator.com

    1. Re:This one has been around for years... by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I tried Konfabulator, as did a number of people I know. For me I stopped using it because it was a hog, and just slowed down my machine too much. The lack of compelling/really useful widgets was a problem. A friend of mine summed it up with, "When the demo expired and I had to consider paying for it, I had already stopped using it, so I just deleted it." That was basically it for a lot of us. It just was not very useful. Dashboard looks to be more so. And it is free, so even if I only book a flight once a year, or look up a phone number in the yellow pages once a week, there is no reason not to have it.

    2. Re:This one has been around for years... by Johnny+Mnemonic · · Score: 2, Insightful


      Kinda like Sherlock. The only useful feature of it, for me, is the Movie Showtimes--saves me from having to dig through the paper, plus I get a preview. But the once every two months that I consider going to a movie are the ONLY times Sherlock gets used. Especially since the Sherlocker site shut down; I don't know of anyone trying to extend Sherlock anymore. Which means we're left with the Find Flights etc

      Really, why use this stuff when it's just a link away? Does anyone find it easier to launch Sherlock and type their google search into Sherlock, or to just go to google directly with the browser that they already likely have open? Same for Dictionary.com.
      To sum: what makes the movie button useful is that it's an aggregator of several sites; but most of the buttons simply replicate an existing site. We need more aggregators, and less purely redundant buttons.

      --

      --
      $tar -xvf .sig.tar
  2. Re:From TFA by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Uh, yeah. I'm a jackass.

    You win, though: first of five to point it out.

    --

    There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
  3. Re:What about the other Dashboard sites? by greed · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It wasn't thinly veiled: "My new venture has just opened its doors."

    Doesn't get much more blatant than that.

  4. Re:What about the other Dashboard sites? by KillerDeathRobot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The time: Look at the upper-right of the screen, where there is already a time display.

    Lots of people prefer an analog display to a digital one for telling time. I'll agree that a clock isn't super-necessary, but if you don't want it, you can easily turn it off.

    What it's like outside: Look out a window. You know, that big glass pane on one wall of your boss's office?

    Oh yes, because looking out a window will tell you the temperature and the chance of precipitation later. On top of that, everyone obviously has a huge window right near their computer.

    Anything else to say?

    Yes: It's hard to believe that you can't see the benefits of the various widgets on the dashboard. Maybe you personally don't have a whole lot of use for two particular ones, but there are tons more and furthermore they're easy to develop (HTML and CSS) and thus there will likely be lots of novel ones. Take second to look outside (no pun intended) your narrow little world and see that everyone is not you.

    --
    Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
  5. Re:3 dashboard widget sites - but 0 for the masses by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What is your problem with Dashboard Widgets? It has a pretty decent site, including most of your bullet points. The only way they fall down is that their front page is devoted to news, and you have to click to get to the gallery (or showcase as they call it). This also seems to be one of the few sites with quite a few widgets already up and available. You claim their preview icons are too small. They are 128x128 which is plenty large on my monitor and larger than most of the images on the Konfabulator site, even with the background image they add to all of theirs. You also complain that they don't have previews for all of them, which is a valid complaint.

    Your love for the Konfabulator site, however, is misguided. I found it unintuitive. Their was no text link for more information on the widgets, only two unlabeled graphics, neither of which had an alt tag set. There is also a "More Widgets" button for each widget which, until I clicked it, I had no idea would take me to more widgets by the same author. Sorry, but if you're looking for an expertly designed web site, the Konfabulator site should not be your example.

    I gave up on Konfabulator because it was just too dog slow. Hopefully dashboard will not have the same problem.

  6. Re:Can someone please explain... by Moofie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "how are these widgets any different/better than any other app that I can write with Xcode?"

    The fact that you don't have to write them with Xcode.

    --
    Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
  7. Re:What about the other Dashboard sites? by Golias · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For you, at this point, perhaps not.

    God, I love a straight answer to a straight question. It seems so rare these days.

    --

    Information wants to be anthropomorphized.