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Yahoo Updates Konfabulator
An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek is reporting that Yahoo! has released a new version of Konfabulator, now rechristened 'Yahoo Widget Engine'. From the article: 'Widgets are useful to portals because they can draw users to their services directly from the desktop, without first having to launch a browser. By providing a more direct route, portals are trying to increase the use of their services, which are tied to online advertising. Yahoo rival search engine Google Inc. also offers widgets.'"
It's Yahoo! with the !.
Thank! You!
The! Yahoo! Branding! Team!
hurrah for Active Desktop !
lets party
No. There are new widgets, updates to existing widgets, and engine changes. Read the version history for more details.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Well, no. But first of all... Google has widgets?
There's been a lot of widget-developer-friendly changes. See the version history for all of the 3.0 pages. The biggest change has been the introduction of a substantial number of Yahoo! related widgets. More than a few people have basically said Konfabulator/Widget Engine sold out to Yahoo, but to be honest, they're slick, useful widgets if you're the sort that depends on them.
The changes mostly have to do with an increase of speed (built-in XML parser), a better arrangement system involving frames (good things here, as opposed to in HTML) and a little smoother around the edges.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
You're right, Konfabulator is a complete rip off of Apple's Dashboard. How dare those douche bags rip off and implement Apple's software years before Apple even get around to adding it to OSX?
In case you didn't get the hint, Konfabulator (now YWE apparently) predates Apple Dashboard. A lot.
Microsoft is also dabbling in widget's, or as they call them gadgets. There is a long video interview about the "gadgets" and their version of Dashboard.
I hate it and can't get it to go away.
There is no "uninstall" in the program group, and it does not show up in Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs.
I just want it to go away.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
I love the requirements they list (especially note the last one):
* Windows XP with Service Pack 1 installed or Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 installed, or newer, or Mac OS X 10.3 or newer.
* A connection to the Internet.
* 512 megabytes of RAM is recommended.
* Lots of spare time.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Not to mention, there was a piece of software way back in the Windows 95 days named "Dashboard" by HP/Borland/Starfish(?) that did similar things, as well. The idea is nothing new, as the parent mentions, but you know, we all need another way to find out what the weather is outside. :)
I installed it. Maybe I'm just missing it, but the last version of Konfabulator is basically 99.9% the same as this. The tag line for this release should be:
All New! Now with Global Brand Awarness!
It seems like they walked into the Yahoo Marketing department and said "OK, Release a new version of Konfabulator. No, you don't need programmers."
There *are* some new Yahoo widgets but that's not news. Widgets are created every day.
Yawn.
Don't know if this is standard procedure, but I was pretty annoyed when, while installing the new version, there were no less then three attempts to integrate yahoo into my computer. Can't these portals release software without trying to take over your computer?
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
I can't seem to find where the post you're making fun of even mentions Apple Dashboard.
Widget could be useful... maybe. But before we they can even there, they need to integrate better with the rest of the "user experience". I am using Dashboard (I tried konfab for the kicks, but they seemed pretty much equivalent), and the widget don't behave like the rest of the OS. I can't copy past in all of them (can't copy from bloody dictionnary!), most of them don't have preferences I can adjust to fit my needs and they only the most limited fonctionnality for any operation (calculator app. is pretty dumb but it shines when compared to the widget conterpart).
I know these are free, simple coding projects, but come on! They have to behave like a proper app. for them to enhance my productivity. As far as I am concerned, widget are just a "proof of concept" for the moment. I am still waiting for a widget that does more tham show me where the sun is and isn't shinning (I am being overly harsh here, but you get my point).
In case you didn't get the hint, Konfabulator (now YWE apparently) predates Apple Dashboard. A lot.
I got your hint. The problem with your argument is that Apple's Desktop Accessories pre-date Konfabulator by 21 years.
If you're going to argue history, try to have your facts straight.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
Google's problem, though, is that they have a tendancy not to follow up on things, but rather leave them in indefinite beta or some other limbo. Take "Hello" (a photo-sharing and chat program which is part of the Picasa offering) for example. It's a fairly cool, though very specialized product. Shouldn't that be part of their new chat service? Yahoo has already built similar real-time photo-sharing into their Messenger product. While I'll admit that Yahoo overbrands, they at least try to have some consistency in their offering. When is Google going to start integrating some of their separate products into more useful platforms? Integration can weigh a product suite down, but right now there are some glaring opportunities: For example, why not integrate Google Groups (which has been in "beta" now for years) with GMail? What about integrating Picasa with Google Desktop (both of which offer search/organization functionality for photos)?
Yes. For Google Desktop sidebar. http://desktop.google.com/plugins/.
I'll stick with the real deal.
Yahoo lost me back when they got cocky and started shoveling crap down my throat on their search page.
ICQ was also notorious for the same thing. They were just a little too ambitious for my tastes. I wanted a product, not a marketing blitz. Wow, they've even toned it down significantly. Now all the products are neatly categories within their product search engine.
Simplicity is a good. Forcefeeding is bad.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
This is one of those programs that you've gotta download to decide if you like it. I think it's good looking, and I like having a calendar and notepad on my desktop. I also like that you can change the "widgets." ie--the "slide show" had options for how long to show each slide, but I use it to show my syllabi so I know my homework and I didn't want it to change. So I got the "Widget converter" and added a "change slides never" option to the preferences menu (which now changes the slides ever zero seconds). It took me all of 5 minutes and I have essentially zero programming experience. I recommend looking through the "Widgets" to see if you think there's anything useful, and decide if it's worth its cost in RAM usage (which I haven't found to be too bad).
A little unclear on what a "widget" is, are we?
Widgets are little browser components that use Web technologies like HTTP for the static stuff and AJAX for the interactive stuff to present the user with information or provide small, single-use applications.
Google Desktop sidebar plug-ins aren't widgets, which is why they don't call them widgets. They call them sidebar plugins.
Keyhole became Google Earth.
Deja News (Deja.com) became Google Groups.
Urchin Log Analyzer became Google Analytics . (More on this change)
Sprinks became wholly subsumed into Google AdWords, not even as its own sub-brand.
There are nowhere near as many Googles as there are Yahoo!s, but Google's making a clear move toward matching Yahoo! as far as brands go.
For more information, click here.
It was pretty cool for about two weeks, but once the appeal of the the cutesy gamey widgets wear out (or take up too much screen space), there are few that offer any real utility that isn't matched elsewhere more easily. A well-equipped Firefox can easily replace most of the widgets (ex. Forcastfox, Foxytunes, etc.). And really, who needs half a dozen portal widgets? Leave Firefox open and in two clicks you can select a different search function, then search away wherever (though certainly not torrentspy.com cough cough cough).
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
I believe the point of these widget development/runtime engines is to provide a method of developing/deploying simple easy-to-create applications. With a stressing on "easy to create".
Instead of having to write alot of C/C++ or Java code and worry about compatibility and lots of other issues, you can just (from my understanding) follow a method the engine outlines (in this case I believe primarily XML, maybe some javascript) and create a small very specific desktop application.
As has been pointed out, Keyhole became Google Earth, Urchin became Google Analytics. Picasa probably just hasn't been renamed because Google's either working on doing something with it, or else hasn't figured out what they're doing with it of yet. I suspect sometime in the future there will be a re-branding and "launch" of some updated of "Google Picture Organizer".
On the flip side, Yahoo bought Flickr some time ago and hasn't re-branded it yet... there's just that "A Yahoo Company" logo in the corner.
No, your not being overly harsh. I spent (wasted) 2 days playing with them and arrived at basically the same conclusion.
At first they seemed like an easy way to write a small app that could be distributed easy (no windows install etc) and they looked cool, but that was just laziness on my part. If I recall they didn't seem to have much in the way of capabilities or at least nothing I couldn't do with a browser, except clutter up my desktop w/ admittably cool looking large icons.
I'm a pretty serious konfabulator user, and I also write some widgets, which gives me a bit of insight into the inner workings and bugs. This is a pretty major upgrade, but mostly bug fix wise. The old 2.1.1 version was pretty buggy (javascript wise), although there were plenty of workarounds. The newer version has many less missing or incorrectly implimented javascript commands, although 2 minutes of testing revealed several major things they still havent fixed. If it were only the bug fixes, I would wholeheartedly recomend the upgrade, but as is, they added some obnoxious warning messages about using "non-yahoo supported" widgets, which discourages third party widget designers. You can't argue with free though.
Widgets for Konfabulator are a lot easier to make. This encourages a lot more community than the Apple widgets. However, since they are easier to make, you also see quite a few buggy widgets (although there are by no means a shortage of good widgets). You might as well give it a try, see if there are widgets out there that you like better than the apple ones.
I guess I am not seeing why you think Yahoo is aspiring to be OS X.
I assume of course that you know Konfabulator was released before OS X dashboard.
Having using both i prefer Konfabulator, thought that is of course a matter of preference.
One can ask if Dashboard is a rip-off of Konfabulator and it would be a very good question. Apple swears up and down it was an independent creation...however...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
And again, he probably meant to link to this one.
Uh, I was tempted to mod you down, but you DO realize that Konfabulator precedes the OS X dashboard?? There was in fact a decently big spat over whether the dashboard was a mere copy of konfabulator or not (see e.g. wikipedia)
I rather like the way it asks before running a new widget for the first time. That can help keep it from becoming another way that malware can run.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
I believe Konfabulator was actually inspired by NextStep's desktop widgets. NextStep's OS did go on to become OS X, so I guess it could quite easily be argues that Konfabulator is a complete rip off of OS X's Dashboard.
Ah! Dessert...
No longer works in Windows XP X64 due to WinHTTP library. Way to go Yahoo!
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
It's there. Look for "Day Planner". It was formerly "PIM Overview", but they changed the name and gave it the ability to access Yahoo! Calendar information.
My favorite Google-related widget is ImagesForever (Mac only because it uses perl and curl). Many others were made to access Google, but only this one actually does something more interesting than just provide a search box.
Disclaimer: I wrote ImagesForever, so I'm biased.
-- thinkyhead software and media
You might need to find a widget that's useful to you is all .. I use the word clocks all the time just because my family is scattered about the globe (got 6 in a row at the press of F12)and I need to know when is good/bad time to call them. :-)
Also find the flight tracker useful (cause I travel), and the calcutor (cause my math sucks
You should. Yahoo has refocused itself and is starting to be a serious competitor to Google. Things Yahoo has done recently:
Partnered with Six Apart to pre-install Movable Type on their small business hosting
Purchased Del.icio.us
Launched Yahoo Answers
Launched Yahoo Shoposphere
Launched a new version of Yahoo Maps
Launched Yahoo Blog Search
Launched Yahoo Podcasts
Purchased Konfabulator
Launched Yahoo My Web 2.0
Purchased Flickr.com
Yahoo will also soon be launching a new version of Yahoo Mail which will include AJAX/DHTML tech they got from their purchase of Oddpost, RSS, an API and additional design updates.
I like the place in the documentation where it says that they're going to add more sandboxing "later". Before, or after, the first big exploit?
Now, while Google Dashboard plugins can be called 'widgets', what was the point of including that sentence at the end? Yes, I see it was a quote from the original article, and it's just as oddly placed there, but it is even more odd here.
"Microsoft releases Windows Vista. Microsoft rival Apple also offers an OS."
"Honda releases new Civic Hybrid. Honda rival Toyota also offers a hybrid."
"Devil offers Eve an Apple. Devil rival God also offers knowledge."
I mean, really. Did the reporter just HAVE to find a way to include Google in this story? Maybe a bit of commentary "Yahoo rival Google offers Widgets through their more extensible Google Dashboard" or something, but just 'Google too!' is a bit odd.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I'm afraid to install it. Is it worth it? It looks like it's loaded with the typical Yahoo! superflous-ware.
I installed it because I got a message saying there was another "Konfabulator update" to my current version. I let out a small groan when I saw it had morphed into Yahoo! Widgets but so far except for seeing the Yahoo! name too may times during the install, Yahoo! is leaving me alone. Install screens now look more Corporate and less homespun Konfabulator-like but so far all my widgets still work and look the same and I haven't gotten any pop-ups, branding, or Yahoo messages.