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."

what could it be used for?

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?

Re:what could it be used for?

The main thing is just how easy it is to write widgets. It took me about ten minutes to write a widget that keeps track of my amazon associates account, which was something I wanted to just have always visible. But amazingly, it actually makes writing widgets so easy that graphics designers, not programmers, can do most of it, which means that quick one-off widgets are often astoundingly good looking.

Re:what could it be used for?

Konfabulator actually has a couple useful widgets. The first is one that let's you hide all windows but finder. Super useful has since i've switched I haven't found an easy way to jump to the desktop. This mades the other widgets more useful as they're easier to get to. While the clock & newsreader widgets are pretty useless, CPU monitoring, net traffic monitoring, a calendar, a to-do list, and an e-bay auction monitor turn my otherwise blue-and-empty desktop into something useful. Oh, and did I mention the nifty widget that shows the current terror alert level? :-)

Re:what could it be used for?

I spent an hour making a remote for XMMS running in X11. Most of the time was spent en Photoshop doing the GUI, wich now sits nice an quiet and unobtrusive in the topright corner, half translucent and floating over my other windows.
As it is now, I can quickly convert the widget to, say, control iTunes on another box on my network, or iTunes on my own box. And I think that most other apps that can be controlled via either Applescript or the terminal can be controlled with a widget.

I dont knwo about you, but Ive always wanted a more simpel remote formy television and stereo. Now I can at least get simple remotes for most of my apps.
Oh, and most of my websites too ;)

Don't make summary judgements...

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.

At First Glance

At first glance, these little widgets don't seem all that exciting, but they're quite pretty, and I plan on playing around with this stuff to see if it lives up to the hype. There's a magic eight-ball widget, though... and of course, that's always handy. :)

Two Important Questions

1.) Doesn't this look a lot like what .NET is trying to do? (seamless functionality with the web)

2.) Will someone use this framework to write an applet that will help trolls get first-post on /.? [j/k]

Looks great, but why?

Could someone please explain some of the reasons that one would want to use this application? I've downloaded it and looked at some of the other widgets, and it seems to me that this application is little more than some (very) pretty pictures. But little is gained from these tools, and a lot of screen space is needed. Apple's menu bar utilities provide some similar functionality that is much nicer.

So why Konfabulator?

Not Too Exciting

I used this about a week ago and the widgets aren't very exiting. It would be helpful if you could lock the widgets so they didn't move, but as it is now it's pretty useless, pretty much just windows floating on your desktop. I use Meteorologist (for weather), PTItunesnotifier (for itunes control), and MenuMeters (for RAM/CPU Usage) and those all go in my menu bar. The menu bar is a much better place for any of these apps because it can be seen globally... I don't spend a lot of time staring at my desktop, where these widgets would be.

Uses Javascript as language.

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.

Exactly!

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.

Re:Exactly!

I don't know, the Homeland Security status indicator is a small Aqua-style pill displaying the color and name of the current alert. :)

Haven't I seen this somewhere before?

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

Yeah it's true...

I saw this at first and like many others went 'oooh' at the nice Quartz rendering, and the graphical quality of the widgets. Then I turned it off after about 5 minutes.

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...

Groovy

This is an excellent app. As a designer i've dipped my toes in several programming languages , always planning an app to increase my productivity in specific ways. This is a very sweet development environment for a person in my position. It also satisfies a need to develop & distribute gorgeous Aqua interfaces for little apps that manage everyday data. I guess that's really the point...

Weather and Cubicles

Konfabulator proved its worth when a coworker had to use the weather module to find out it was raining outside.

Cursed cubicles.

It's not entirely useless

I rather like the weather module. I have dual monitors, so finding a spot for it wasn't difficult and it's very pleasing to look at.

It remains to be seen if I'll actually pay for it but I'm leaning towards doing that. I will certainly be looking at new modules as the arrive.

they forgot the most important widget

now all we need is a slashdot headlines widget! i think that would make my world complete. m@

Weather monitor

I have a weather monitor window. It's in my wall. It works great.

Daring Fireball / Crazy Apple Rumors

I thought John Gruber's review of Konfabulator at Daring Fireball [daringfireball.net] 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 [crazyapplerumors.com]: "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."

FAQ

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 [mailto] 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!

That's a funny post, but here goes...

When you start it up, it says something to the effect of "I'll walk you through the startup." and then does a number of things WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. First, it creates a ~/Documents/widgets directory. It doesn't warn me about this until after it is done.

Guess we'd better also string up Adobe (Acrobat), Oracle (Corporate Time), Qualcomm (Eudora), Apple (Final Cut family), Microsoft (Office), and Connectix (Virtual PC) for putting things in ~/Library/Documents...

Then it launches a bunch of mini-apps; again, it does not ask me if this is ok.

That's the authors' judgement call about how to start the application. Your comment would be the same as saying "Microsoft Office started the PROJECT GALLERY without my permission!"

I ended up in a state where I had all these weird things on my screen

The setup assistant tells you it's opening up a few sample widgets for you, just to get you familiar with it. It also tells you that you may close any or all of them.

and no application in my dock/ This thing is running but I have no way to shut it down. I had to open Terminal to kill the app.

LOL! The setup assistant also tells you that Konfabulator is controlled and accessed via its menu extra, which is represented by two little gears on your menu bar. It's got a "Quit" option right there.

This thing breaks the entire Apple human Interface guidelines

No it doesn't, as everything you've said so far is wrong.

it sticks applications in the users Documents directory which should never be done

They're not applications at all. (You could also argue that this, and quite a bit of the other stuff placed in Documents, would be more appropriately placed in ~/Library, but that's another discussion altogether.)

and to add insult upon injury, it only runs clocks and stuff -- there is no way to write your own application that I could see.

Oh, this is especially hilarious! You apparently didn't look at Konfabulator's website [konfabulator.com] at all, nor did you take two seconds to look at any of the widgets, which are all just text JavaScript code that can be rewritten or modified in any way, nor did you see the fully documented reference [deskmod.com] for creating widgets, nor did you apparently even READ the post you responded to! Do you think that it's through some magic that the widget library [konfabulator.com] exists? That there is no way to write code, yet people somehow manage, by miracle of miracles, to be doing it?

Konfabulator: USELESS and HARMFUL.

Your post: USELESS and HARMFUL.

A cross platform operations tool?

I'll tell you why this sounds interesting to me. We're in the middle of a massive hardware project at work that is going to multiply the number of servers by something like 16. The operations guys are going bananas trying to get their heads around it. The most useful tools to them right now are things that make monitoring, resetting, alerts and other "simple" operations like that easier. WITHOUT programming, if they can help it. Building their own tools easily slips into the development realm, and they're less likely to get significant resources approved to do that.

So if this tool allows them to easily whip up things like server or load monitors, then it's a good thing. Of course, we don't use Macs though :), which is why the title of my post is what it is. I'm going to take a quick skim through the site and see if there's any potential (stated or implied) that says that the engine could be ported to traditional Xwindow, which would make it the most generic for them.

CodeTek Virtual Desktop

Anyone know how to make the widgets sticky across desktops when using codetek virtual desktop? I dragged the application to the applications listing in the codetek preferences where you normally put apps you want to be persistent, but it doesn't seem to work.

Not a big deal since the gallery of widgets so far seems to fall into 3 categories: rss feed readers, system montors, and clocks. None of which I need. But I am interested to see other things as people develop more stuff. Certainly a great way to showcase OS X eye candy if nothing else!

Make programming accessible to novices again!

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...

Future of dockapps?

This is actually a question I've been wondering about for a couple of months: what future is there in dockapps/little apps? I just finished browsing Konfabulator's gallery of apps, and most of my suspicions were confirmed. Most of the apps are only of marginal utility, and already there's a lot of duplication. In other words, it's already beginning to look like the Dockapp Warehouse [bensinclair.com]. All that Konfabulator has done is "lowered" the bar for making hundreds of little apps--it's easier to make pretty eye candy that does the same as all the other eye candy.

Ok, I'm trying to come to a point here. Several posts have mentioned a couple of "one-off" apps, apps that were whipped out to meet a specific need, but aren't likely to be useful to anyone other than the creator. Well, that's cool, but I'm more interested in the general future of little apps. Have all the useful things already been done? Are there any functional gaps that could be filled with little apps? We're already up to our necks with clocks, CPU monitors, memory monitors, weather monitors, and news tickers--what's a new area that dockapps/little apps can branch into?
:Peter

Widget ideas

A widget to monitor who is on your website and where they are. Of particular use if you run an online community.

A widget to monitor web servers (already mentioned)

An MRTG widget to show your bandwidth utilization.

I use the program, placing all the widgets I use on the second screen. With any new product you're going to get the same type of familiar technology developed at the outset. Think of a number of clocks, etc as a collection of "Hello worlds"

It always takes a bit to sort the music from the sound. The slashdot monitor is great. I like the weather monitor as well. I can see this as a good tool for sysadmins or those like me who spend all day in front of two computer screens and want to do a cursory glance at a few pretty windows to get a nice collection of information.

Main value is integration of scripts

Konfabulator is an interesting thing, I think. Although most of the widgets are silly, I think it's mainly because everyone is trying it out and redoing the widgets thaty come with it (clock, to do lists, news aggregators, etc)

But it's main strength is that a developer can use applescript (or osascript) or javascript to make widgets. Given that via Applescirpt one can access the unix shell and most of the rest of the goodness under the hood of OS X, Konfabulator really has the potential to be a really nice cheap RAD for folks to make themsleves little system utilities.

The example of the server checker has been given. You can also write widgets to do whatever can be scripted on the platform, which is a lot. I've also seen a few widgets that run top every so many ticks and parse its output so that you have a readout of the 5 biggest processes. You could also write front ends for any command line utility in about 20 minutes, plus photoshop time.

Really once you see the software for it's underlying capability instead of the widgets that it comes with, you can see that it's really a pretty decent piece of ware.

Neat and neat

I downloaded and then paid for Kofab last week, as did a couple friends.

I really like it and there are starting to be some really neat Widgets.

PowerMate Battery widget so far is the neatest one. Have a PowerMate, hook it to the Powerbook and use the widget to have the PowerMate tell you how charged the battery is as it sits over on it's CoolPad and recharges.

Cool stuff.

Konfabulator review

Konfabulator is a new product for Mac OS X that has been recently released by one of the creators of the Kaleidoscope product for "classic" Mac OS X that allowed you to have custom interface themes. Konfabulator allows you to have nicely designed application widgets running in windows that either appear on your desktop, or float on top of all windows. Most of the widgets currently available for it do things like display clocks, pull in news from various sources, and so on -- and people can fairly easily create their own widgets. Here is an interesting review of Konfabulator:

http://daringfireball.net/2003/02/konfabulous.html

Konfabulator looks like an interesting product, however I wonder how useful it will end up being after the dust settles. How useful it is may have little bearing on how successful it will be as a product -- Kaleidoscope was not a useful product, but it was extremely popular and successful. I think the attention that Konfabulator is experiencing right now is primarily because it empowers non-programmers with the ability to make little applications, similar to what HyperCard offered people years ago.

It is essentially, as some have pointed out, Active Desktop running on Mac OS X. The little widget windows can be likened to web browser windows running JavaScript in them, but presented in a nicer, easier to manage package. Sometimes packaging is everything, and the Konfabulator packaging is quite well done, but it should also be noted that Microsoft's Active Desktop technology didn't exactly set the world on fire a few years ago.

However, I do wonder why the interest in Konfabulator is so high, given that something much more powerful already exists for Mac OS X, and it uses native Mac OS X widgets. It is from Apple, and it is called AppleScript Studio:

http://www.apple.com/applescript/studio/

Using a combination of industrial-strength GUI tools that Interface Builder offers, and the ease of use of AppleScript, non-programmers can make some very impressive applications using AppleScript Studio. ASS (ah, what a terrible acronym) also doesn't require that end users of your applications have purchased and installed any third party software, as Konfabulator does.

In short, Konfabulator is cool. It isn't particularly useful at this stage, and even though that may change with additional widgets being created, I don't think it needs to be very useful to be successful. If anything, I hope that it will get people who have been empowered with the ability to create their own widgets to look into the power that AppleScript Studio offers.

Konfab deconstructs the OS X gui

Here's one theory about why it's hot.

At heart Mac people know that the OS X gui is sensible yet rigid -- its very ease of use depends on the look-alikeness of apps, the reliability of sameness. Opinions about these matters get rather prickly; you can't even discuss tabs on a certain browser without the GUI Police showing up. ;-)

Konfab says, "Screw conformity, go nuts." It's a means to expand the Mac desktop decoratively first and foremost, the information being a second consideration (you might even say an excuse). Hence the pile of mostly useless pretty widgets, with virtually none doing something an app or OS X already doesn't -- and hence also the backlash from utilitarian types who see no point.

I like the album cover widget. But since I usually have several apps open and my desktop covered, I don't exactly get to see it very often... I think that points up a certain, er, problem with widgets; if you have time to sit around and appreciate them, we should all have a job like yours.

Re:looks good, not sure how good it is...

Just so you know, you can interface with _any_ command-line application (A ruby app, for example) with the runcommand("commandhere"); call. So literally any programming language can be used with it. Check out my widget CPsUn [deskmod.com] for an example of this. There are many others out there, too!