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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Software Utilities (Apple) Apple

Konfabulator: Whatever You Want It To Be 91

Posted by pudge from the sounds-kinky dept.
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."
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Konfabulator: Whatever You Want It To Be More

Konfabulator: Whatever You Want It To Be

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  • what could it be used for? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tunesmith ( 136392 ) <siffert@mHORSEus ... minus herbivore> on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @02:24AM (#5324058) Homepage Journal
    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? (Score:5, Informative)

      by addaon ( 41825 ) <addaon+slashdot@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @03:18AM (#5324260)
      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? (Score:5, Informative)

      by HaiLHaiL ( 250648 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @03:28AM (#5324286) Homepage
      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? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tamen ( 308656 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @03:44AM (#5324332) Homepage
      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 ;)
      • On Linux I spent about a minute doing basicly the same, except that I use keys on keyboard for that, so it consumes no space on screen.

        To control XMMS on another machine, I'd need to add a part to a command line to use ssh to connect to remote shell.

        xbindkeys is wonderful application ;)

        Really, it's cool that application like this exists, but it's really hard to find real use for one. Most of the time the easiest solution is to make a small bash script to do the job. Ofcourse fancy graphics are nice.

        Still, even the GKrellM I have is mostly useless, but I use it because it combines many things into a small space, shows ethernet, cpu and memory, and provides easy way of mounting CD-ROMs, and notifies me on new mail.

        Then again I'm a freak with his own personal desktop environment built of various simple tools found around the net. Still lacking a good File Manager though.

        • Well, you used about as much time on the commands as I did. As I said, most of the time was spend doing the GUI.

          What people prefer to use, key/mouseclick, is up to them. I prefer the mouse for this kind of opereation as my left hand ususally supports my head ;) And its limited how many commands you can put on a keyboard, let alone remember. Some of the widgets you dont even have to do anything to, other than look at the gui. I know the weather widget is kinda stupid, you could look out the window. (Then again, if youre looking at the screen, why waste precious pico-seconds looking away? ;) ) But, as you say your GKrellM do, it convays information at a glance, as can Konfabulator be made to. In just the way you want. If you dont like the look, change it. Make it do something more. With javascript, applescript and shellscripting Im hard pressed to think up something you cant do with it.
          personally I would have prefered PHP instead of javascript, but thats just me being a PHP-developer :)

          "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words" someone once said, and I think he/she was right. It is faster to look at a smiling sun than read the "Partly Cloudy" that a bash script would output. You wont even have to look directly at the picture, just kinda "theres something yellowish up in the corner of the screen... The sun must be shining outside".

          Anyway, I like konfabulator and think its a great app. You would almost think I worked for them by the way I defend it here ;)
          • To be honest, I was just trying to get a more interesting response..

            It's cool to be able to do things easily, I agree, and the easier it is to do something, the more choice it means for us all, which is a good thing, because it means more freedom even if you didn't know how to do it "manually".

            I still think that wasting screen space is bad, though. =)

    • Don't make summary judgements... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by grahamtriggs ( 572707 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @05:22AM (#5324551)

      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.
      • Really? To me, the "value" of Konfabulator is $25, not in what I or others can create for it. (Yes, I'm aware that $25 is the price, not the value, just playing with words to make a point.) If everything it comes with is inherently useless, I have no inspiration to do anything cool with it, hence it has no value to me. The included widgets ARE lame, although some of the third-party widgets I've seen are relatively impressive.

        Granted, this comes from someone who is fairly fluent in bash, AppleScript, C, and Objective-C, so virtually anything that Konfabulator can offer now or in the future, I can make myself, and it will probably perform better. Of course it might take me a little longer...

        I have recently been on a shareware-purchasing binge (I spent nearly $200 before I realized I need to pay my bills first!), and I really wanted to like Konfabulator. Unfortunately, the following things (in order of priority) made me decide to trash it and not give it another look for quite a while:

        1. You get ONE launch, and then the shareware reminder is permenantly on your desktop. Nag screens, timers, trialware, quitting after an hour, hell even a faint watermark would all have been acceptable. About the only think worse than that sort of perma-shareware-reminder window is bonafide spyware.

        2. It really feels to me that Arlo Rose et al are trying to take advantage of both the ease of development in Cocoa and the untapped creative energy of the Mac community. I could be totally wrong about this, but the less work they do, the more the community will do, and they will get paid the same no matter what. I hope the Konfabulator license allows one to retain all legal rights to their creation, including being able to sell it for exhorbitant amounts of cash, if they should so choose.

        3. This is a minor peeve, but still valid, IMHO. Why JavaScript? AppleScript makes much better glue, and would make it very easy for widgets themselves to be highly scriptable and customizable. The syntax is even easier than JavaScript, and enables you to tap into a wide variety of OS X services natively without having to code even more glue between the scripting language and the OS. AppleScript just seems like a much better choice for a Mac OS X-only "widget factory". Hell, you could even have widgets that know how to create other widgets on the fly from user input. Oh well.

        Like I said, I really wanted to like it. Maybe 1.1 will blow my mind.
        • In answer to your points:

          1) Doesn't particularly bother me... theoretically, it's not much different from having a widget on screen... and if it annoys me, I just pick it up and drag it off to the side so only a tiny, tiny fragment is visible...

          2) But then you can lay the same argument against any tool... you could even say the same about a web browser, or even an OS... the more widgets, websites or applications, the more inherent value there is, and the more that can be earned by the publisher of the hosting environment, browser, or OS, without them doing anything in particular... they may only be making use of existing standards, and putting together a 'simple' framework for others to make use of, but it is their work, and they are entitled to benefit from it... if you think it's a worthwhile thing for the community, but they are charging too much for it, then develop your own version...

          Although I do agree about retaining the rights to your own widgets... I'm not sure what the license specifies, but then you are free to not use it if you disagree with the terms...

          3. JavaScript - maybe they want to appeal to website designers, who may already know JavaScript, but not Applescript... maybe they want the freedom to port the framework to other OSes at a later stage, and have existing widgets work (as much as possible)
          • Well I would be hard-pressed to argue with you, as you make very strong points. For the most part, I totally agree. Bear in mind, though, that I was commenting on Konfabulator's usefulness and value to me personally, not to the world as a whole. I am probably not the target audience, and I do think it is great that anyone with basic HTML/JavaScript skills can make a mini-application.

            Clearly I'm conflicted enough about point 2 that if I did develop my own Konfabulator-compatible clone, I would probably not release it to the public, but I would really dig a Konfabulator that is capable of putting widgets on the desktop layer (beneath icons, above desktop picture) and has pluggable scripting languages. I really hadn't thought about what you said re portability, but the file format is totally portable, and there is nothing obfuscated, so I guess I have to take 2 back...

            Finally, I must mention that I sure wish I knew what kind of crack I was smoking (it was really good crack!) when I assumed that I couldn't simply move the shareware window off the side of the screen.
  • 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. :)
  • 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]
    • To me, it sounds a bit more like what Mozilla is trying to do, but on one platform instead of all of them (basically). And I have to say that the whole concept appeals to me, anything that makes creating interesting little apps easier seems like a Good Thing to me. True, it doesn't feel all that earth-shattering, but that's really down to what people do with it, and how many people that start doing it. The examples noted in the journal seem very promising. In all, the only downside I can see is that I still don't have a Mac of my own to try this out on :-) ...

      Someone using this to help trolls? You mean, like trolls being ... creative? Interesting concept ...

    • Konfabulator is a desktop tool... there is the ability to make it talk to web servers, and parse the results returned... potentially, you could end up with quite sophisticated widgets that talk to web services, and have some degree of interactivity... .Net is a top-to-bottom solution... .Net gives you the ability to write web services, not just call on them. On the client side, it allows creation of heavy-weight applications. However, writing even small desktop utilities (in .Net) requires a reasonable amount of programming savvy...

      So no, this isn't a lot like what .Net is trying to do... they cater for complete different markets... however, there may be some overlap in certain areas...

  • Looks great, but why? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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?

    • i just downloaded and tried it (albeit briefly and pretty buzzed) but, i think i must be one of the few people who thinks this could be really incredible, it could be like a cross between the dock and sherlock. or anything else for that matter, my big complaints right now are the icons not being able to be resized, and i'd be nice to have them be able to reside in a tray that can auto-hide or something.

      they kind of remind me of docklings.. on steroids (thats a joke for those who are tired of hearing that analogy).. i think this could reallly turn into a fab thing, all it takes is lightning strike of genius on somebodies noggin to figure it out.
      • docklings.. on steroids (thats a joke for those who are tired of hearing that analogy)

        I get it :)

        Maybe Apple will steal Konfabulator like they did Watson...and call a widget, by their current naming conventions: a Dockling Extreme!

        Heh...

  • Not Too Exciting (Score:3, Insightful)

    by owlicks58 ( 560207 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @02:46AM (#5324161) Homepage
    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. (Score:5, Funny)

    by foniksonik ( 573572 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @02:52AM (#5324183) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • 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.

      That's great, but if you've got the basics of Javascript down then the jump to Perl or C or any C-like language is really trivial, IMO. The syntax and many of the concepts behind Javascript bear a striking similarity to the syntax of C and the object-oriented concepts in Javascript look and work a lot like many of the OOP languages out there. To some extent, I disagree with the notion that Javascript is a beginner's scripting language. For many of us who program, Javascript is child's-play, but for a beginner...? There's quite a learning curve involved.

      I haven't actually looked over Konfabulator yet, but if a full working knowledge of Javascript is required, then I would argue that it's not really a beginner's environment.

  • Exactly! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SensitiveMale ( 155605 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @03:11AM (#5324238)
    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! (Score:5, Funny)

      by mbbac ( 568880 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @11:26AM (#5326479)
      I don't know, the Homeland Security status indicator is a small Aqua-style pill displaying the color and name of the current alert. :)
      • I downloaded an app called "Homeland Alert" which purports to do this in the menubar, but it says we're at "yellow," when the true status is "orange." Hopefully the konfabulator widget is more accurate? I would hate to forget my duct tape because my Mac didn't accurately calculate the terror alert status.
        • The Konfabulator widget does in fact report the proper status of "orange." There is an alternate mode which gives a description of the status in a larger widget -- since no one knows what the hell orange means.

  • Haven't I seen this somewhere before? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @03:40AM (#5324324) Homepage Journal
    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... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @10:55AM (#5326262)
      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 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rat_herder ( 527991 )
    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 (Score:5, Funny)

    by migurski ( 545146 ) <mike@nOsPam.teczno.com> on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @04:05AM (#5324389) Homepage
    Konfabulator proved its worth when a coworker had to use the weather module to find out it was raining outside.

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

  • Weather monitor (Score:5, Funny)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @08:04AM (#5325010) Homepage
    I have a weather monitor window. It's in my wall. It works great.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @08:16AM (#5325088)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • FAQ (Score:5, Informative)

    by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @08:47AM (#5325254)
    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!

    • Re:FAQ (Score:2)

      by iso ( 87585 )
      Also, we'd better warn Metrowerks to stop charging for CodeWarrior, after all, CodeWarrior is useless unless you actually make an application with it!

      This is a flawed analogy and would only be appropriate if CodeWarrior applications required CodeWarrior to run. If Konfabulator widgets could run without Konfabulator, then it would be worth investigating.

      As it stands now, who would waste their time making widgets just so that the Konfabulator guys can make more money? Bah. I'll stick with Cocoa, thanks.

      - j
    • Sorry for the massive parroting, but I find this amusing:
      • 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 too 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.

      • [....]
      • 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!

      Gee, does anyone else get the impression that the quality (or lack thereof) of the default widgets is kind of a sore spot?

      If these things are such bad examples of what Konfabulator is supposed to be able to do -- and based on shreiking, panicked self-defence like this it must really be getting to these guys -- then why are the default widgets being distributed at all?

      I admit, I tried Konfab. over the weekend, though "oh okay, this is annoying skin candy -- just like Kaleidoscope & Enlightenment & every damn MP3 player that isn't iTunes -- and trashed it after about 15 minutes. Friends tried to convince me that the framework is the interesting part, and I'm willing to accept that that may be so. But these default widgets are fucking annoying, and as far as I can tell the licensing scheme -- $25 for the framework, and you have to agree to distribute any widgets you make for free -- seems to guarantee that future widgets aren't going to be a whole lot better. (If the shareware ethic is to make something that a few people would want to pay five bucks for, and you can't do that, then the model falls apart, doesn't it? I'm not sure, I have a better feel for how Free software economics works, this shareware stuff still seems funny to me :).

      I dunno. Konfab. might be a great framework, but the crappiness of the widgets I've seen so far -- and the way these things are so far outside the normal interface conventions -- makes me very unenthusiastic about this. I'd be happy to be corrected, but so far I just don't see it. *shrug*

      • Gee, does anyone else get the impression that the quality (or lack thereof) of the default widgets is kind of a sore spot?

        I noticed that too. It's like they are trying to say "this is just a lame demo. The real powe of our app is that you can write Real Cool Widgets of your own... and these Real Cool Widgets will be Real Easy To Write!!!!!!!!"

        But if making über-cool apps is so easy with Konfab, why do you demonstrate the power of it with... a lame clock program?

        My first impression was, "I like the weather app, but I wish there was a way I could just dock it."

        Get this: you can't even dock the widgets as applicaitons, becasue they are really documents of Konfab, and therefore go into the document side of yout dock. This would not be so bad if Konfab had a dock item of it's own when running, allowing menu-access from the dock of any running applets (and maybe the ability to launch others).

        Anybody who tells you that Konfab doesn't completely violate the OS X user interface guidelines, and I mean that in a bad way, doesn't really understand Aqua.

        Downloaded it, tried it, deleted it.

  • A cross platform operations tool? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dmorin ( 25609 ) <dmorin@OOOgmail.com minus threevowels> on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @08:59AM (#5325362) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Well, for most of what you want, there's gkrellm [gkrellm.net]; it's been a while since I've played with making a gkrellm plugin, but I found it fairly easy (I'm not a C guy, but there's already a lot of plugins that you can borrow from) and the API is well documented. It even has a "server" program for remote monitoring. It also runs on Windows now, and of course it works in OSX as well.
      :Peter
      • Well if you have to write its plugins in C, though, I'm not sure it's the same thing. I was under the impression that this Konfabulator thing allowed you to whip stuff up in an XML/scripty sort of language. The compile phase of C alone puts it in a different category than scripting languages.
        • In this case, the degree of separation between a scripting language and a compiling language is pretty minimal. Typing 'make' at the end really doesn't add any more complexity. It's not like you need a configure script or have to work out the dependancies; as long as you have gkrellm-devel, you are good to go.

          Or, you could wait a while. If this catches on big, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Linux version be developed. After all, it is just XML + JavaScript. This might fit well with KDE (since it starts with a 'K' and KDE has khtml built in :). Who knows.

          I'm going to be cynical, however, and say that despite the eye candy, the creative level of the apps aren't going to rise above the high-water mark set by, say, dockapps. In other words, expect to see lots of very pretty news tickers, clocks, system monitors, and the like, but nothing really new AND useful. (I have to admit, the widget that monitors the security status of the nation is cute and original, but not exactly useful.)
          :Peter
    • things that make monitoring, resetting, alerts and other "simple" operations like that easier. WITHOUT programming

      Get Big Brother [bb4.com]. The free version rocks.

  • CodeTek Virtual Desktop (Score:4, Informative)

    by elliotj ( 519297 ) <slashdot@elliotjoLIONhnson.com minus cat> on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @09:18AM (#5325485) Homepage
    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!
    • Click on the prefrences button (The lil blue dealy on the bottom of the default skin), and drag the Konfabulator icon into the "Applications Virtual Dekstop moves to every Desktop" list window. Close the prefs window, and now they'll move to every desktop! =)

  • Make programming accessible to novices again! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Tuesday February 18, 2003 @09:44AM (#5325687) Homepage
    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...
    • First off, I must say I'm not sure if bringing software development to the end user is really important these days. Back then, there wasn't really any efficient, practically free methods to distribute software, so if you didn't write it, you had to pay at least a bit to get a copy and go to some trouble to actually go get it. For trivial apps, competent end users could write it up quickly for themselves for less time and money than it would take to find and get pre-made software. Now, computers are far more pervasive, so the competency of the average user is reduced. Also, with the internet, "real" programmes release freeware that pretty much covers the needs people once wrote custom software to do, and google, freshmeat, and versiontracker make it extremely easy to find the right tool for the job.

      All that said, of the platforms in use in homes, I would say Apple is doing the best job in the direction you want.

      With MS, Visual Studio costs money, and the application and APIs are relatively difficult to use and grasp for a beginning programmer.

      With Linux, the development enviornment is free, but even less newbie friendly. Sure you can get some decent IDEs and even some UI design tools for free.... *IF* you know where to look, but documentation is sparse. Adding to this, there is no well defined Linux 'platform' (or *nix platform). You can make pretty likely assumptions about the kernel and glibc... and assume X if graphical (other alternatives are there, but far from mainstream). Beyond that, things become less certain. Qt, GTK+, Motif/Lesstif, Swing, and others are possible, likely toolkits, and with less certainty you can develop with Gnome and/or KDE, or if you want to be daring, you can use a relatively exotic language binding and require that. It all *can* work together, but it is an intimidating set of choices to have to make for a novice programmer, especially one that doesn't want to alienate users by requiring some library they don't have.

      OSX is just incredible. First off, compiler, headers, really nice IDE, all are free and standard (Project Builder). The platform is truly a complete platform and you can make use of any part of it without fear that an end user would lack the libraries required to run it. The API is quite elegant and straightforward. Additionally, there is one great factor that truly makes the sort of things an enduser would want to do very accessible. Interface builder. The hardest part to a novice programmer tackling simple problems is dealing with UI, and Interface Builder makes this so damn easy and the Cocoa framework really make it possible to abstract the code from the interface. Though Apple's applications are not open source, most everything an end user would want to do to them can be done through opening the .nib files in the resource bundle and going at it. My personal thing I tend to do is to make Address Book, iChat, Calculator, and Safari not use the damned Scratched Metal look. Without exposing code, users have a really easy to figure out way of modifying the Interface of Cocoa apps in drastic ways, and I think that is truly great.
  • 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
    • Wow. Throw out everything I constantly hear from winlots about "Macs don't have enough apps" and from linux zealots that "good apps come from coders scratching an itch." It's been a week, folks. Get some perspective.

      I guess if it's a mac, and looks purty, it will be ignored, dismissed, derided, criticised, then copied poorly. Rinse, lather, repeat.
      • Whoa, dude, take a chill pill. Settle down. I'm not attacking the concept--I'm asking for people's opinions on what future they see for tiny apps. As I said before, the contributed Konfabulator apps are rapidly falling into the old pattern established by dockapps; i.e., clocks, system monitors, and the like. What I want to know is if anyone can envision other uses for tiny apps that hasn't already been done to death. I'm looking for creative use of the tiny app paradigm that offers a fresh perspective on the idea. Think you can handle that?
        :Peter
  • 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.
  • 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 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 )
    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 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.
  • 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.

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