In the Windows world, dashboards became so popular that Microsoft decided to incorporate the concept into its OS as the task bar and task tray. With Tiger, though, Apple is taking dashboards and widgets to a new dimension. When activated, the service appears as a transparent layer over the desktop.
Tiger’s Dashboard Brings Widgets to New Dimension
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Konfabulator already does that on MacOSX *and* Windows. For a year or more.
Unlike what Apple wants to make you believe (again and again), this is not new, nor MacOS only.
Leo.
Microsoft had a separate initiative called “Active Desktop” that employed widget-type functionality. The taskbar and task tray were not intended for this purpose. The task tray was intended as a “notification area”, and was mis-used to be what it is today.
There are, however, many programs on Windows (including alternate shells) that provide widget functionality on the desktop. See Litestep, Serenade, GeoShell, etc.
@Leo
Konfabulator already does that on MacOSX *and* Windows. For a year or more.
Unlike what Apple wants to make you believe (again and again), this is not new, nor MacOS only.
You do realise that Dashboard is a rebirth of Desktop Tools that Apple had back in the 80’s well before Konfabulator ever existed?
If anything, Konfabulator is a copy of an original Apple concept.
Unix has been doing them for years and years and years. Interestingly enough, Steve’s company NeXTstep (from which OSX got its roots) was one of the ones doing it.
It’s just that you write them as webpages now and they’re dead simple and finger-licking pretty.
Microsoft had a separate initiative called “Active Desktop” that employed widget-type functionality.
IMO, Active Desktop are just border less Internet Explorer windows sitting around on the desktop, and they are resource hog….
I don’t see what all the craze is about. Dashboard will not make me more productive, and talk about a waste of system resources. Spotlight…now that’s a different story.
I think konfabulator was pretty honest about this: It’s not about being productive, it’s about being “fabulous”
None of this is new news, the article is increadably porly written as well…
by leo
“Konfabulator already does that on MacOSX *and* Windows. For a year or more.
Unlike what Apple wants to make you believe (again and again), this is not new, nor MacOS only. “
and from the article
“The announcement of Dashboard hasn’t been free of controversy. One third-party developer and former Apple employee, Arlo Rose, was reportedly outraged by the simularity between Dashboard and his US$25 shareware program called Konfabulator.
“There are aspects to it that are very similar,” Smith observed. “On the other hand, I have to say that Dashboard widgets is Konfabulator done right.”
“It’s pretty pointless to state that Apple stole the idea from Konfabulator,” Schoors added. “Apple just picks up general ideas and takes them to a whole other level.”
by patrick
I don’t see what all the craze is about. Dashboard will not make me more productive, and talk about a waste of system resources. Spotlight…now that’s a different story.
from the article
Any number of widgets can be displayed on the Dashboard, although moderation might be in order. “If you pull in a lot of them, they can be a memory hog,” Smith said. “If you load in 20 widgets to always be running, some of them are going to be better than others at their memory usage.”
“Basically, they don’t consume any resources if they’re hidden,” Schoors added, “unless they aren’t properly coded and still run in the background when hidden.”
“When Dashboard is active,” he continued, “I think [it would take] loads of them simultaneously in order to get your system messed up. Bandwidth-heavy widgets might clog your network connection, though.”
come on guys. RTFA
I’ve used Konfab and have had some experience with Dashboard and the Dashboard implementation is the best. We can argue all day who did it first, but in this instance IMHO Apple does it the best.
A lot of people will comment and will have ZERO experience with either much less have an idea how to turn on a Mac.
Why does something have to be completely innovative and brand new, to be useful? Seriously, I don’t care at all that konfabulator/desktopx/gdesklets/superkaramba/desktools/active-desktop already exists for a long time. What value do I get as a user by using a piece of software that was first?
could the maker of Konfabulator sue apple?
“A”
“could the maker of Konfabulator sue apple? ”
As others have pointed out, Apple is arguably the first who came up with the concept of ‘desktop widgets’.
Even if Apple used javascript – which they don’t – the K guy would stand little chance in court.
As was already stated, Apple had something similar back in the 80’s, and there are lots of other similar programs now. So there would be prior art, which means Konfabulator couldn’t have patented anything. No patent = No lawsuit.
JS only I mean. Dashboard uses html/css in addition.
@Leo:
Thanks, I didn’t know they made Konfabulator for Windows. Actually I thought it was a KDE application because of the name beginning with K.
Actually, Dashboard uses WebCore which means that it has access to javascript.. so you can make a javascript applet.. but it also has access to much more power because of the access to webcore.. you can make a widget connect to anything. the biggest diff between K and D is that D uses CSS and HTML to do the layout and K uses a specialized XML format.
the fact that D can do JS does not mean that it is a rip off though.. it is just one of the languages that can be used in widget logic.
The KDE version is SuperKaramba (surprise, the K is in the middle!)
And Gnome’s is gDesklets
The article does not say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Dashboard does not take any system resources. One of the best things that I have heard about recent OSX releases is that they work well with older hardware. This is encouraging in an age of bloatware. Dual G5’s may chew through your daily tasks and a plethora of widgets just fine. But what would happen on a G3 or G4 machine? The point I am trying to make is that too much emphasis is being placed on a piece of software that adds little more than eye candy. For $129, you had best get some great new features. Dashboard is not one of them. Spotlight is, of course there are many others as well. Reading the article does not answer how well older macs will handle Dashboard.
the article says that if the widget developer makes the widget correctly, then they will not take any resources!!! how much more definitive can you get?
the Apple widgets will not take any resources because they designed them right.. a 3rd party developer could design a widget to run all the time in which case it is either designed to or designed wrong.. that is not a dashboard problem, that is a program problem.
what it does say is that widgets dont consume ANY resources unless you bring up the dashboard.
imho, i find none of this stuff even remotely useful. but regardless, after reading a fairly short article which covered two issues widely discussed in places like this (performance and konfabulator), in the first page there were all kinds of people talking about performance issues and how they “stole” the idea from konfabulator.
Background processes on OS X ain’t too much a prob… on the udder side, well… that’s different.
Not only older Apple hardware, though, keep in mind that they JUST released their Mac Mini line. If I had bought one of those up straight away, I’d be pretty darn anxious to hear how Tiger performs on my Mac Mini, considering it’s still brand new.
No, it says if they are hidden then they will not take up resources. If you use the clock, stock tracker, or iTunes, then these, most likely, will be running in view, thereby taking resources. I have never heard of an application that does not use system resources.
I was lucky enough to see Tiger running on a 967MHz PowerBook G4. The widgets definitely get swapped out because there is a noticeable delay as they activate themselves. Not a big deal. I’d rather have this delay than have them consuming resources when they are not visible.
Compare that to my 2.4GHz wintel and I can still see windows redrawing themselves when the system gets busy doing nothing.
And consider this, even Microsoft research admits that 20% of the time on a PC, corporate users are not productive. WTF? 20% ?! Did that get factored into the TCO studies I wonder?
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,1052600,00.html
“Microsoft’s research shows that the average corporate employee spends about 20% of her time on the PC simply looking for items. ”
And were they all women?! ?
Well, I have Tiger running on a Powerbook that’s slower (processor MHz) and generally less advanced than your Mac mini (worse vid card, I think…) and 512 MB of RAM. Not a problem. It’s faster than Panther, everything works. I have some weird Airport problem where the signal is reporting lower than it should, but that’s the only problem I can think of. (and it might be unrelated to Tiger being installed)
So I wouldn’t worry.
And for those questioning the usefulness of Dashboard, it’s about as “useless” as Expose… which is to say that you can run your computer without ever using it and never have a problem– never even know it’s there. Or you could choose to use it, and it’s pretty useful.
It’s not that widgets haven’t been done before, but Apple’s way of doing it, they aren’t there until you activate them, so they don’t take up screen real-estate or anything. So far, I’ve found myself using the calculator, post-it notes, weather forcast, dictionary/thesaurus (which gives you OED entries), Wikipedia (which gives you wiki entries without opening a browser), and even (occasionally) the translation tool.
Only time will tell whether people keep developing useful widgets, or if you’ll start seeing a bunch of useless ones (as is my experience with most Konfabulator widgets). I’m pretty impressed, though.
Some writers like to throw in feminine pronouns for the sake of being politically correct. Sometimes they’ll even mix male and female pronouns in the same document. I suppose if you can’t appear genderless you might as well confuse the reader with an androgenous subject.
umm… that is not how dashboard works!!!
it is out of sight until you need to use a widget. they are not residents of the desktop like Kfab is.
and even if you did have the ability to keep a widget on the desktop.. how is that different then CHOOSING to run an application?
Im sick of this shit drop it konfabulator had EXACTLY and i mean EXACTLY the same shit years ago and they even ported to windows recently…. And now apple goes and releases it as part of there OS and gets praised!!!!!! MS cant even add simple programs to there OS without getting bitched at because it “kills a market” wow lets see apple just killed the widget systems and basically blatantly copied konfabulator down to a T. i mean jesus look at 2 screen shots the shits nearly identical there wasnt even an attempt to cover it.
But once again supposedly apples the best thing since sliced bread.
There were a dozen write ups on how great konfabulator was and how it revolutionized how widgets were used… and 3-4 months later now apple says wow we’re including “Desktop” our widget engine LOL give me a break they just once again killed the little guy.. just like sueing that evangalist site… atleast MS left some of there people they sued off with a small fine or community service.
what ever happened to he/she and his/hers and him/her?
I have to disagree with it not being more productive. For me, it will definitely increase productivity. Let’s take two examples, calculator and transltor. I use these two occasionally. On Panther, I can either put both in the dock (ie Sherlock for translator), and have them waste space there, which isn’t cool. Or, I can navigate to them in the filesystem or start-menu equivalent (ie i have my Applications folder in the dock), and this is lengthy when i want to use them quickly. Or, i can use the web to get to web-page based equivalents. All of those methods waste time getting to the utilities. With dashboard, I could bring them unto the screen instantly and not waste any time. I think it’s good.
I have never used Dashboard, but from the QuickTime demos on the Apple website, it looks like they would be running on the desktop until you told them to go away.
HAHAH im sorry last post i swear… but had to say it…
If MS is going to “build on your idea” atleast they have the piece of mind to buy the opposing company out… i mean had MS done “Desktop” they woulda atleast bought the idea out from konfabulator and he woulda been happy no not apple they just say wow great idea… now lets screw u over and do it better.
I see the point about Dashboard not being a killer app exactly. But, looking ahead I do think that this will start to become very useful. Remembering Konfabulator, it was always a bit clunky and difficult to make your own Widgets. What it seems Dashboard does is make it a lot easier for anyone with some web design experience to make these things. Add to that the ability to hook into the OS and use XHTML/CSS/JavaScript and I can imagine a whole community cropping up around these things. They’ll do one thing and do it well and you’ll pick what is useful to you. I believe some very ingenious Widgets will become available as a result of this feature.
Nothing against Konfabulator, but I just like this implementation better (And I have paid for Konfabulator in the past.)
As far as Apple pushing this over other features, I think a lot as to do with this being something that the average computer user can see fitting into their computer use. Things like looking up a word definition real quick, using a calculator or checking the weather. Checking flight times and the rest.
I have a lot of shareware that I use because I like these features, but some make the system unstable or they just get in the way too much. I can personally do away with most of these small apps which take up to much resources. That may be good or bad for the shareware community, but they can come back in the form of Widgets if they like.
See, I think Automator and Spotlight are better candidates for the marketing push, but Automator is difficult to explain until you use it. The fact that this very simple point and click interface for scripting can be used to make very powerful workflows is exciting to me. Smart Folders also seem useful as even though I’m very organized, there’s many things I can imagine doing with this.
Also, Konfabulator, before Apple announced Dashboard, ran as part of the Desktop background. This was not exactly the most useful implementation. It is only after Apple demo’d Dashboard at WWDC, that they made Konf work the same way as it (ie being able to bring them up, and then make them disappear instantly). As far as I can see, the Exposé-like functionality is original to Apple – no one had it or talked about it before they demoed it. And this functionality, ie being able to bring them up and hide them instantly, is what makes the feature great. So stop whining about how Apple copied Konf – it’s their own stuff.
calculator is a super example of why kind of widgets would be useful to general desktop use… why start up calc.app when you can just middle click you mouse or f12 or what ever?
same for wikipedia searches and dictionary lookups and thesaurus and stickies!!! stickies have been useless time because they waste space and get covered up… with dashboard stickies, I can look at them quickly,… and then get them out of the way with a click.
Konfab was nice, but not everyone had it or saw the value in having it.. now, everyone will have a widget system and people can buy widgets that they think would be useful to them, or make their own. DB has gotten the same kind of reaction that expose had. but when you use expose as a workflow solution, it makes multiple window management super easy, the secret is to make the corners activate expose features.
If you try to say that this isnt a copy of konf and its there own stuff than thats saying that the google patent for highlighting search results was a fair patent to grant lol
Dashboard is nice. In the world we live in today, similar products coexist and compete. Konfabulator is great as it adds similar functionality to Windows. Apple is all about UI functionality polished with eye candy — thats what sells. For the uninformed the eye candy will grab them and pull them in. Go to a store with Tiger on a machine and do your own experience. Joe Bob consumer will be utterly amazed at the glitter and polish of MacOS X and features like Dashboard. “Hey! Sally Jean! Come on over here and look at this. This thing even tells you what the weather is going to be on this here desktop. That is the darnedist thing I have ever seen! I bet Billy Joe is going to freak out when we tell him about this.”
interesting point chris.. would you say google ripped off altavista?
they are both search engines.. but google was so much better that it barely makes sense to compare the two
Until the general public gets a hold of Dashboard, it is premature to declare one superior to the other.
The 1980’s vintage desk accessories were completely different from Dashboard and friends. First of all, they were trying to solve a different problem: computers did not have multitasking back then, so desk accessories were needed in order to access something as simple as a calculator. Second, the implementation was different: desk accessories were most closely related to drivers, while it sounds like Dashboard is most closely related to web pages. Third, how you use them is quite different. Dashboard is best described as an extension to Expose, while desk accessories were used like small applications.
Desk accessories fell out of favour with System 7 for a very good reason: there was no advantage to using, and they were very difficult to create. Dashboard attempts to overcome both issues.
Dashboard is annoying, because you can’t see anything until you click (or press a key).
I’d much rather see the widgets as a 8-15% translucent floaties that were editable only when you activated Dashboard. I mean, there’s a world clock, but you can’t see it unless you kit the key (or click). There’s a stock price graph (and quote list), but it only updates when dashboard is active.
Plus, the calculator sucks. The calculator color scheme is really great, though, as is the new little calendar’s color scheme. That red and orange is really excellent.
There isn’t any real slowdown due to dashboard, as far as I can tell.
As for desk accessories, DA’s were created for convenience (like the ubiquitous calculator). The Mac was single-tasking, and the only way to have something “get time” was to make it a driver…a special kind of driver that could have an interface, etc. In later versions DA’s got their own UI layer, so when you switched to one DA you’d switch all of them in.
DAs never fell out of favor per se. It just became easier to write small apps than to write DAs, since you could now stick your own Applications into the Apple menu.
Dashboard isn’t an extension of Expose, it’s really like the old DA layer. And each Dashboard widget is basically a small web application. Heck, I was just playing snake a few minutes ago. Maybe someone will port MAME to Dashboard, just for kicks.
From the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desk_Accessory
Image included.
“In the operating system for the Apple Macintosh computer, a Desk Accessory (DA) was a piece of software, originally written as a device driver, conforming to a particular programming model. The purpose of this model was to permit very small helper-type applications to be run concurrently with any other application on the system.”
From the apple website:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/dashboard/
Images included.
“Dashboard is home to widgets: mini-applications that let you perform common tasks and provide you with fast access to information.”
Sounds like the same idea, different implementation.
I dig this idea, it’s very close to that of a workspace metaphore. I would like to see Apple embrace the workspace.
I’ve just read through the comments here, and there is one stiking thread running through this, just like always.
If you own a Mac, then you think Dashboard is great, otherwise you will probably bag it. Not always the case, but pretty consistant.
I know Apple had Desk Accessories first (I still have a Mac SE at home running ’em), but I don’t believe Apple would have Dashboard in the form that it is now if it wasn’t for Arlo IMHO.
What does that mean?, means Arlo great idea was to make them colourful and nice looking, (I guess if the 128k Mac had colour, maybe they would have looked nicer too). Being able to create them easily was a great thought too, though not as original…
Dashboard also creates another desktop above the normal one, the main difference between the way WinNT+ does this is that Apples is trasparents (and ripples ;-)… If you’re not sure what I mean, when you press Ctrl-Alt-Del on XP, your normal desktop is hidden by a blank background and a dialogue asking if you want to start the task manager, log out, shutdown etc… This is another desktop “above” your current one running an app to display the dialogue.
Apples idea was to put widgets on top of a trasnparent desktop. As far as I know, that hadn’t been done before. The advantage is, unlike Konfobulator, the widgets get out the way. I really liked Konfobulator, but got rid of it for that very reason.
I was playing with 10.4 last night and liked the way they are implemented now. Much better than the way we “think” they will be done in Longhorn, hopefully MS will look at what Apple is doing here…
If Apple had just copied Arlo, I’d still find them annoying… It’s evolution baby…
Tried to like Konfabulator – looked really promising, ultimately though, it hogged resources, widgets were unreliable (those relying on internet connection, for instance would intermittently quit displaying information) and was a major resource hog.
This really is about the evolution of an idea – not of ripping off the ‘small guy’. If you want to complain about Apple’s behavior, look to the Watson debacle, and the fallout from the recent publishing of ‘iCon’. With regard to the legal wranglings, I’m with Apple.
But I digress… Arlo Rose indeed gave desktop accessories a beautiful graphic treatment. A beautiful Aqua® treatment that is – undoubtedly influenced by Apple’s work. Design is a process, and Arlo and others are taking the Aqua look and doing some wonderful things with it..
Having said that, I think Dashboard WILL make me much more productive as Expose has. These are not simply eye-candy items… I credit Apple with their discipline in this regard – they could go waaaaaayy overboard with bells and whistles, but have shown great restraint, leaving the ‘ooooohhhs’ and ‘ahhhhhs’ for things that make sense. This OS is gonna rock!
how is having them out of the way annoying? they are tools that you use periodically enough to make them easy to access but not enough to make them sit on the desktop. that is not annoying , that is keeping them out of sight until I need them.. my stapler and pencils and ruler and calculator and post its are in my drawer.. I open it and use the tool I need when I need it and it is easy to access.. I close it when I do not need them.. I do not have hem sitting on my desk taking up work space when I do not need them.
if they were translucent things they would blur the desktop.. if they were residents thy would have to be under the windows which means I had to move the Windows to use one… it is easier to hit a button or click a mouse button or flip the mouse to the corner.
restraint as in no doing some weirdo function where you can view the windows from the side because you can? yeah.. I saw a longhorn preview that did that and thought”that is cool.. but how is it useful?
If Apple hadn’t done dashboard, eventually people would have started asking why they hadn’t as such and such can do it…why not OS X…see OS X is lame because it can’t. Of course since OS X does, now of course they are just ripping off Konfabulator, err… gDesklets…, oh yeah…Apple’s Desktop Accessories back in the 80s.
Why is it that a computer is nothing more than a huge calculating machine, yet neiter major OS’s come with a decent calculator? I hate Windows’, and the new OS X one is even smaller and less useful. It seems like it would be easy to make a program that could be any calculator you wanted. An advanced graphing calculator, a simple four function calculator, a Reverse Polish Notation calculator, whatever you wanted. Now, coming to my point: The reason I like OS X’s dashboard is that it now allows a simple program to be made to do this. Were I to buy a Mac (which I may for college) I could download the exact kinds of calculators I needed, and make my own if none were available. And, they would be an integrated part of the OS still, not some registry ruining shareware app. That is why I think the dashboard is quite a good feature. And as to copying all the other widget implementations, it seems that this is just business, and I personally like having things directly in my OS rather than installed over it. Makes things clean.
You’re right, it is pretty weird that the calculators suck.
They did update the Calculator.app in OSX though. It now has a very spiffy ‘programmer’ mode with ascii/unicode/binary, binary shifting operatins, AND/OR/XOR etc. Very cute
Why is it that a computer is nothing more than a huge calculating machine, yet neiter major OS’s come with a decent calculator? I hate Windows’, and the new OS X one is even smaller and less useful. It seems like it would be easy to make a program that could be any calculator you wanted. An advanced graphing calculator, a simple four function calculator, a Reverse Polish Notation calculator, whatever you wanted. Now, coming to my point: The reason I like OS X’s dashboard is that it now allows a simple program to be made to do this. Were I to buy a Mac (which I may for college) I could download the exact kinds of calculators I needed, and make my own if none were available. And, they would be an integrated part of the OS still, not some registry ruining shareware app. That is why I think the dashboard is quite a good feature. And as to copying all the other widget implementations, it seems that this is just business, and I personally like having things directly in my OS rather than installed over it. Makes things clean.
Calculator.app – Basic, Scientific, Programmer mods. Currency, Area, Energy, Temperature, Length, Weight, Speed, Pressure, and Volume conversions.
Grapher.app – 2d and 3d graphing calculator.
Both integrated with OSX. I dont see what more you could possibly want.
A TI-89 maybe?
a Mod Button!!!!!!
:-p
no really I know how to get the mod, I was joking.
“Microsoft’s research shows that the average corporate employee spends about 20% of her time on the PC simply looking for items. ”
And were they all women?! ?
You know how women tend to store unimaginable arrays of things in their purses.
Why is it that you warn that
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