Apple finally did something about the lousy widget management in Tiger. The new widget manager (called "Widgets") allows the user to launch, disable/enable, and delete widgets.
Why didn't the Widget Shelf do this? More importantly, why does the Widget Shelf need to exist at all now?
With the new manager, you can do everything the shelf did, and more, far more efficiently. At one point, I had 10 shelves full of widgets, and it took forever to find anything!
Really, Dashboard should have come with it's own dock. It would automatically appear when Dashboard was activated, and function just like the regular Dock.
But the new manager is good enough. Now that I've got it open, I'll never use the Widget Shelf again.
Um, how about simply including Daniel Øhrgaard's manager in the update instead? It would have been great recognition for Daniel's work. Instead, they just ripped it off.
Um, how about simply including Daniel Øhrgaard's manager in the update instead? It would have been great recognition for Daniel's work. Instead, they just ripped it off.
As nice as that would have been, how often does Apple do something like that?
Actually, I just spent some time googling for a factoid I heard long ago: some of the software included with system 8 or 9 had been developed as freeware/shareware, and Apple included it into the system with no alterations.
I can't find a reference on the net, and I can't remember which software it was. It was one or two small things, like desk accessories, I think.
Last edited by lpkmckenna; Jul 12th, 2005 at 10:27 PM.
Um, how about simply including Daniel Øhrgaard's manager in the update instead? It would have been great recognition for Daniel's work. Instead, they just ripped it off.
Why didn't they simply include Konfabulator and recognize Arlo and Perry's work, instead, they just ripped it off!
Why didn't they simply include Konfabulator and recognize Arlo and Perry's work, instead, they just ripped it off!
While they could have given more recognition to Arlo and Perry, the truth is that Konfabulator would never have been appropriate to include into the OS.
Konfabulator used a bizarre format for creating widgets. Dashboard's widgets are just web pages, making them far simpler to develop but more powerful.
Konfabulator was a resource hog. Dashboard is pretty lightweight.
Konfabulator didn't include Dashboard's virtual space. Konfabulator used its own Javascript engine. Dashboard uses the built-in one.
I think the technical reason's Apple didn't buy and use Konfabulator are pretty clear.
But in terms of the new widget manager, Apple's does nothing that Daniels' didn't. And Apple has made their own Shelf completely obsolete. I simply don't understand why Apple made the Shelf in the first place! It's the least capable interface Apple could have come up with.
Um, how about simply including Daniel Øhrgaard's manager in the update instead? It would have been great recognition for Daniel's work. Instead, they just ripped it off.
When a developer makes a utility designed to compensate for a (perceived) hole in OS X, he/she should not assume that Apple won't fill it eventually, too.
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