APPLE, WIDGETS AND KONFABULATOR
At the recent Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, Cupertino based Apple Computer unveiled the details regarding its newest upcoming operating system known as "Tiger" to the attending audience consisting mainly of developers and members of the press. Tiger (OS X 10.4) is scheduled for release sometime in 2005. Displayed on the showroom floor were banners such as "Redmond, Start Your Photocopiers" that coyly poked fun at Longhorn, Microsoft's next version of Windows. The idea behind all the good-spirited fun was a kind of tongue-in-cheek implication that Microsoft might see something they like in Apple's latest OS and copy it into their own upcoming operating system. In reality, similarities between operating systems and their components crop up all the time and much of it comes from great minds thinking alike. But sometimes those similarities are so close that it can make you sit up and take notice. One developer was certainly sitting up and noticing when Apple unveiled the Dashboard feature in Tiger.
Dashboard is a semi-transparent layer that contains little running applications called "Widgets" that are designed to usually perform a single function. Examples of Widgets include calculators, clocks, stock market tickers, notepads, images from webcams, games and more. With Dashboard, you press a key and you see all of your Widgets appear. Click on any of them and use it. Press another key and they all instantly disappear. Load in only the Widgets you want at any time. Widgets are not only useful in their function, but they are usually beautifully rendered, giving them an almost real-world look and feel. It's a great idea whose time has come. Or did it actually come a few years ago? According to Arlo Rose, the creator of Konfaublator and president of the company that bears the same name, their product has been delivering Widgets to Macintosh desktops since 2002.
Konfabulator is a JavaScript runtime engine for Apple's OS X that lets you run little applications called Widgets. And they too let you do most anything directly on your desktop. Examples of Konfabulator Widgets include calculators, clocks, stock market tickers, notepads, images from webcams, games and more. To use Konfabulator, just run the application and a little gear icon appears in the upper right portion of your screen's menu bar. Click on it and a pull-down menu gives you control over them. You can install as many Widgets as you like. Just drag any Widget to any portion of your screen and there it will remain until you say otherwise. The Widgets are also beautifully rendered but unlike the ones from Apple, these seemingly become part of the desktop. You can choose to either have them float above any open window or choose to have it anchored firmly into the desktop itself. The latter choice lets you drag other windows over them. Some of them, like the digital clock for example, use clever edge techniques so as to make it look like it is partially pressed or embossed into the desktop background.
Konfabulator doesn't make any money from its collection of literally hundreds of Widgets but rather only from the shareware sale of the Konfabulator application itself ($25). Konfabulator has developed several Widgets that come with the program but the vast majority are developed by enthusiasts who write their own Widgets for free or as shareware.
According to Mr. Rose, it would have been nice for Apple to give him a call about all of this before, during or after but none was forthcoming. During my interview with him on the Computer America radio talk show, he said that he has no plans to further pursue the matter with Apple. However he has an interesting plan for Konfabulator that may well make his brand of Widgets an exclusive item once again. An upcoming version of Konfabulator is almost ready for the Windows platform. And every Konfabulator Widget that works on the Macintosh platform will also work on the Windows version without any further modifications. So developers will only have to invest their time creating one version of their Konfabulator Widgets. With the broader audience of both Windows and Mac, they will enjoy a more universal appeal that comes along with the potential of a much larger market.
So now when you go to the Konfabulator website's home page, you'll understand what's going on when you see their tongue-in-cheek banner that reads "Cupertino, start your photocopiers!"
www.konfabulator.com |
