Frogboy Frogboy

Blog: Sick of politics, widget grumbles.

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Blog: Sick of politics, widget grumbles.

from WinCustomize Forums

Well I don't know about you guys but I'm sick of politics. I'm predicting a Kerry win for whatever it's worth with 306 to 232 electoral votes. But frankly, as a political junkie, I'm just tired of it. Make it stop!

WinCustomize Magazine is being sent out. It takes forever to get fully sent out now with so many subscribers.  I think it's at M's now in the alphabetically sorted list.  The Utopia icons are mentioned in there. The official announcement comes next week.

I have to say that I'm a little disappointed with the DesktopX widget content. In fact, I'm pretty disappointed with the quality of widgets all around these days. Weather. Yea, we get it. Everytime I demo DesktopX people are amazed. I show how easy it is to create stuff for it and people are even more amazed. And yet the cool new content for it is a bit underwhelming.  It's the same for Kapsules and Samurize.

It's made me tempted to write an article about maybe all this widget stuff is only being used by such a tiny niche of users that it hasn't caught on beyond those of us who are really into this stuff.  I've looked at Konfabulator's widgets and numbers and they're pretty depressing too.  Weather, clocks, RSS feeds, MP3 players and calendars. That's the widget story at this point. 

One might argue that a smarter strategy would be to simply make a program that has highly skinnable simple programs that do those kinds of things and let people just make skins for them. It's a lot easier to skin things that already exist than to try to modify an existing widget. Maybe I'm just cynical but I am curious what you guys think.

I can think of quite a few widgets I would like to see: Currency conversion widget, Site meter web monitor widget, Google API based widgets, Printer widget, ImageShack widget. Just to name a few.

I don't want to sound like I'm dissing all the recent widgets. I can name quite a few cool ones too. But just the overall trend is a bit down. Martin created a ton of templates of interesting widgets and there's not much being done with them. So you tell me, people want this stuff? I thought with the hot keys to bring widgets to top people would use this more. I know I do. I use the talk radio widget a ton for instance. Plus a bunch of custom widgets I made.

The WindowBlinds contest has definitely gotten things moving along. It's really a close call right now.

18,638 views 41 replies
Reply #26 from WinCustomize Forums Top
"Sounds like somebody had a case of the Mondays..."

lol
Reply #27 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hey, it says I'm not authorized to edit my post. What's up with that?

Anyways, I don't use desktopX because I 'm not interested in the weather (look out window), mp3 player (winamp is far more powerful and accessible, especially with bluecave plugin), RSS feed (Blognavigator), clock (in objectbar), etc.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #28 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Are you psychic? I heard on the radio this morning that until Ohio is declared, the electoral count stands at Bush: 254, Kerry: 252. Now check out the graphic that's been up there forever....



MCN
Reply #29 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Here's a couple of things I'd like to see:
1. Virtual Desktop Object. Not like the white box thing that ships with DX, but something similar to the E pager (enlightenment.org) that shows mini-desktop screenshots.

2. I'd like to see the ability to use the current Windowblinds frame as the background for an object, maybe even the toolbox control. This would save skinners from having to create seperate versions of the objects for each WB skin. From my perspective since I change WB skins so often, my objects don't match anymore so I remove them.

3. Backgrounds for labels and icons as part of DX. My desktop is my workspace, so its not practical to create a DX object for each document/icon I have on there. IconX is the right tool, I'd just like to see some improvements.

4. Fix the bug that makes my objects move when I apply a new WB skin (only happens when taskbar is at the top of the screen).

5. ObjectDock Docklet Compatibility. Therte are some great docklets for ObjectDock that Avedesk users get to take advantage of as desklets. Why not add compatibility for these objects/docklets to DX?
Reply #30 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Personally, I like and use the widgets. Desktop X is just too unstable to use as a complete package.

Keep the widgets coming!

One more remark: regardless of how the widgets are produced (GUI or non-GUI), it's the end-user that decides whether the widget is valuable. Nit-picking over the method is foolish. Nit-picking over the method is like comparing the method at which a person arrives at Wal-Mart: horse and buggy, or bicycle. Either way, you WILL arrive at Wal-Mart.
Reply #31 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Interesting quote by Brad - "One might argue that a smarter strategy would be to simply make a program that has highly skinnable simple programs that do those kinds of things and let people just make skins for them"

So AveDesk then? j/j

One what might be to make a user interface like Samurize for creating widgets. This could also include links to plugins etc that could just be dropped into a widget. I think the controlling each object as a seperate entity (even though far more powerful) can be too much for some users, even say experienced graphics designers who have no interest in scripting?
Reply #32 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Fortunately, history has proven that skinners are more adept at altering a GUI than they are at political prognostication. Keep up the good work in the field you know best!

By: Citizen SierraBear
Reply #33 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Chi Chi (and others):
Personally, I still love SysMetrix as a free, skinnable, system monitor that does mail/trash/cpu/network/disk/weather/etc. monitoring. It runs at VERY low CPU/RAM usage, and is stable. To me, DesktopX has always been, and is still, a toy. I run WindowBlinds, WindowFX, and now ObjectDock Plus. And use a few other of my ODNT components. But DesktopX is waay too unstable, with too much CPU/RAM usage when anything is visible (which is the whole point of having it on your desktop, IMO). The whole widget idea to me seems a little silly. I do wish Stardock would have spent more resources fixing the bugs in their other products, and actually creating some of the other components they had promised for ODNT over 2 years ago (Image Viewer, anyone?), over the past year.
Reply #34 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This might be a stupid question, but is there a structured central location that users can post ideas for objects? I've just been browsing the Konfab (coming to Windows very soon by the way) and Ave Desk sites and saw two great ideas.

A Gmail notifier (really smooth with some transparency) from Konfab
and desktop shortcuts that display text on the side similar to how OS X does it with drives and such.
Reply #35 from WinCustomize Forums Top
From DesktopX 1.0 I've thought that's what should be done. You will never get people to learn how to code if they don't want to already. Definately the way to go, but without leaving in the development tools, you wont get people to make widgets.

It would reduce the number of objects in the DX library too. You'd actually need a new library format. Eahc "Object" would need to have a sub-category of skins for it.

What's needed is a middle-ground between the coder and the skinner. (few of us are good at both) Of course naturally i want everything, I want to make my objects skinnable without adding a lot of code.

It also doesnt help that DX is still unstable.
Reply #36 from WinCustomize Forums Top
i still don't use wigets because i don't like having 6 individual programs launched taking up 5-10 megs of memory each. its a pain if you have to clsoe them, its a pain when windows boots. and i could never get all of them to start up correctly, consistantly- or even function consistantly. its much easier to have desktop x manage objects - since it has to be installed anyway, and you get full control over the objects.

on that note, however, i still have some very strange problems with desktop x that limit my use of objects/wigets. i update and i update and i still have objects dissapear over time, their positions shift off screen (even when locked), or the objects themselves break down (for some reason, from time to time martin's search objects literally fall apart on my screen). i used to think these were just Athlon issues, but now my P4 machine is having objects dissapearing.

there are a few guys out there making some interesting wigets, but other than martin, i can count on one hand the number of people who have made objects/wigets that actually function correctly when i've tried them. its very hit or miss.

so.. i guess im saying my problem with these things is not that there is a narrow variety of toys, but that i find them far too often unreliable, unstable, or - when they work - resource hogs. its nice to have a dx calculator under your fingertips but not if its going to cost you 15 megs of memory. maybe i'm being too critical - but i'm not a gamer, i try to use these things to enhance productivity and still be resourceful. when you go to do a google search on the fly, or switch to a new desktop, and discover half of your objects are missing, now you have to go back and launch the browser, punch in google.com .. well its working against you.



side note: has anyone determined wigets can not be used destructively? i see the potential for them to follow the path of macros.
Reply #37 from WinCustomize Forums Top
They definately can be used Destructively. I'm guessing that WC admins monitor them when they are uploaded, but i think it would be better to expand the "Stardock Certified" system to better proclaim an object to be "safe".

I would volunteer to asist in that regard.

Some anti-virus programs have script-blocking which will halt any DX object until you approve it. This is a great feature but for someone who doesnt understand code, it's hard to knowledgably "approve" it. ...which is why I suggest a better Certification program.
Reply #39 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Frogboy,

I agree with you whole-heartedly.

In fact, today while sitting in one of my many meetings I was thinking
'I could use a DX-Widget to provide the functionality I am looking for - I better look at it's api'

I need a widget - almost like a mail-notifier or rss-feeder type thing that hooks into a WebService and retrieves an XMLDocument with Notifications. I could see this widget working like an EMail-Notifier that is on a scheduled (timer) basis and changes the icon based on new notifications, as well as a Count of different Types of notifications that our user would have.

I am excited about this potential opportunity and would love to explore this and possibly talk to you about using this technology in our solutions.

Thanks

Nut
Reply #40 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Brad
What's your thoughts on the suggestions that have been posted?
Reply #41 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Obviously just my personal opinion here, but I have had several very negative experiences with DesktopX, both versions 1 and 2. They tend to freeze on my computer. A lot. I think it might have to do with incompatabilities with other Windows-modding apps I have installed, but both versions usually lock up after less than five minutes of use.

When they don't lock up, they create more problems than they solve, and I never use them anyway. I have my computer set up how I like it, and when I try programs that are designed to increase your efficiency, they just end up getting in my way and slowing me down.

The only apps I enjoy using are ObjectDock and WindowBlinds, but I can't buy the full versions of either because the store doesn't accept PayPal! Rar.

In response to the actual newspost, I think one reason you're seeing a lack of new widgets may be that people have no need for them, as in my case. Admittedly, I'm not entirely sure of how DesktopX works because I uninstall it less than an hour after installing it (rebooting every five minutes is _not_ fun), so maybe it can improve efficiency, but I haven't seen that, and I don't think other people are convinced of its usefullness and potential either.