Were widgets overhyped?
Do you really use widgets? Really?
Saturday, March 24, 2007 by Frogboy | Discussion: Skinning
Years ago Stardock developed DesktopX with had the concept of putting "live objects" on the desktop. If you check out the DesktopX object gallery and look at the really old ones, you can see what was envisioned -- something beyond icons but not quite mini applications.
When Konfabulator was released, 3 years later, it got so much attention that everyone suddenly assumed there was a huge demand for "widgets". And the world was blessed with thousands of weather, stock, and other "mini applications" and the creation of live objects seemingly disappeared.
But do people use widgets? I have to admit, on my system, I rarely have any widgets running. They look cool in a screenshot. By contrast, I DID use desktop objects even if they were largely cosmetic.
The line between desktop objects and widgets is very blurred. People were making clocks and calendars and weather and media player objects right from the start. But for the most part, people were doing what amounts to creating smart icons .
So I'm curious, how many people out there are using widgets. If not, would you use desktop objects if people were making them?
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thomassen
Reply #22 Sunday, March 25, 2007 11:48 AM
Reply #22 Sunday, March 25, 2007 11:48 AM
I use gadgets.
Sidebar gadgets: conversion, calender, notes, weather
DexktopX: Underground Travelnews and some of my other projects.
Sidebar gadgets: conversion, calender, notes, weather
DexktopX: Underground Travelnews and some of my other projects.
Phoon
Reply #23 Sunday, March 25, 2007 11:50 AM
Reply #23 Sunday, March 25, 2007 11:50 AM
My sentiments pretty much mirror the comments made by vStyler in #6.
If I need the temp outside I can quickly pull up weather.com or any one of a million sites, or simply look at the thermometer. If I want to see the weather forecast I pull it up, look at it and I'm done with it. There is no practical reason to keep a weather widget running all the time. If the weather is changing that quickly I should think it time to seek shelter.
Time and calendar... Yep, it's right there on my systray. I check my email in outlook and my calendar events are in outlook as well.
Widget media players are nice, but honestly, If I am listening to music, my stereo does a much better job and sounds better than my PC. If I need to listen to an mp3 or cd on my PC, well... WMP is there, it does ALL I need it to do.
Yes, RomanDA's thread says quite a bit on this. (has stardock even acknowledged the thread yet? The last I looked it was being ignored like the plague, from SD)
I think the only thing that is going to make Widgets a success is breaking away from the normal and routine type of objects that are being created, and find a new whiz-bang popularity item. The only ones that I have seen that are even approaching this realm are Vad and Roman. The average skinner just does not posses the coding skills. These guys do possess both.
If Stardock is worried about the future of DX in a widget capacity I would think the logical thing to do would be to follow through on one of your "How Stardock let down the community" items. Get some professional, quality documentation out there for the products. Coding is something that is too complex for the average power user even unless proper, well structured documentation is provided. Tutorials, vids, the whole works.
PLEASE, let's not have any Weather Widget authors get in a snit about this either. Their work is fine and they make some beautiful pieces.
Carry on...
If I need the temp outside I can quickly pull up weather.com or any one of a million sites, or simply look at the thermometer. If I want to see the weather forecast I pull it up, look at it and I'm done with it. There is no practical reason to keep a weather widget running all the time. If the weather is changing that quickly I should think it time to seek shelter.
Time and calendar... Yep, it's right there on my systray. I check my email in outlook and my calendar events are in outlook as well.
Widget media players are nice, but honestly, If I am listening to music, my stereo does a much better job and sounds better than my PC. If I need to listen to an mp3 or cd on my PC, well... WMP is there, it does ALL I need it to do.
Yes, RomanDA's thread says quite a bit on this. (has stardock even acknowledged the thread yet? The last I looked it was being ignored like the plague, from SD)
I think the only thing that is going to make Widgets a success is breaking away from the normal and routine type of objects that are being created, and find a new whiz-bang popularity item. The only ones that I have seen that are even approaching this realm are Vad and Roman. The average skinner just does not posses the coding skills. These guys do possess both.
If Stardock is worried about the future of DX in a widget capacity I would think the logical thing to do would be to follow through on one of your "How Stardock let down the community" items. Get some professional, quality documentation out there for the products. Coding is something that is too complex for the average power user even unless proper, well structured documentation is provided. Tutorials, vids, the whole works.
PLEASE, let's not have any Weather Widget authors get in a snit about this either. Their work is fine and they make some beautiful pieces.
Carry on...
bmetelsky
Reply #24 Sunday, March 25, 2007 12:29 PM
Reply #24 Sunday, March 25, 2007 12:29 PM
For me, the novelty of widgets, gadgets, objects wore off some time ago. I really don't have any use for them. I do like to use windowblinds, iconpackager, curserxp along with some great wallpapers.
tjesterb
Reply #25 Sunday, March 25, 2007 12:41 PM
Reply #25 Sunday, March 25, 2007 12:41 PM
I'm with vstyler and Phoon, gadgets/widgets just reproduce information I already have somewhere else, albeit with much more style.
The only gadgets I would find useful are rss readers, but no one seems to have produced one that works consistently.
I'm looking into what it takes to code a reader. Maybe someone with skinning skills can make it pretty if I get it figured out.
The only gadgets I would find useful are rss readers, but no one seems to have produced one that works consistently.
I'm looking into what it takes to code a reader. Maybe someone with skinning skills can make it pretty if I get it figured out.
rabidrobot
Reply #26 Sunday, March 25, 2007 1:20 PM
Reply #26 Sunday, March 25, 2007 1:20 PM
I don't usually use widgets or dx gadgets. I like DX as much as anyone here, but I have found that even the simplest widgets crap out at some point. Either they start forgetting where to be positioned, or losing settings, or confusing visibility status, responding slowly or eating memory.
I do like the super icon concept, and used AveDesk with Windows-XP for cool shortcuts, simple meters, and drop style ico<->png and ftp desklets. I am using Windows Sidebar for things like this now.
I prefer having things running under one process, as do most if the popularity of DX-desktop themes over widgets is any indication, but having a dozen or so super icons can start to get unwieldy to create in DesktopX--each themselves consisting of several DX-objects--but still contained in the more focused widget engines. DesktopX is so generally powerful that some of the more interesting widgets are just a focusing of capabilities. Take my Blister-DX meters widget, just as an example. I think it is a cool widget because it exposes a neatly interacting subset of DesktopX capabilities--system monitoring, basic positioning and layout, and color shifts. And c242's Skinnable SysInfo gadget set is awesome because it collects together and maintains for the user a set of the most useful widgets.
Widgets weren't over-hyped. They can, are, and will be popular as clocks, weather infos, and meters on the desktop and on web-spaces and mobile devices. And Desktop-X wasn't over-hyped either.
But the mini-applications of DesktopX are more like widget engines themselves than actual widgets. And the investment : reward ratio for designing and developing mini-applications with DX goes into the red pretty quickly as the number of objects required makes navigation in a list view cumbersome and the complexity invariably introduces mysterious bugs...for something you will most likely be giving away for free it becomes hard to justify the time.
But people are still innovating in the gadget area, particularly with Windows Sidebar. I think the Sidebar captive-audience will encourage more people to develop gadgets, but even with that there is a diminishing return on making things complex and interesting. But there are some cool branded weather gadgets, a decent sudoku gadget and others for the Sidebar that are actually pretty cool. People are still exploring the limits and pushing the envelope with the Sidebar, and with DX supporting it as an export format, among other innovations, it has potential--people are still designing gadgets almost exclusively to be docked, for example, but the sidebar supports traditional undocked desktop gadgets too (or both). I predict applications will have "satellite" objects available as Gadgets for the Sidebar soon, much like a media-player gadget controls a media player app, there may be gadgets for basic functions of your browser, calendar, or email, or search.
Well. I obviously don't think widgets and gadgets have been over-hyped. I can talk about them on and on...
I do like the super icon concept, and used AveDesk with Windows-XP for cool shortcuts, simple meters, and drop style ico<->png and ftp desklets. I am using Windows Sidebar for things like this now.
I prefer having things running under one process, as do most if the popularity of DX-desktop themes over widgets is any indication, but having a dozen or so super icons can start to get unwieldy to create in DesktopX--each themselves consisting of several DX-objects--but still contained in the more focused widget engines. DesktopX is so generally powerful that some of the more interesting widgets are just a focusing of capabilities. Take my Blister-DX meters widget, just as an example. I think it is a cool widget because it exposes a neatly interacting subset of DesktopX capabilities--system monitoring, basic positioning and layout, and color shifts. And c242's Skinnable SysInfo gadget set is awesome because it collects together and maintains for the user a set of the most useful widgets.
Widgets weren't over-hyped. They can, are, and will be popular as clocks, weather infos, and meters on the desktop and on web-spaces and mobile devices. And Desktop-X wasn't over-hyped either.
But the mini-applications of DesktopX are more like widget engines themselves than actual widgets. And the investment : reward ratio for designing and developing mini-applications with DX goes into the red pretty quickly as the number of objects required makes navigation in a list view cumbersome and the complexity invariably introduces mysterious bugs...for something you will most likely be giving away for free it becomes hard to justify the time.
But people are still innovating in the gadget area, particularly with Windows Sidebar. I think the Sidebar captive-audience will encourage more people to develop gadgets, but even with that there is a diminishing return on making things complex and interesting. But there are some cool branded weather gadgets, a decent sudoku gadget and others for the Sidebar that are actually pretty cool. People are still exploring the limits and pushing the envelope with the Sidebar, and with DX supporting it as an export format, among other innovations, it has potential--people are still designing gadgets almost exclusively to be docked, for example, but the sidebar supports traditional undocked desktop gadgets too (or both). I predict applications will have "satellite" objects available as Gadgets for the Sidebar soon, much like a media-player gadget controls a media player app, there may be gadgets for basic functions of your browser, calendar, or email, or search.
Well. I obviously don't think widgets and gadgets have been over-hyped. I can talk about them on and on...
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Reply #21 Sunday, March 25, 2007 7:06 AM
Don't Worry about DX (for themes/widgets/gadgets/or objects) i can said that here in france Informatics Newspapers are ok to said that konfu is more simple but that DX (and others SD softs) are simply more powerful, more difficult to make but with more possibilities ( An idea of this possibilities ).
for answer at your last question an example i have made a simple analog clock in widget and in object result:
Vista DX analog clock (object)
2185 dl overall
Vista DX analog clock (.exe)
1543 dl overall