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Main Area and Open Discussion => General Software Discussion => Topic started by: masu on October 21, 2007, 06:56 AM
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Do you use Desktop Widgets?
Personally with the current CPU and RAM Power it doesn't matter, if there is an additional program in the background.
So at the moment I am playing around with Yahoo Desktop widgets, which is a nice addition to my current desktop.
It gives a slight Apple Imac Feel due to it's smooth animations.
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The only "widget" I currently use is ClocX.
http://www.clocx.net
I used to play with Konfabulator, but when Yahoo bought 'em I sensed a change in the "feel" of the experience -- more corporate, less fun -- and dropped interest shortly thereafter.
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I used to use Konfabulator (paid for it) then Yahoo Widgets. I found over time that as the program grew (Konfabulator 1 - 2, then to Yahoo Widgets 3 and now 4) it became increasingly resource intensive. Life Ralf, I stopped using Yahoo Widgets sometime after 3 was relesaed, but did try version 4 briefly a while back. It didn't last long. I've just doubled my RAM so was idly thinking about giving them another shot, but am not sure that I can be bothered - I can't think of any widget that I have tried that goes beyond the "gee whiz, neato" factor and can't conceive of any widget that would, either. Visually stunning, though...
I've also played with Stardock's DesktopX with the same results. In some ways, ObjectDock is the most useful to my mind. Despite having current licences for both ObjectDesktop and ObjectDock, I don't have either installed... boils down to the same rationale as for YWE - none of the widgets (or objects) really move me that much.
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The only "widget" I currently use is ClocX.
http://www.clocx.net
I used to play with Konfabulator, but when Yahoo bought 'em I sensed a change in the "feel" of the experience -- more corporate, less fun -- and dropped interest shortly thereafter.
-Ralf Maximus
thanks for the hint
the program looks good
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I don't use them, because normally I don't see them: the application covers the whole screen. The only "widget" I have is a changing wallpaper. I find such widgets, or desklets, too distracting and of questionable use for me.
However, I think userse should try as many tools and programs as they need until they have found the combination that suits them best.
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I've tried all sorts of widgets gadgets and what have you. I have found them all to be more or less useless to me, the ones that are useful, things like ram and cpu usage and disk space are more easily and to my opinion better sourced through other means, i don't want to know all the time what is going on in there, I just want to use it lol. And while i do use some of the object desktop suite, i limit it pretty much to the window blind, which seems to have no impact on the system, most of the time anyway, the right click which provides a useful, configurable program launching option and sometimes i use object dock, i sort of like it but its a bit time consuming to set up decently, easy enough, just time consuming, so i've got rid of it for now to.
But like housetier says, find what you like.
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Widgets?
Well I use ClockX - its cool clocx.fi.cx - looks good feels good - no end of faces & Desktop Calendar http://www.desktopcalendar.tk/ - before winXP put the date in the system tree I used a Widgets that did & allowed the date to be copied. Since I would use date copy every date to post date into things I asked Desktop Calendar to include it & he did. I use this program everyday - its fast & easy. That's about it on the Desktop. I use a dual monitor & have played with MultiMon Taskbar (free) & UltraMon (very good but shareware) When I go to use Scripe overseas I run Sharp World Clock - beautiful shows as many time zones as you want with lovely clocks etc http://www.programming.de/index.php - a great help & when I'm on a time limit I use Sharp Timer which he wrote for me to time my PowerPoint presentations. Johannes writes great programs I think
I was always a sucker for programers - when a young lad starts & unlocks what to me is a mystery I try to support them. I've been mucking about with computers since 1981 it takes all my time learn to be an "end user" let alone write the stuff :)
Don't ask about me system tray :(
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[Darwin asks timidly] What about the system tray?[/Darwin asks timidly]
I tried in vain to tame mine with the "hide unused icons" function built into windows before I found PS Tray Factory (http://www.pssoftlab.com/pstf_info.phtml) and took advantage of a DC discount to buy it. Has had a profound, positive, effect on my computer "experience".
Or were you referring to the "system tray" vs. "windows notification area" debate :)
Similarly, I've reined in the Quick Launch Bar with TrueLaunchBar (http://www.truelaunchbar.com/)
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Unless you have a widescreen, I can see no reason for desktop widgets. I only look at my desktop at PC Start and Shutdown [Edit: of for the fun of it (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=4782.msg74541#msg74541)]. When I want to take a break, I will start the screen saver. I don't understand the widget thing.
As Darwin, I am using True Launch Bar and PS Tray Factory. If I need (want) to see how my drive is doing, I will simply point at PS Tray Factory's tray icon, and all sorts of information will pop up. I find this to be smarter than to have to minimize all windows. The temperature outside my door, and the weather, and avaiable amount of RAM, and the CPU usage, are all being showed all the time in the task bar. I also could have the date shown all the time, if I wanted to, but I don't [Edit2: because I see it (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=4782.msg74639#msg74639) at every Startup, due to Webshots].
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If I need (want) to see how my drive is doing, I will simply point at PS Tray Factory's tray icon, and all sorts of information will pop up. I find this to be smarter than to have to minimize all windows.
-Curt
On XP press Windows Key + D to quickly minimize all Windows (same as Show Desktop button on the taskbar).
I use Samurize. Here's one of my configs. I have a multi Mon setup.
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I used to use Yahoo Widgets for the 1 Widget I really like (Sys Monitor) but since I had to minimize all the windows to see it, I switched to TrueLaunchBar. It's not quite as pretty, but I can dispaly anything I care to see.
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I use Samurize. Here's one of my configs. I have a multi Mon setup.-PhilB66
Samaurise looks nice on your computer Phil !!
does one still have to do a lot of customising of it to get it going AND looking good?
(I tried it briefly, or should i say -tried to try it- a couple of years ago but never got off the ground with it)
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Like so many others who've posted here I had a brief fling with widgets before realizing that they were mostly useless to me and banishing them forever.
I tried a few and Konfabulator Yahoo seemed the most polished (as far as looks are concerned anyway, under the hood it's an ugly resource hog).
One thing I like about widgets is that there are quite a few made for relaying live info on current sports events.
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3515 and 6250 rpm?! Jesus Christ, that should sound like a jet engine. Do you have a DFI motherboard as well?
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Nosh - couldn't agree more about Konfabulator/Yahoo Widget Engine being a resource hog. I double-dog dare you to go post to that effect on their user's forum. I used to hang out there a lot in the heady Konfabulator 1 and 2 days and briefly after Yahoo took over and any and all such talk was met with denial of their being a problem at all. I finally turfed YWE from my system when I realised that not only is it a resource hog (
lie ie started believing what my eyes and instincts were telling me over the howls of protest from the developers) but it's also not terribly stable. I recently (within the last two weeks) installed Yahoo Widget Engine 4.5 (or is it 4.05?) and it's a bit better but my system still took a noticeable hit AND I couldn't see anything there that I couldn't live without, so it's gone.
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I use Samurize. Here's one of my configs. I have a multi Mon setup.-PhilB66
Samaurise looks nice on your computer Phil !!
does one still have to do a lot of customising of it to get it going AND looking good?
(I tried it briefly, or should i say -tried to try it- a couple of years ago but never got off the ground with it)
-tomos
Yes, but that's the beauty of Samurize - endless customizing and skinning possibilities, and it uses very little resources (Memory and CPU). BTW, you could use Samurize on the taskbar and replace the tray clock with it as well. There are a few tutorials on its Website to get you started but the best way, IMO, to go about it is to download a config that you like, open it in the editor and see how it's been made. Check out these sidebar gadgets (http://halfwayglad.deviantart.com/art/Samurize-Vista-Sidebar-4-51864634) to see the posibilities.
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3515 and 6250 rpm?! Jesus Christ, that should sound like a jet engine. Do you have a DFI motherboard as well?
-Lashiec
Summers are pretty hot and humid in Hong Kong so I open the PC case and use the fan to cool off my toes ;). My machine is very quite and there's no need to control the fan speed. No, just a standard ASUS MB A8N-SLI model.
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My wife got back from Hong Kong on Oct. 19 and said it was unbearable! What's funny is that she's always complaining about the cold on Vancouver Island (I'm in shorts and a tee-shirt today and she is wearing multiple layers and shivering - I've escaped upstairs to my offcie and an open window to escape the fireplace).
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Darwin, i was just thinking of recommending Yahoo! Widgets to a colleague but after reading of your account of 'horror' performance, i think i'll have to look for an alternative.. :)
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Well... I dunno. Maybe try out YWE - YMMV! I'm a complete resource miser and am pretty intolerant of anything using any significant CPU/RAM if it's glorified eye candy. I'm also running an older Centrino with 64MB integrated video memory and 2GB RAM - if you've got a lot more graphics horsepower the hit on resources may not be nearly so noticeable.
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i'll have to take a look at his system.. most probably he'll be using on his desktop that is optimized for business, i.e shared memory & skimpy RAM (around 512mb).. :)
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Heh, heh, if that's the case, I wouldn't touch YWE with a barge pole!
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Yeah, it wasn't psycho-hungry like a badly programmed desktop search engine for instance, but it constantly consumed a fair share of my resources. I could afford to spare them for something genuinely useful which it simply wasn't.
Reg their forums, I know how clannish/blindly loyal people can get sometimes... it's best to leave them be. :)
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Nicely said, Nosh. Mirrors my sentiments exactly :Thmbsup:
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I have my fav widgets that I use, but rather than repeating with more scary screenshots of my desktop, you can just go here: https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=4782.msg79302#msg79302
A few posts after, I give links to all the widgets.
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Launchy indexes the programs in your Start Menu and the directories you want
and then you can start any of those programs by ALT+SPACE and typing the name of the program.
Download link
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=132975&package_id=146049
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What about the almighty farr? https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/findrun/index.html
;)
But, ahem, are these widgets?
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launchy and Find and Run Robot are not really widgets, at least by my way of thinking.
i was really thinking about desktop things that stay on screen and are usually part of a family of such things where you can choose which widget toys to show and where.
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from Wikipedia: :)
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• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget_engine
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i was really thinking about desktop things that stay on screen and are usually part of a family of such things where you can choose which widget toys to show and where.
-mouser
"Toys" is the operative word. To me, a widget is something fun and nice-to-have, but not integral to your desktop experience. You shut them down if they consume too much RAM or CPU cycles.
FARR and other programs of its ilk are utilities I would not consider shutting down.
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Thanks guys. It was more... how shall put it... a rhetorical question.
If farr was to be considered a widget, then we could put a whole bunch of apps in that category. For sure.
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I recently changed the position of the box and can no longer see the HDD LED - tried HDDLED Indicator (http://www.hddled.com/) which has tiny (movable) always on top lights for logical drives, physical disks or a single all-in-one light. It can optionally blink in the system tray or blink the keyboard scroll lock light (helpful if the monitors are off) - it's the only widget-ish thing that I think is unobtrusive+useful enough to last on my system. Very low on resource consumption too.
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What about the almighty farr? https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/findrun/index.html
;)
But, ahem, are these widgets?
-Armando
Find and Run Robot is a program for keyboard maniac's ;D
Thank's, a new title in my CV.
Gone try farr and see how I like it.
Widgets where I can see the weather in L.A or London ? no thanks
A useful widget anyone give me a tip :Thmbsup:.
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That's almost a haiku.
Find and Run Robot.
Weather widgets? No thank you.
A useful widget.
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That's almost a haiku.
Find and Run Robot.
Weather widgets? No thank you.
A useful widget.
-Ralf Maximus
:)
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Haiku developer http://haiku-os.org/ I'm not,
poet might be.
Snowy weather in Sweden
so a simple game for me.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/widget-workshop-the-mad-scientists-laboratory/
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This thread is degenerating quix
We need to inject some widgets in the mix
(I'm going to shoot myself in the head now as punishment for posting that ;D)
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A widget is a small useful single purpose tool. Outside of a computer, a magnifying glass, a pair of nail clippers, or one of those citrus peeler thingies (http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=746&f=5733) would be called widgets.
Yahoo Widgets, Konfabulator, Vista Gadgets are collections of widgets that rely on a common 'widget engine'. But a widget doesn't have to be part of a collection to be a widget, nor does it have to rely on a widget engine...it just has to do one thing....and be small.
A better synonym for a widget would be 'tiny tool'.
By all rights, most of Skrommel's tools (https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel) are widgets and I would call many of the coding snacks (https://www.donationcoder.com/CodingSnacks/index.php), widgets.
I wouldn't call FARR a widget because it is too complex and really does a lot more than one thing, but I would call mouser's DYDLO a widget.
So based on this definition, I think it would be safe to say that we all use widgets and it's just a matter of listing your favorite tiny tools to answer this question, or more specifically, the tiny tools that are always visible on your desktop, or at least visible when they are doing their job. Most tray tools (but not all) wouldn't be desktop widgets because they do their job from the tray and not on the desktop.
And for me, my 2 favorites would have to be my own DClock2 (http://appsapps.info/dclock2.php), and wordzilla's Pop-Up Cody (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=6800.0). They are the only desktop widgets that are always running that I would be more than quite annoyed if I had to close either of them for any reason.
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Widgets got old for me about a year ago. Now I just don't think they provide enough usefulness for the resource usage.
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Widgets got old for me about a year ago. Now I just don't think they provide enough usefulness for the resource usage.
-dlagesse1992
Well said, sir! EXACTLY my experience :)