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dotWidget your way to a cooler Windows desktop
Easy to install, and with a very shallow learning curve, dotWidgets shows some amazing potential. It doesn't completely mirror the functionality of Apple's widgets however, it makes a valiant and very eye-candy heavy attempt. Widgets can be written by anyone with light scripting knowledge (so says the developer) and are packed in zip files with a special "widgetz" extension. I've not yet dug into developing my own dotWidget but, I'm finding myself extremely tempted.
A selection of add-on Widgets are available from the dotWidgets site and, although I've found them to be hit-or-miss, there are some definite gems among the collection.
Take the jump for a few bonus detail shots of my own dotWidget setup.
Comments
6
Subscribe to commentscavalierexFeb 19th 2007 5:39PM
I recommend Stardock's DesktopX (http://www.stardock.com/products/desktopx/), which can do oh-so-much more. Sample objects and stand-alone widgets (aka gadgets) are available at: http://wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?libid=34 , as well as http://www.desktopgadgets.com/.
By the way, Stardock makes a lot of other desktop customization software, such as ObjectDock (like Konfabulator), WindowBlinds (skins the whole GUI) and IconPackager (deploys icon sets for all Windows components and file types).
I have no connection to Stardock... I just love these products!
Daniel FosterFeb 19th 2007 7:02PM
dotWidget looks great!
If you're willing to install the .Net Framework 3.0 on your Win XP box you can run a number of apps that look and act very Vista-esque by employing Windows Presentation Foundation.
The best list of WPF apps that I've been able to find is here:
http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/WPF.ApplicationPortfolio
My favorite is NoteScraps, a post-it note app that is the paragon of simplicity: http://www.NoteScraps.com
Of course, I'm biased because I work for the company that produced NoteScraps. :-) But since it's free to try, you can check it out and see what you think!
-Daniel
Jay HashFeb 19th 2007 9:07PM
I recently got the Vista transformation pack for my XP, which included Thoosje's Gadget Bar 1.77. I have to say that having the widget style objects on the desktop is a welcome addition, but I'm getting a bit sick of the fact that it only has so many (some of which I'll never use) and you can't get new ones. I agree with poster #1 in that Stardock has some amazing applications that hybridize the Vista gadget bar and the OSX Application Dock. I'm seriously thinking about uninstalling Thoosje's bar and installing Stardock's Desktop X.
Only problem is that Thoosje's came bundled with the Vista Transform pack and I don't think I can just uninstall it without having to install the transform pack.
On the other hand I probably could uninstall the Transform pack and just use Desktop X and WindowBlinds from Stardock and achieve the same result.
Eh, it's a toss up.
~JYH
thebobmanFeb 19th 2007 9:47PM
And you would use this instead of Yahoo Widgets/Konfabulator.... why?
NaseerFeb 20th 2007 4:26AM
Looks like a rip off of the Yahoo Widget Engine. Why reinvent the wheel ?
YWE widgets are easy to code too, using just javascript and an XML file.
rfFeb 25th 2007 1:00AM
Maybe because this can handle any language that can connect to it, instead of just java. Because java is a piece of crap!