Filed under: Design, Developer, Windows, Productivity, Open Source
dotWidget your way to a cooler Windows desktop
by Grant Robertson Feb 19th 2007 at 3:30PM
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.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
cavalierex said 5:39PM on 2-19-2007
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!
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Daniel Foster said 7:02PM on 2-19-2007
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
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Jay Hash said 9:07PM on 2-19-2007
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
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thebobman said 9:47PM on 2-19-2007
And you would use this instead of Yahoo Widgets/Konfabulator.... why?
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Naseer said 4:26AM on 2-20-2007
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.
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rf said 1:00AM on 2-25-2007
Maybe because this can handle any language that can connect to it, instead of just java. Because java is a piece of crap!
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