Konfabulator!

Hopefully the hype hasn't killed the product... You know, like what happened with the Segway. It was all hyped that it was great and everything... And then it ended up not being that great and no one cared. Let's hope Konfabulator can satisfy everyone's hopes and desires.

Well, the hype on this one is pretty real for the most part - they've done a fantastic job and some really talented people are building some really neat widgets for launch! I'm sure it will be extremely awesome, but I can't really say any more

are there any screen shots of this new theme?

Yeah, there are several but it's impossible to keep track of them because they kept changing the theme design (wait... I mean they have too many widgets)

Screenshot of confabulator is here.

Adam

It's not a theme... But a scripting dealy thingy. <- yep.

oh. you said "widgets" so i thought you were talking about a theme. so what does this program do?

If you look at the screenshot posted in an earlier reply, it does that. You know, those little transluscent things on the desktop. With many widgets, you can display all kinds of things on the desktop...

well....but how may cpu will take this?
and....i will need a 23' Cinema Display to make those big things usefull?!

It's actually a powerful scripting environment/interface construction combination that essentially allows you to build some complex, custom-skinned devices that can do pretty much anything you can imagine. The obvious things like clocks, weather and iTunes remotes are amongst the 'widgets' but it's also capable of doing some very innovative stuff as well... the flexibility and power of this program will become much more apparent once the ball gets rolling.

I heard its powered by Java or something. I will only code widgets if an Objective-C Cocoa SDK is provided But it looks cool, hell yeah it does.

Konfabulator reminds me of a PC program called Desktop X. It allows users to pretty much create their own desktop. If Konfabultor is anything like it, it'll be sweet!!

I saw the screenie for this ages ago and have been looking forward to it ever since. I can't wait, i can't wait, i can't wait...

I absolutly hate the website for DesktopX, somehow, they managed to make it FEEL like I'm using windows when looking at that page. BLECH, as for Konfabulator, I'm about to have an anurism in anticipation!

Hurry up days, speed by!!!!

Mac Guru

Anyone for a drug-induced coma? The days will just fly by...

ROTFL. You made me laugh and that is good for my health. Hehehe.

Checked out the site. I must say this looks pretty darn sweet.

Just counting down the days now.

$?

so what exactly is Konfabulator? I mean, what all can it do? Just anything?

For the last time: It runs desktop "widgets" which float over your desktop and do plain stuff like control itunes and some more amazing things.

sorry to ask agian also, i catch it runs widgets, that act like apps, and they are kinda like embeded on the DT right? but they don't show up in the dock correct? hiw much CPU is this thing gonna sux? any one know? thanx, can't wait to try it also!

I don't think it will use a great deal of CPU, but look on the site for more info.

There has been many a discussion about this in the forums.

Adam

Am I the only one who can't wait for this?

Looks very cool -
I just read that it will be available (on the new website) at the stroke of midnight PST. Since I'm on the east coast of the US, I might just have to wake up extra early to try it out.

Its going to cost $25... hopefully I can try before I need to buy.

25 bucks is a lot in this game of computer shareware business,

but this product seems like it can handle it

Where'd you get that price? Did Arlo mention it on his forum and me just not see it?

Damn $25 bucks is a lot for an app like this, guess I'll have to sell a kidney

Sell a kidney?!

I read it somewhere today... MacOSZone.com or something it was called. Arlo stated that it would be $25 in an article.

If its good enough I will pay, but it better be worthwhile.

I hope they can make a visuliser that works like Audio Hyjack. (Capture the sound from all apps) and run it on the desktop.

Captain Kangaroos




about 6 hours left......


I hope there is an iChat thingy where it captures your open IChats, put them into a list, and then updates you on if you have a new message or not!

Its out and its class


theres 6 third party widgets out as well

http://konfabulator.deskmod.com/?site=konfabulator

The download link on the site doesn't seem to work.

EDIT : nevermind, looks like they fixed it.

looks like we are the first to have it.

Of course, I've been geeked about this piece of work for the past couple of weeks. I even downloaded at 4:30 am today in anticipation of witnessing greatness (as a note, I didn't get up that early just for this - had to go to work, too) and to be totally blown away. Well, it is cool but to me, it isn't the cat's ass. Maybe it's because the included widgets left me feeling empty, I dunno. As an example, there are two clock widgets included, digital and an analog. Why are either of these better than the clock that sits up in the menubar? I can instantly glance up and see what time it is - with Konfab, I've got to move my windows out of the way to see what time it is. Same with the battery indicator. Same with the Airport indicator. Sure, they're pretty and all but I just don't see what the point is. Proof of concept?

I can see really neat, pretty things being made with Konfab but the included widgets, to me, really didn't make me want to throw my money at Arlo. I did download a network bandwidth widget that sits on top of the window stack (don't know the tech term for this) so it is visible while working on apps. This was very cool and brought me to thinking about what Konfab could do much more than most of the included widgets did. Still don't know if it's worth $25...

I was pleased that with all the included widgets open, the Konfab process really never grabbed over 1.5% processor utilization.

On the Konfab forum I read about thisguy that changed the "What to do" widget to use iCal's ToDo list. Anyone here know how to do this?

I agree with screamingFit that the included widgets are somewhat lame but I really like the Mail widget that can be downloaded from the Gallery. As I keep my dock hidden it is very usefull.

Its pretty easy to mod the .kon files to make them float over everything rather than have them as a normal window.

I use DesktopX at work. If this is like that, it's well worth the cash.

Mike

I think konfabulator seems to have a world of potential for cool things, but the default widgets aren't providing it. I think the XML backend combined with the javascript gives it alot of power, admittedly I need to do some more reading into the SDK, but I wish it supported more media types out of the door.

Example, why can't I make an swf movie a widget drop of a hat? Theoretically, I could import it into livemotion, export the actionscript as javascript, and then at least have a head start, but thats a hassel.

I've also not seen any doucmentation on grabbing xml results from a server, or even if it can parse raw basic html, something that should be pretty simple considering the xml parser. Can it even grab results via php? The stock market and weather scripts are grabbing the data somehow, but I'd rather not have to reverse engineer another widget to figure out how they are doing what. but maybe I'll have to. Again though, these are breif look over opinions, I haven't had the chance to look to deep yet.

Thanks dude I wrote the Mail Check widget.

In about 15 minutes.

This morning (about 3 hours before release).

And that is why Konfabulator is going to rock. If y'all can think of anything missing from the mail widget (or any of my widgets) (or from widgets in general) - let me know - making widgets is no harder than coding a webpage once you get the syntax.

BTW: The included widgets are really fairly clever - give them a chance - they grow on you!

Great work on the Mail widget !!
I's really nice as it is, plain and simple.

Two suggestions : When clicking the check mail button I have to click 1 time to make the widget active and then again to make it check my mail. The iTunes widget accepts a "first click", can this be integrated in the Mail widget?

And another thing that I would like to see changed. When clicking the "open mailbox" button Mail.app opens a new Mailbox window saying "no Mailbox selected"?

Other than that...best widget yet !

Hmmnnn... what version of Mac OS X are you running - I don't have to click twice to get the mail to check - if you can replicate it, send a bug report to support@konfabulator.com.

EDIT: Gulp - no, it is happening to me. I didn't set a layer for the widget to live in, so clicks aren't being passed until you active it...bugger. I'll post a new version now...



You don't have the AppleScript UI Scripting beta installed, do you?

Go get it from: http://www.apple.com/applescript/GUI/ install it, then try again.



Thanks man - it's great to get comments like this - it really makes all that time I spent ... err ... all 15 minutes of it - worthwhile Thanks

I was frustrated by the fact that Picture Frame used the whole Picture folder. I have hundreds of pictures I have to store for archive purposes but never want to look at. So, I edited the code of this widget so it uses just one folder that you can add whatever pictures you want to.

Consult the read me on how to get this to work.

http://www.steevak.com/macnn/picture_frame.sit

P.S. Yes, I know it was a very ugly hack, I know 0 Applescript, java, or XML.

P.P.S. If this altered version needs to be removed, just let me know.

I downloaded Konfab this morning, and yes, I woke up at 6:00AM just for this. Heh. Well. I downloaded the thing and I could not figure out how to open the default widgets ( e.g.: Clock, calendar, etc. ).
I tried everything.. hmm. Maybe I was just too tired

Anyways I decided to browse their gallery and I downloaded that mail widget.
One comment: Heh.

Why would someone need this widget??!?!?!?!? Just right/ctrl click on the mail icon instead? JUst a thought... I think it could be useful for people but not for me. My iBook's max resolution is 1024*768 and normally the big Project Builder windows occupy at least 75% of the screen... I need to save screen space..... I donno, to me Konfab looks like a big expensive gadget for the moment, but don't get me wrong, I do think that some people will release useful widgets in the future. Anyways, if the widgets could be coded using Cocoa and OBJ-C I would actually spend time trying to code one, but it's in XML and JS... not really my thing.. I'll probably read the sdk docs sometime tho.

I give it a score of 8/10 for the moment because it's not too useful for me, but I know it might me useful for other users, and yes, the app is a good idea.

True ! I did not have it installed.

Now I do though and I still have the same issue (yes I did reboot). it works ok when Mail is not running while clicking it but when Mail is hidden it just brings my Mailbox to the front and opens a new empty one.

I noticed the weather app refuses to show the weather for my city (winnipeg, canada). Its a cool widget if you don't live here

The mail widget checks the mail with mail.app closed?

did you try putting in winnipeg, ca? For mine i had to put in uk to get it to work instead of scotland.

BTW does anyone know how to get it to keep the widgets on top?

I put Canterbury, United Kingdom and that worked great for me, but I'm not sure I'm going to us it much.

The widgets are too big, as screen space is at a premium.

I agreee that the Mail widget is one of the best though. I too keep my dock minimised.

I'm also a bit dissapointed that it constantly displays the shareware reminder, even though it's the second time I've run the app. I'd like to use it a bit before I make a decision and that window is annoying!

Adam

neoTony,
What did you write the Mail widget in? Cocoa (I assume)?

Mike

I haven't looked myself but apparently the widgets flotability is determined by a <level> tag.


The widgets are all coded in XML/JavaScript, they aren't really that dificult to write, thats the beauty of the app.

You might want to check out the weather.com site. I had to search for the location nearest to where I live there as well. I tried Oostende because that is the name of the city but it turned out to be "Oostende Airport".

Anyway, Wickedkitten is right. I just tried winnipeg, ca and it works....brrrr..it sure is cold overthere !

Hmmm just noticed, my calender widget has the day incorrect - it is showing Tuesday the 11th at the moment.... anyone else getting this??


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