Patent: Organizing Multiple Dashboard Widgets [Archive]

MacRumors

May 3, 2007, 12:23 PM

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

MacNN details (http://www.macnn.com/blogs/?p=290) several patent applications from Apple surrounding their Dashboard technology in Mac OS X.

The patent application surrounds efforts to organize sets of dashboards, much like Apple's upcoming "Spaces" feature in Leopard to organize workspaces. The MacNN blog takes a bit of a leap and suggests that these features will be seen in Leopard, but there is no clear evidence that this is the case.

The first example details methods for organizing widgets by theme: "For example, the user can create and configure one dashboard to contain widgets related to work, and another for widgets related to personal matters." Meanwhile, in another implementation, widget groups are organized by tabbed folders.

Finally, one possibility listed brings back the 3d cube interface that Apple has used for other transitions:

Apple's use of Dashboard widgets extends beyond desktop Mac OS X and has also made an appearance on Apple's iPhone interface, so some of these concepts could be translated to Apple's iPhone. The filing date for these patents, however, was back in February 2006 so they may simply represent unfinished concepts that won't make their way into a shipping product.

Eidorian

May 3, 2007, 12:25 PM

I like the idea of widget categories that you can create. It would probably get me to use more of them a well.

I just hope users have enough RAM for it. :rolleyes:

Chaszmyr

May 3, 2007, 12:25 PM

skoker

May 3, 2007, 12:26 PM

Neato. So this is sorta like Multiple Desktops?

I'll go ahead and report the blooper in the post for ya...

lazyrighteye

May 3, 2007, 12:30 PM

Tabbed widgets could be neat...

Personally, I'd prefer a simple, elegant way to completely turn OFF widgets without being a Unix-head.

twoodcc

May 3, 2007, 12:32 PM

sounds nice. i hope this makes it into Leopard :apple:

Andrew D.

May 3, 2007, 12:32 PM

It seems like the whole dashboard feature is growing exponentially. I hope to see these changes soon, organized widgets for the win!

psychofreak

May 3, 2007, 12:38 PM

Personally, I'd prefer a simple, elegant way to completely turn OFF widgets without being a Unix-head.

Try Onyx (http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html) :)

Clive At Five

May 3, 2007, 12:39 PM

I would love this if I used dashboard. Unfortunately it takes for-fricken-ever to load them on my computer.

Yessir, it's time to replace the ol' 800 MHz G4 iMac...

*looks at bank account*

...nevermind... :(

-Clive

slu

May 3, 2007, 12:41 PM

Eidorian

May 3, 2007, 12:46 PM

Try Onyx (http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html) :)More like Deeper (http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/deeper.html), right?

pgwalsh

May 3, 2007, 12:54 PM

Sounds like a page right out of iGoogle.com I guess this is the desktop version. ;)

BlakTornado

May 3, 2007, 12:55 PM

Widgets need something new, otherwise gadgets will catch up! And we don't want that happening!

DaveTheGrey

May 3, 2007, 01:03 PM

Like Beryl (http://youtube.com/watch?v=2eDI4-IH58s) for Linux...

sweet :D

grappler

May 3, 2007, 01:08 PM

Sounds like a nice feature, but really, a patent? For organizing things into categories? That is way too obvious and simple an idea to be granted a patent.

justflie

May 3, 2007, 01:48 PM

This would be VERY useful on the iphone, should they ever adopt an overlay interface as mac os x has. Currently, each widget shows up as an individual application, but I doubt that will last very long as more widgets get added. Tabbed sets of widgets would be helpful once there are enough widgets in the market to warrant it (given the limited screen real estate).

Maccus Aurelius

May 3, 2007, 01:52 PM

Sounds neat, but I don't really find much value in widgets at all. Anything that I have a widget for, takes only seconds longer to do in the traditional way. I hardly use them and wish there was a easy way to turn them off as well.

I will be checking out this Onyx to reclaim some of my RAM back!

I actually like my widgets. I mainly just use the weather and calendar, though I find the Airport radar to be useful when looking for hotspots (since it also displays which are locked or not) I often use other widgets like unit conversion and the wikipedia shortcut. They're fairly quick and useful, and I don't see any lag in performance because of them.

Fabio_gsilva

May 3, 2007, 01:54 PM

Well, I don't know... but IMHO widgets are suposed to be something very simple, complimentary to the system as a whole... if you star implementing more and more functions, it will get too much complicated to use for most of the people...

My point is that trowing a lot of advanced features in something that was meant to be simple could make it lost it's apeal...

Well, let's waint and see...

scrambledwonder

May 3, 2007, 02:00 PM

Widgets need something new, otherwise gadgets will catch up! And we don't want that happening!

I'm just worried about Microsoft's planned "doodad" feature. Seems pretty advanced to me. . .

scrambledwonder

May 3, 2007, 02:01 PM

A cube interface is so 2005. It's all about those new dodecahedron interfaces.

maxp1

May 3, 2007, 02:05 PM

This needs a patent? I'm all for protecting your inventions when you've come up with something significant, but c'mon.

I guess since everyone is doing it Apple has to also, just to avoid being sued by people who have patented old ideas.

steve_hill4

May 3, 2007, 02:16 PM

I occasionally use dashboard, so see little benefit for myself here. The only way this would help anyone significantly would be to make each spaces desktop have it's own dashboard. Changing the desktop, changes the dashboard, switching dashboards switches desktops.

If you have multiple dashboards within a desktop, it starts to complicate things for the average user. Me, I just see no benefit beyond the above implementation personally.

nagromme

May 3, 2007, 02:24 PM

That's cool, but Dashboard is about simplicity--getting in and out without much thought. I think the all-at-once style we have now supports that well.

If anything, I think it might be nice to be able to hide/minimize all widgets of a certain type--like all Stickies--down to a single "pile" of mini-widgets (still live) at the screen edge. And have them stay minimized permanently until you click the pile to see them. That way it's still one space and you can see all your widgets at once--but you also have room for more with less clutter.

The minimize button could appear next to the close button, and whichever specific one you click would be the one that sits on top of the pile.

So maybe I'd have a mini-pile of all my clocks, with my local clock on top. And a pile of all my Stickies with the most urgent on top.

And the option for power-uses to group NON-like widgets together wouldn't be a bad thing--like all your game widgets grouped manually.

aswitcher

May 3, 2007, 02:56 PM

Floating tabs for different widgets sets done a bit like spaces would work for me. Throw in a massive wattery ripple effect when you switch between them and we have a winner.

MacFly123

May 3, 2007, 03:06 PM

I'm just worried about Microsoft's planned "doodad" feature. Seems pretty advanced to me. . .

I've never heard of those and I can't find anything on them. Do you have a link you can post?

Thanks ;)

P.S. I absolutely love widgets. I think they are so efficient it is almost rediculous. They speed up so many common tasks for me it is incredible.

Peace

May 3, 2007, 03:15 PM

Sounds like Leopard will have a seperate dashboard for each space used eh?

patseguin

May 3, 2007, 03:27 PM

I can hardly care less about any new Dashboard features. As cool as it was when Tiger first came out, it's probably the least used feature on my machine.

Gimme a 3D Finder!

jbernie

May 3, 2007, 04:23 PM

I'd love to see 3D integrated into a UI that was actually more functional than 2D... I don't know how that could be done though. For anyone who has used Vista, I think the advantages of current 2D are obvious. I'm not sure why you would want to organize anything on the surface of a cube...

I hear the Rubiks Cube is back in fashion..... color coded widgets on a cube, 9 per side, then you shuffle them and spend endless hours solving the puzzle.

RRK

May 3, 2007, 04:25 PM

Gimme a 3D Finder!
You gotta admit this is just the latest in a long line of rumors/news concerning 3D elements in the UI.

Hemingray

May 3, 2007, 04:54 PM

I simply don't see the benefit here... It's all eye candy, no functionality. Sure, it may save space in the Dashboard if you have 6 widgets on a cube, but the extra time/effort it takes for the user to show the other "faces" eliminates any possible benefit that I can see...

I must be missing something. :confused:

stainlessliquid

May 3, 2007, 04:57 PM

There simply arent enough useful widgets in the world for this to be at all useful. I hope they arent actually putting resources into developping this.

Maccus Aurelius

May 3, 2007, 05:15 PM

If you ask me, I don't think they're really looking to throw lots of development into a 3D widget space, for the obvious fact that widgets, though nice and fairly useful (the ones I use for myself personally anyway), aren't that big of a deal to beef up their "work"space.

I'd be much more interested in the multiple desktops.

rezatayebi

May 3, 2007, 05:23 PM

this is crap.

none of these things are going to be in leopard

Maccus Aurelius

May 3, 2007, 05:27 PM

Nostradamus predicted the first Apple computer, and Forest Gump was lucky that Lt. Dan invested his Bubba Gump money into it.

Marvy

May 3, 2007, 05:32 PM

Like Beryl (http://youtube.com/watch?v=2eDI4-IH58s) for Linux...

sweet :D

Yeah, was thinking along the same lines. I wonder if all these Leopard delays are due to OS X looking kind of old and clunky in terms of eye-candy compared to Beryl. Apple really has some catching up to do.

sthpark7791

May 3, 2007, 06:30 PM

Eh, like some of you, I think this is just eye-candy without much functionality. But I could see why Apple would want to try to improve them this way as Vista offers the same thing right now (just not as good :D)

FoxyKaye

May 3, 2007, 06:57 PM

The only configuration I want for Dashboard and Widgets is completely, totally and absolutely OFF.

GanleyBurger

May 3, 2007, 07:48 PM

The only configuration I want for Dashboard and Widgets is completely, totally and absolutely OFF.

Right!!! Audio engineer here. I always worry about what is going on in the background on my mac. If I don't need it... shut it off!!! Maximize the memory / graphics. These widgets don't seem to have a completely, totally and absolutely OFF. Am I wrong?

Highland

May 3, 2007, 08:15 PM

Right!!! Audio engineer here. I always worry about what is going on in the background on my mac. If I don't need it... shut it off!!! Maximize the memory / graphics. These widgets don't seem to have a completely, totally and absolutely OFF. Am I wrong?
If you don't have any widgets open and you have a decent(ish) mac, Dashboard won't be taking enough CPU or ram to worry about.
(I'm a very heavy Logic Pro user and have been since the OS 8 days... back then I used to trim and cut my extensions folder etc, but it's really just not needed these days. In my experience, a stock OS X install is perfectly set up for high powered app use.)

Widgets need something new, otherwise gadgets will catch up! And we don't want that happening!
Trust me, there's no way M$ will catch up. The current Vista Sidebar Gadgets are much harder to develop for and have less features. It'll take ages for M$ to even get to the point of where Dashboard widgets are, if ever.

I'm surprised how much widget-hate there is... Widgets helped me remove about 4 things from my Dock. That's a very good thing.

nagromme

May 3, 2007, 08:59 PM

Right!!! Audio engineer here. I always worry about what is going on in the background on my mac. If I don't need it... shut it off!!! Maximize the memory / graphics. These widgets don't seem to have a completely, totally and absolutely OFF. Am I wrong?

Just click the close button on each widget. Done :)

You can drag the Dashboard icon off your dock and forget it.

Check the CPU usage on OS X in Activity Viewer: you'll see Dashboard isn't wasting resources when not in use.

PS, I like widgets a lot. Space saved in the Dock, productivity boosted. I run 25 widgets, including 11 stickies and just one frivolous one.

GanleyBurger

May 3, 2007, 09:17 PM

Great advice above. Yes. I like widgets, too. I downloaded one that shows where the stars are positioned above my house at night. My daughter runs in, turns it on, and we go outside and look for constellations. How cool is that... :)

coffeecty

May 3, 2007, 09:30 PM

nagromme

May 3, 2007, 09:57 PM

Is there a way to say, run ONE widget by itself like an application, without running the unix commands, and then dragging it to your desktop? I want to keep the widget in the backround, and I don't want dashboard eating up RAM.

Give this a shot:
http://amnesty.mesadynamics.com/WidgetBrowser.html

In some cases, you can right-click a widget, choose Show Package Contents, and open the enclosed HTML file in a browser. You can bookmark it and access it that way any time--even the "i" button often works to get to the back side. This is pretty hit or miss, though. Works with Calendar and Clock, not with Calculator or Unit Convertor.

ortuno2k

May 3, 2007, 11:00 PM

I don't care too much for eye candy, as long as stuff is more functional.
I hope this isn't one of those Secret Features.

breath of apple

May 4, 2007, 12:43 AM

I like the Dashboard...it is simple, clean, organized, easy to access and elegant...just like my mac. :apple: I love the idea of Dashboard categorization. I wonder if each of the Spaces in Leopard will have its own dashboard? Like a dashboard for your workspace, a separate dashboard for your personal space, a dashboard for your creative space, (or however you use or label your spaces), with each space's dashboard fully customizable! :)

Peace, we must be on the same wavelength!