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Konfabulator, Cool OS X Gear.

T

TigerPRO

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 27, 2003
414
0
Wisconsin
I would like to announce to anyone out there that isn't literate on some of the latest, cool applications for Mac OS X; that there is a little program called "Konfabulator". It's a simple program that runs other "sub-programs". These "sub-programs" are created using only a little Javascript and XML programming; so this is really neat for people who like to be more creative in there current OS X environment.

It's really a unique program, so it's hard to explain what it does. The best thing to do it check out there website, and look at a few of the screenshots there.

http://kmirror.deskmod.com/info/

However, basically was it does is run other little programs called "widgets". They are all free, and as of today, 231 of them available for download. These little "widgets" come in all shape and sizes. Some will show the current weather in your town, other could show you the latest news headlines. There's almost one for every need you could imagine. And the amount of widget released every day is incredible. There have been over 100 added since I got the program in late February.

I have downloaded 100's of them. I can just say there like little floating "mini-apps" on your desktop that tell you all kinds of cool information about anything from your computer, to the closest flying object headed toward earth. You'll love this program.


P.S. This is my evisionment of the future OS X Panther logo. What do you think? I can't wait for the Panther, this is going to be awesome!

osxpanther.png
 
Re: Konfabulator, Cool OS X Gear.

Originally posted by TigerPRO
I would like to announce to anyone out there that isn't literate on some of the latest, cool applications for Mac OS X; that there is a little program called "Konfabulator". It's a simple program that runs other "sub-programs". These "sub-programs" are created using only a little Javascript and XML programming; so this is really neat for people who like to be more creative in there current OS X environment.

It's really a unique program, so it's hard to explain what it does. The best thing to do it check out there website, and look at a few of the screenshots there.

http://kmirror.deskmod.com/info/

However, basically was it does is run other little programs called "widgets". They are all free, and as of today, 231 of them available for download. These little "widgets" come in all shape and sizes. Some will show the current weather in your town, other could show you the latest news headlines. There's almost one for every need you could imagine. And the amount of widget released every day is incredible. There have been over 100 added since I got the program in late February.

I have downloaded 100's of them. I can just say there like little floating "mini-apps" on your desktop that tell you all kinds of cool information about anything from your computer, to the closest flying object headed toward earth. You'll love this program.


P.S. This is my evisionment of the future OS X Panther logo. What do you think? I can't wait for the Panther, this is going to be awesome!

osxpanther.png
Click to expand...

Yes many of us at macrumors acually wanted something like this to have real functional things to come out but soon all they did was make different skins for clock apps.

It was supposto be small and fast. It uses more CPU than many of us invisioned.

They basically created an app, to run other apps. I mean basically we were expecting functional varying apps. What we got was 100 clock apps.
Sure there are some good ones, Weather+ Acually got the right idea! But many are redundent.

BTW, how the hell are you able to run 100 of basically the same widgets at a time, jeeze, you have a Dual 1.42 w/2 GB of memory or something?

MR is generally displeased.
 
Re: Re: Konfabulator, Cool OS X Gear.

Originally posted by MrMacman
Yes many of us at macrumors acually wanted something like this to have real functional things to come out but soon all they did was make different skins for clock apps.

It was supposto be small and fast. It uses more CPU than many of us invisioned.

They basically created an app, to run other apps. I mean basically we were expecting functional varying apps. What we got was 100 clock apps.
Sure there are some good ones, Weather+ Acually got the right idea! But many are redundent.

BTW, how the heck* are you able to run 100 of basically the same widgets at a time, jeeze, you have a Dual 1.42 w/2 GB of memory or something?

MR is generally displeased.
Click to expand...

Please note this is part of my personality, I'm don't mean to be rude at all. I tend to use some sarcastic, glib humor.


First (in jest), I would quickly point out your over exaggeration. There are not 100 clock apps.

Second, I mean what I say, and I say what I mean (You may need my "supposed" dual machine to figure that out). I did NOT say I run all my widgets at the same time. Taking an abeyance from the topic at hand, I would like to point out a very common pitfall many folks these days are falling into. They read between the lines of what people are saying. Because many people aren't honest and blunt anymore. So you are forced to read in between the lines. For example, someone might say "lets go to the in-laws for dinner". And you would say "I have a sore back". Now you don't really mean you have a sore back, and that really didn't answer the question "will you go?", because saying your back is sore doesn't "necessarily" mean you won't go. Anyway, want you really mean is, I don't want to go to the in-laws. But you won't say it that way. I don't talk like that. I say what I mean directly, without lack of bluntness. I DO NOT talk in riddles. Now, back to your question, I don't run all 100 widgets at the same time. All I said is I "downloaded" 100.

But it's interesting you should mention that, because once I did try it for fun. I open them all at the same time. The system responded typical of OS X, rock solid dependability, failling to crash. Of course with any computer or operatin system it ran very slowly, because it had to do a tremendous amount of thinking to do. But it never "choked". Mac OS X lives forever.

I can name many widgets that do more that tell you the time. for example:

eBay Watcher
Calendar
Airport Monitor
Battery Monitor
Countdown Clock
Currency Updates
Disk Space
Dictionary
Flight Tracker
iTunes Controller
CPU Monitor
Memory monitor
iCal ToDo
Timer
IP viewer
Moon Phase
Internet Searching
Network Info
Weather
Uptime
Volume Controller
Web Cam Viewer

To name a few.


So if you have been under the impression that there's not much other that a couple hundred clock out there, you should check back, you might find some really cool stuff. Check it out.

By the way, I don't have a PowerMac, only a 1Ghz iMac. But I love it.
 
It really doesn't matter that widget are resource hogs.
Most of the time the machine is close to idle.
Even when my machine is maxed out, it is still responsive.
It is still early in the life cycle of Konfabulator.
 
When I'm using my computer I run some konfab apps, sometimes because they eat up too much CPU and memory, why?
I have no idea.

Okay so I use sarcasm too, Konfab owns like 30% of my CPU while running like 3 things open. This is a disgrace. 3 small apps shouldn't be that big, ever.
 
your post is pretty misleading (just like konfab itself).

you say 'they are all free' and certainly the 'widgets' are free. but the konfab app is very expensive shareware.

frankly i find the whole thing disgraceful. the developers create an app that does nothing but allow people to write plugins for it. they hype the thing beyond belief. they charge for their app that does nothing and then expect the user (who apid for konfab) to write his own applications to add functionality — and then they expect the user to provide his app for free. this whole thing is a scam. To expect people to pay for an application and then write the core functionality code themselves and distribute that code for free.

even if we ignore that the app is poorly programed useless eyecandy this whole thing is disgraceful. and the amount of hype over this scam has made it all the worse.
 
I agree with AmbitiousLemon. Part of the blame falls on developers who create useless widgets, but an even bigger piece of the pie must be served to the Konfab team for failing to set high standards by releasing top notch widgets of their own. If the makers of Konfab can't come up with something revolutionary what's that tell you?

Dan
 
I think there maybe more widgets.
But they don't get released back to Konfab...

Whats with the "macrumors 6502" "demigod" "newbie" ...?:confused:

Apple has never used a 6502 have they?
Is this where I get spanked for being of topic ;)
 
Originally posted by Flynnstone
I think there maybe more widgets.
But they don't get released back to Konfab...

Whats with the "macrumors 6502" "demigod" "newbie" ...?:confused:

Apple has never used a 6502 have they?
Is this where I get spanked for being of topic ;)
Click to expand...

SPANK!

back on topic...

i tried konfabulator for about 3 days...liked it right away...then i came to the realization that the app does nothing, and with a little explanation for AL, it all came clear that this program is just the creators using other people to make money on something that really doesn't do anything, just has the capabilities of running "widgets"...

ugh...i hate leeches
 
i LOVE konfabulator, but i realize that if i didnt have much RAM and a second monitor it would probably suck... But with my current set up i consider it an absolutely wonderful addition to my mac. I have widgets to monitor the weather, check up on blogs i frequent, get the curent list off versiontracker, monitor my cpu, ram, harddisk and uptime, a one click classic launcher, etc. And then my personal favorite widget is the picture frame, which is just eye candy but still i love it.

Just FYI: with my 18 widgets running i idle with only about 7% cpu usage... It does take a couple hundred mb of RAM though
 
"First (in jest), I would quickly point out your over exaggeration. There are not 100 clock apps.

Second, I mean what I say, and I say what I mean (You may need my "supposed" dual machine to figure that out). I did NOT say I run all my widgets at the same time. Taking an abeyance from the topic at hand, I would like to point out a very common pitfall many folks these days are falling into. They read between the lines of what people are saying. Because many people aren't honest and blunt anymore. So you are forced to read in between the lines. For example, someone might say "lets go to the in-laws for dinner". And you would say "I have a sore back". Now you don't really mean you have a sore back, and that really didn't answer the question "will you go?", because saying your back is sore doesn't "necessarily" mean you won't go. Anyway, want you really mean is, I don't want to go to the in-laws. But you won't say it that way. I don't talk like that. I say what I mean directly, without lack of bluntness. I DO NOT talk in riddles. Now, back to your question, I don't run all 100 widgets at the same time. All I said is I "downloaded" 100."


A verbose reply for, and, I'm reading between the lines here; Don't assume or you make an ass...:rolleyes:
 
Konfabulator

TigerPRO,

I like Konfabulator too (I haven't had a chance to use it but I have checked out the site & widgets). The potential is really good!

Thank-you for sharing your perspective. :)

Darby
 
I checked it out, its quite cool. I use a widget called iTunesy, this displays a downloaded album cover art of currently playing itunes songs and is also a remote control. I've set the pic size to 200 and it seems to exactly line up with the left hand column of macrumors forum pages. So its pretty neat, also I notice whether works with my UK city Bristol which is great.

I won't pay for it though, if it stops working after a while I guess I'll have to stop using it.
 
i was really looking forward to Konfabulator when i first heard about it, but wasn't so excited when i actually got it and saw that most of the widgets were useless.

but i still like it and use a couple of widgets all the time.

hopefully someone will make some really good widgets.:)
 
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